Quick hint to those of your with pepper spray: watch yourselves indoors. If it’s a stream sprayer, or a foam sprayer, your’e OK. If it’s a big mist sprayer, like bear spray, you’ve just sprayed everybody in the room! including yourself! :eek:
Better also back it up with a small / children’ size aluminium baseball bat.
Or a cheap 12 gauge…
I have a security system which is triggered by opening external doors/windows or breaking their glass - at which point it does the big ‘whoop whoop’ noise and calls the security company.
I figure if anyone’s eager enough to get to my possessions after that, then my best bet would be to remove myself from the premises via the nearest exit door/window and let them take off with whatever they could before the cops rock up. That’s what house insurance is for, people!
In the event that I absolutely had to arm myself against someone, I’d probably reach for the insect-killing surface spray. Say what you like, but I reckon a mouthful/eyeful of toxic chemicals would be an unpleasant experience for an intruder. Actually, pretty much anything in an aerosol container is nasty if it’s aimed at your eyes, but I’d pick poison as an attack weapon, for preference.
My first option would always be to bugger off and let the police (and possibly insurance company, eventually) do their jobs, though. No possessions (certainly not the sort that thieves would want, at any ratet) are worth putting yourself in danger for.
To be brutally honest, the scenario described in the OP ain’t never gonna happen in my current home. The only remote possibility is that one of the building maintenance guys is coming in because there’s a flood or a fire-- and they’d ring the doorbell first.
Locked doors, an alarm, a phone and a decent insurance policy. Fuck that macho bullshit.
Are you expecting an attack by a light brigade? You’ve got enough firepower there to hold off a cavalry division! Going off on a tangent here, but I could never imagine having any firearms in my home. OK, I live in the Netherlands, where I’d have to jump through millions of hoops to even have permission to have firearms in my house, but still. I just don’t see the point of turning my house into an armory (especially with two very curious young boys around).
I’d have to agree with this:
I would rather have my family hide in the attic while the thieves clean out my house, than run the risk of being shot at, or having to shoot someone.
Somehow, this does not surprise me! 
When my crazy neighbours slammed against the door, all the while blowing alarm whistles, because they were thinking that I have a secret laboratory in my appartement, I wedged myself in between the door and the wall to keep it shut. My thought was getting the saber hanging on the wall, because with all the noise I anticipated a gang with baseball bats standing on the other side of the door.
It was quite the surprise to find my neighbours in the hallway in their sleeping gowns. Absolutely surreal. I made a note about it, because you never know whether next time the insanity-bug bites them they might show up with axes.
In no particular order:
We’ve got kids and if you come into my house and threaten our saftey you clearly don’t value your life. That’s cool because I don’t value it either.
Burt Gummer : Guess you broke into the wrong God damn rec room, didn’t ya!
I have an axe next to my bed on a stand. It’s my favorite axe, and I would not like to risk messing it up by wielding it against an intruder, but I suppose if my wife or I were in mortal danger, I would.
Of course this particular axe is a bass guitar.
Sounds kind of like my collection. Though the shotgun is the only one I keep loaded. I do keep a speedloader or loaded handy for the others, but short of a gang trying to invade my house, I shouldn’t need more then the 6 shots of 12 gauge.
Exactly.
In no particular order-
Nice neighborhood
Bolted doors and dowels in the windows
Aluminum baseball bat (lighter than wood, and it’s all about bat speed at that point)
Really, really big dog
But wait, there’s more!
There is, but we’ll leave it at that for now…
Heh. Two killer Papillons.
Seriously, to all those people with arsenals in their home – I used to live alone in a not so nice suburb and frequently had people trying to steal my car or break into my house. I found yelling at them always sent them packing. Maybe I was lucky, but I never had the need for any type of weapon.
Well, years ago when I was at university, sharing a house, during a summer when I had only 1 roomate till Sept, and he was away, this actually happened to me.
It was late at night, I had just turned out all of the lights on the first floor, and gone upstairs to do a little ironing before retiring. In this, it was like any other night.
Then I started to hear noise outside the house, I went out into the hall way and peered out the window down into the neighbours drive expecting to see raccoons in the trash. There was a bay window directly below the window I was holding my face to, trying to see in the dark. I didn’t see anything and went back to what I was doing. It was confusing because it almost sounded like it was upstairs noise and not coming from downstairs as you’d expect it to be. This was an old victorian rambler of a house and I’d already had a close encounter with a bat this same evening so I thought my nerves were just a little jumpy.
Heard more sounds, still couldn’t see anything, went and sat on the top step of the stairs, [immediately below said window], sat very still for a few minutes and just listened. And I heard not a sound. Reassured, I rose to my feet quite confident it was nothing. Took two steps back toward my bedroom and heard a noise that sounded, for all the world, like it was just outside the window. I immediately detoured into my roomies bedroom and called 911.
I seconded guessed myself every inch of the way as I felt like such a girl. In fact I believe my first words were apologetic and along the lines of; 'I know this sounds crazy but it sounds like someone’s trying to break into the second story of my house." I’m not sure why but I couldn’t imagine why anyone would go to the trouble of climbing up to a second story. Once on the phone with the police I was peppered with questions, What did it sound like? Is there anyone else home? Are the lights on downstairs?
They next directed me to go downstairs, don’t turn on any lights and sit tight. And no matter what - to stay in the house until they arrived. My first response was, ‘It’s dark down there.’ But follow their instructions I did. But while peeking through the curtains and awaiting the arrival of the numerous police cars with sirens blaring that I expected, I managed to convince myself that I must have imagined it all. Of course, I couldn’t hear anything any more, I was feeling like a foolish girl alone in a big house scared by her own shadow in the dark of night.
There were no blaring sirens, of course, nor did I see a police car. Instead I saw two police officers slowing sneaking up to the house, very quietly holding flashlights that they didn’t even have turned on! It was all I could do to keep myself from going immediately out the door to apologize for bothering them. I hadn’t heard a sound in 10 mins, I had totally convinced myself it was nothing surely, and was anxious to get the humilating part over where they give the little lady some fatherly reassurance.
Here’s where things take a turn, they disappeared down the side of the house and the next thing I hear some shouting followed by what is unmistakedly the sound of someone running across the roof. In that moment all that composure I had, completely evaporated.
They promptly caught him, hand cuffed him, and put him into their car, which they had cleverly parked around the corner. He was on the roof of the bay window using a knife to cut the screen on the very window I kept trying to see out of, and his pants were undone :eek:
Dragged him off to jail, and called me several weeks later to inform me that he had been convicted and would be off the streets for several years due to previous criminal records.
What would I do? I’d call 911, without a moments hesitation, humilitaion be damned.
{And to everyone in law enforcement let me just say now, what I say whenever I repeat this story, you rock !}
An assortment of box jellyfish… :eek:
You’ll wish I had a shotgun instead.
A katana.
No, seriously, a katana. Shell-chambering chk-chk aside, you’d be amazed at the reaction a three-foot long piece of sharp curved steel gets when held less than an inch from an unwanted intruder’s forehead. Furthermore, any old joe can have a gun, but somebody crazy enough to point a katana at an intruder might just be crazy enough to use it. I make it pretty clear that any attempt to go for a gun, or any other offensive maneuver, will result in immediate removal of head.
I’ve only ever had to brandish it twice. The first time, it was the coked-up guy who lives a couple buildings down from me. He opens, the door, gets surprised when the chain lock catches, gets an eyeful of steel as the tip of my katana says “hi”, stammers out a quick apology, and takes off down the stairs. Whether he was trying to rob me, or was just too messed up to remember where he lived and tried the wrong apartment, I don’t know, but I’ll bet you he won’t be coming back.
The second time…well, let’s just say my dad’s friends, especially the ones I haven’t met, will be a little bit more careful in the future about just waltzing in unannounced 
My landlords. I have a cottage behind the landlord’s house, and I have the nosiest landlords anyone has every had. They have nothing better to do than monitor everything that goes on in the neighborhood, and absolutely nothing gets on our property without them knowing about it. They’ll tell me when a an unfamiliar pigeon lands in the driveway. “Oh, that one’s different!” I had a possum coming by in the middle of the night for awhile and somehow, they knew. “Oh, we saw that possum, don’t want that coming around!” How did they know? They’re apparently asleep by 8 or 9 pm, yet they know everything.
This is the safest place I’ve ever lived. Plus, they’re an old, old Italian family. Here in Monterey that means something. If they call the cops, even for something silly & routine, the cops are here man.
I don’t even lock the doors, and the door is literally wide open during the day even if I’m not at home. This place is safe.
The loaded guns are a Springfield 1911 milspec .45 and a H&K USP .40. They are secured in two different locations. Also have an AR-15 carbine that is stored unloaded, but with several loaded magazines quickly available.
I have an unloaded 9X18 Makarov in the original holster, with a loaded magazine in the holster pouch, on a dresser next to my side of the bed. The wife is not yet comfy with having it loaded, although she is very comfortable with it in general. Maybe 8 seconds from hearing a noise to squeezing one off.
Before I was married I kept on in the chamber, safety on, in the bedframe RIGHT next to where I slept. Less than two seconds from hearing a noise to squeezing one off, if that case needed that type of response. I was on the first floor in Miami.
We also now live on the third floor of an apartment building in a pretty good neighborhood.
Nothing, since the burglar alarm quit 3 or 4 years ago. I figure I’ll just hide behind my wife.
FWIW, I live in Houston, Texas, but I don’t own a gun. I know some think that’s not possible.