Home invasion: Little things had been going missing from the house. Certainly we had been broken into at least once. Figured it was kids in the area.
One night I got up to use the bathroom, pottered around the kitchen. Suddenly got a rush of heat from toe to head. Something was not right. I kind of calmed myself down. I checked my daughters bedroom. She’d locked her door from the inside. Tried to calm down. These break-ins had put us on edge.
Back in my room now, I saw my bedroom door handle slowly turning. I jumped up and held onto it. A voice said “Mummy, let me in”. I opened the door. No it was not my daughter but a thief. We wrestled, I was wearing a long tee shirt but no underwear, trying to wrestle without exposing myself, I realised the guy was not very strong. I started talking to him, he seemed to calm down, I told him he should come back another time … quite a bizarre exchange, anyway, trying to keep it together. Suddenly he lunged at me and bit me on the breast, I screamed out, I opened my bedroom door that led to outside and told him to fuck off just as my daughter stormed through the other bedroom door with a kitchen knife. He was gone. My daughter wanted to chase after him but I actually held her back. He was never caught but we were not broken into again. I got a dog. I didn’t sleep at night for around a year after that. I would sleep when I came home from work, then stay awake until dawn broke, then get another couple hours in.
Work place: Working in a restaurant. Two gun men started holding up the guests. Everyone froze - I jumped over the railing and hid in the bushes, managed to get the numberplate of the getaway car. It was stolen as far as I know the thieves were never caught.
I voted “No”, but then I read chiroptera’s first anecdote, and remembered something similar happened to a coworker of mine: she was sleeping in her first-floor bedroom when a guy climbed in the window and got into bed next to her. She woke to find his face about an inch from hers, finger to his lips, saying, “Shhh!” She jumped up screaming bloody murder and ran into the living room and got her boyfriend who was watching TV. The intruder ran off, but was eventually caught - it might have even been later night.
I’m not entirely sure this “counts”, though - it’s likely that he intended violence, but if I recall correctly, his defense claimed he was mentally unstable (shocking, I know) and just wanted to sleep with women. Literally sleep. And he retreated as soon as she screamed. But he was *not *trying to avoid entering when she was home - that was the whole point.
Regardless, having read this thread, I feel very lucky that this is the only incident I personally know of.
One. My cousin, her husband, their dinner guests and their very small children were tied up at gunpoint and some of the adults were stabbed, though not fatally.
However, she’s white and lives in Zimbabwe, so it’s not gonna make me fear for my own life.
I’ve been burgled, assaulted, raped, sexually-assaulted, pick-pocketed, had an acquaintance steal my phone while I was home, all sorts of things, but I’m not going to assign the term home invasion to any of them.
Burglary certainly can feel very invasive, but, given the choice, would you rather someone steal your stuff while you weren’t there, or them steal your stuff and bind and assault you in your home? I mean, they’re just not equal crimes in either their intent or their repercussions.
We may need a follow-up poll, because, as much as he tried, Skald the Rhymer, left out a critical distinction. “Neither I nor anyone I know has suffered such an invasion” is an over-statement. The most absolute statement which could be make is “I have not suffered such an invasion, and I do not recall anyone having shared their experience of such an invasion with me.”
The follow up poll might be something like “For those who have suffered a home invasion, about what percentage of your friends/acquaintances have you shared the story with?” Together we may be able to get a sense of the weight we should give this particular data point. But either data point alone is only part of the picture.
Because a home invasion is a traumatic event it’s probably not something a typical person would bring up in every conversation. I can imagine knowing someone “fairly well” and still not knowing this detail of their life. So when I report that “neither I nor anyone I know” has been a victim of such, that’s actually overstating the case. I have no idea if “anyone I know” has been a victim of such, merely that I don’t recall them ever saying anything about it to me.
At the same time, if it happens to someone you barely know, or someone you’ve lost touch with, or to a FOAF, like with some of the examples in this thread, you really remember it.
As an adult a childhood friend was killed by someone who broke in, but I still think guns for home protection are not nearly as effective as two or three dogs.
My grandparents were both beat up and robbed in their house. My grandmother never really recovered…it was a pretty vicious beating. The police suspected my uncle (you know, Hispanics would beat up their own parents to get drug money or something), even though they had no evidence it was him. Eventually they stopped trying to get him to admit it was him, and actually investigated the crime. It was a local kid who basically thought robbing old people would be a good way to get quick cash.
I have a friend who had their house invaded while they were there, but in this case I think the robbers didn’t know anyone was there, because when my friend shouted they ran off. Another friend of mine pulled a gun on a home invader and held them at gun point until the cops arrived.
Lots of workplace or in-public armed robberies, but only three home invasions.
Lady on the next block, not my best friend, but we chat when we see each other outside. She was asleep in bed one morning, wakes up to find a guy rifling through her chest of drawers. He jumps on her, punches her in the face a couple times, and attempts to sexually assault her. She struggles and makes a racket, he runs off with some of her underwear. Cops catch him a few days later thanks to neighbor’s security camera. Turns out he had waited in his car outside until her husband left for work. He was also involved in at least two other burglaries that did not involve violence, but did involve underwear.
A friend, who lived in a crappy apartment in grad school. Awakened one night by the sound of a brake rotor crashing through the window and embedding itself in the wall. Brandishing a pistol, he confronts a big strong guy in the living room. Big guy drops the laptop and runs. He is later arrested, turns out to be a local highschool football douchebag who had been doing these for a while. Friend is convinced that without a gun, the student athlete would have kicked the crap out of him. The brake rotor would definitely have struck him in the head if he had been sleeping on the couch, as per his norm on weekends.
Retired family friends were minding their own business one afternoon, when a guy who had just committed an armed robbery kicked in their door. The memory is a little vague, but he ran through the house waving a gun, grabbed the car keys, beat the lady of the house and then shot and killed the 90+ grandfather who came to her aid, before stealing the car. Later arrested, career criminal.
I was in a bar in college with some of my fellow rugby players when the bartender came running up and said “My wife just called and someone is trying to break into our house!”.
We piled into his car and flew the 12 or so blocks, but they must have heard us coming because we found fresh pry marks in the back door jamb where someone had been levering a large screwdriver or pry bar but no invaders.
The police got there about 10 minutes behind us and combed the neighborhood but found no one.
Then start one. But I doubt you’ll be able to compose a poll that covers every possible option and yet is short enough to keep people’s attention. Remember what’s-his-name, the young kid, who sometimes started polls with 25 or more options? (Hell, I’m sure I’ve gone overboard on poll options myself.)