Mom's been out of town for a month and a half. We've all (me, Marci, Knight and Shannon) been going over, getting the mail, etc. S&K decided to remodel/refresh Mom's kitchen as they have a few extra bucks laying around. As a result, their contractor (Mom's 4th son), Dana, has been going over to do stuff and has replaced the cabinets and countertops.
He went over Sunday to do the floors and when he arrived, he noticed things seemed off. Stuff on the floor in the foyer, cabinets open and dumped. Then he thought he heard noise upstairs. He called Knight, who called me to say that Mom's house had been broken into and robbed.
Marci and I got dressed and, after alerting the cops, headed over. When we got there, we parked down the street. Dana and a police officer were at the bottom of the driveway. Over the next few minutes, 3-4 more Bellevue police showed up. Knight showed up and parked at the top of the street.
One of the cops came over and told us to stay where we were, got permission to go sweep inside to see if anyone was still inside. Eventually, a K-9 unit from Seattle showed up (apparently no K9 in Bellevue?) and went in to sweep the crawl space. After a short time, including searching the neighbor's yard and cul-de-sac around the corner, nothing was found. We were told we could go in, but couldn't touch anything as the fingerprint people were coming to take prints.
At this point, it was like 1pm, so Marci and I headed home to make a few PBJs to bring back. We got them back and ate with Knight, who was waiting there for the print person to finish. She was done shortly after so we went back in to assess things. I did a walkthrough video but Blogger won't let me post it for some reason.
Needless to say, the crook/s made a giant mess. Weirdly, though little damage. They just rummaged through everything. They dumped out cabinets and closet in the front. Dining room and table was already messy due to the kitchen being emptied out from the remodel, but not much seemingly missing there. The Buddha room was a mess, cabinets opened, desk opened and stuff dumped out. Couldn't even walk in there, but much of it was from the kitchen as well.
The crooks got in via the back window in the sunroom. I had left them open for ventilation when I went over the previous Tuesday, but I'm pretty sure I locked the sliding glass door to the house. Shannon had gone over the next Thursday, but I don't know if she went in the sunroom or not. Either way, whether or not I had left the back window open or if Shannon had opened the sliding door, the crooks would've gone in regardless.
The laundry room was messed up and the garage had a couple file cabinets opened. Upstairs, my old bedroom was dumped. The closet was pretty much emptied onto the floor. Knight and DC's old room was messed up, Mom's bedroom was dumped and the master bedroom was also dumped.
Once we assessed everything and got over the shock and anger, we got to organizing a little. Mainly it consisted of putting stuff back in cabinets for the time being. We sorted through garbage and recyclables and made fast work of the foyer and living room. Knight worked on the Buddha room and before long, stuff started looking normal again.
We were unsure of what was taken because we hadn't called Mom yet due to the time difference (she's +16 hours and it was the middle of the night). We didn't see any missing furniture or anything but found lots of empty pouches and jewelry containers. Eventually, we headed home and I had to go to band practice.
After practice I learned that Mom had kept a backpack full of valuables in the Buddha room, within a bookcase cabinet that was tossed. Knight had found the backpack and it was empty. What we found out for mom was that bag had stuff in it that she wanted to give to us. Don't know if it was inheritance or what or how much it was valued at, but that was the main score of the bad guys.
I talked to Mom on Monday night and she was in good enough spirits; don't know if it was denial or a defense mechanism, but she really sounded fine. She actually used the words, "no big deal," and was laughing and just having a normal one. I think she's releived that she's there and we are here to handle it for her. As far as the stolen items are concerned, I'm more mad that Mom and Dad's legacy of working, making money, spending it on things they wanted is pretty much gone with that theft. We were going to inherit some stuff, but we can't lose what we didn't have, so I'm not bummed about that too much.
That said, we have a bunch of stuff to work through with the bank and safety deposit box situation, insurance and culling/throwing out stuff at the house. Updates to follow in the future.
