I have a detached garage with alley access. It was sitting on a window sill next to the driver’s side door. I threw it away (possibly a mistake in hindsight).
What the hell should I do exactly (if anything)?
Some potentially relevant facts:
I just returned from being away for a week and didn’t notice it there before.
I live in a college town, but haven’t noticed any rowdy behavior on my street. Teenagers do walk through my alley every once in a while.
On the other side of the alley is an elementary school.
The guy we bought our house from has a son who’s somewhat mentally weird (if I may use a technical term). He came by the house once when I wasn’t home and told my wife he wanted to tell her something. She told him to come back later when I was home. He hasn’t been back (or has he?). I think he used the garage as some sort of workshop (and masturbatorium?).
I’m not terribly freaked out or anything, I’m just wondering what other people would do. Thanks.
There’s always Craig’s list when it’s not good enough for Ebay. Or perhaps Angie’s list (for the wannabe mommy who doesn’t wanna deal with a baby daddy)?
Oh, I think this situation calls for at least a LITTLE bit of freaking out. Along with going “ew ew ew” for a few minutes while searching for brain bleach.
I don’t mind handling condoms when it’s appropriate. I didn’t even mind handling used condoms, if they were used by my boyfriend or husband. I mean, that’s part of having sex, sometimes. I DO mind, very much, handling used condoms when I don’t know who was using them.
And I would be totally creeped out at the thought that someone had used my property for an assignation.
Yeah, I don’t keep it locked (don’t have a key to the lock). I will definitely change the lock asap (and make triple goddamn sure my car is locked at all times).
Would anyone put up a surveillance camera?
Would anyone tell the school anything? That sounds rather premature at this point, but thought I would throw it out there.
I’d put up a couple of security cameras, one at the entrance (or one at each entrance) and one inside the place. I don’t think I’d tell the school anything, yet. I might tell the cops, to let them know there’s a potential problem. I wouldn’t expect them to be able to do anything about it this time, but you need to document everything.
I think I’d just change (and use!) the locks until and unless I had some reason to go beyond that. As of right now, it just sounds like someone took advantage of an opportunity because a door was unlocked.
Of course, if you have the disposable income to set up a security system, by all means, go for it. You might even catch some things you wouldn’t expect to catch. But for now, hopefully, having a lock in use will be enough discouragement for would-be opportunists.
I’d a: be grossed out. And, b: would change the locks. Also I’d make real sure nothing was taken and would be extra-observant for a while.
Other than that…nah. Since it could be anyone (including the previous owner’s son) who used your garage, notifying the school wouldn’t really accomplish anything. Chances are it was a one-off thing (har, har) but if I suspected someone was lurking around, only then would I put up a camera. Maybe.
Actually, me, I might let the dogs have access to the garage. In a past house I had a detatched garage on an alley. The dogs had a doggie-door into the back part of the house, the yard, and access to the door from the yard into the garage. I had a large and scary-looking, although extremely friendly, Rottweiler and a rather cranky GSD mix at the time. One day I came home to find the overhead garage door closed on top of my mountain bike. I imagine what happened was some miscreant was going down the alley trying garage doors; mine wasn’t locked. Person opens door, spots the mountain bike, and starts to wheel it out. At this point, the dogs enter the garage and scare the everloving piss out of the person, who drops the bike in a panic and pulls the garage door closed on top of it.
We looked for droplets of blood because I was sort of hoping the cranky GSD mix might have achieved her life-long goal of actually biting someone, but sadly no blood.
(I’m assuming you found it INSIDE the garage - in the context of your description, that would make sense.)
I’m not 100 percent sure how to put this without sounding indelicate, but I’ll take a stab at it. Was the condom “fresh” or dried up? Birds use the darnedest things to build their nests with (even used condoms); I once found half a $20 bill in a bird’s nest. If you’ve got even the smallest hole anywhere in the garage, a bird could very well have deposited the thing in there. I wouldn’t give you gambler’s odds that this was actually the case, but it could have happened.
If I found a used condom in my garage when I wasn’t in the habit of locking the doors, I’d blame myself for allowing the opportunity and start locking them. Our garage doors are always locked (well, the one facing the house isn’t right now, because I was doing stuff in the yard and going in and out). I don’t understand not locking garage doors - we keep A LOT of nice, expensive stuff in there (all of our tools, our cars, bikes, tires, etc.). Of course, there are a lot of people in the world who have garages who don’t use them for cars - I don’t get that, either.
WE go about our business, but others are watching our every move. People know when you are gone. Regardless of what you have in the garage, lock it up better and increase the degree of difficulty to enter. Decrease the visibility from outside to zero. You could install wireless security to make you aware of entry attempts while you are in the house.
I wouldn’t do any of that shit. If I’d previously left the doors unlocked, I’d change the locks, start locking the doors, and be done with it. If started finding things after that, then I’d raise an eyebrow.
