The alarm would have gone off, which would be recieved at the local police station. I’d get a call from them asking if I needed help, and I’d say “yes”.
I would also call 911.
I would stay in my bedroom.
I own half a dozen guns (shotguns and rifles), but they are - according to the law here - safely locked down in my gun safe, which naturally can be found in my man cave, not in my bedroom. So, no John Wayne stuff.
The first I’d do would probably be putting on a pair of boxer shorts, because I sleep in the nude and confronting burglars with my family jewels dangling in the breeze is not at the top of my “things I’d like to do” list. Next, I’d call 112 and while having them on the line walk out of the bedroom to ask the dude what the hell he was doing in my house. 99 times out of 100, our burglars are junkies whom even I could probably beat the shit out of if they tried to attack me.
The last time this happened, it was my brother-in-law, who lived about an hour away from me at the time. He came in, the dogs didn’t bark (because they knew him), and he fell asleep on the living room chair.
My brother-in-law is no longer with us, but if this happened again I would assume that it was my nephew. He has also showed up at my house unexpected a couple of times.
The dogs will bark at any intruder. If it is an actual intruder, I would be tempted to grab my British long land pattern musket just because a six foot long weapon with a huge .75 caliber barrel has a certain intimidation factor to it, but I’d probably grab either my Dirty Harry gun (.44 mag revolver) or my M1 Garand. The revolver is technically my home defense weapon but I can probably grab the Garand more quickly.
I live in a safe area. I don’t expect to ever need to grab an actual weapon.
I’d assume it was my daughter. She’s often up late at night. Or my cats. Or maybe my son decided to come over and get something. Or the women with a dangerous neighbor that i told could come over any time, without notice.
If i were actually convinced it was a dangerous intruder? No idea.
Hiding in the attic and calling the police is actually a great idea, but i don’t know if it would have occurred to me. (The attic door is through the bedroom closet and is completely obscured by hanging clothes.)
It’s just me and my wife. If she’s in bed with me I know it’s a bad guy downstairs. It’s a safe town and I wouldn’t expect anything. In the unlikely event of someone breaking in I am armed. Our dog is old and might sleep through the excitement.
Forgot to include:
Our auxiliary alarm system, the Piper Mutt, would likely be barking like crazy and probably attacking the intruder. 75+ lbs of big black dog attacking out of the darkness can be a bit intimidating.
My husband and i were once looking at a Facebook poll that asked what you’d do if you heard a strange man in the house during the day. My husband’s answer was he would introduce himself and offer the man tea, assuming it was one of the gay square dancers i often had over, who had come early, or been confused as to the time. We often didn’t lock the doors when we are home, so this was a totally plausible scenario.
Anecdote: years ago, our across-the-street neighbour was a little old lady, well into her 70s if not 80s, who walked with a cane. She came into her house in the dark after visiting some friends, and realised that someone was trying to break in her back door.
We found out the next day and asked her what she did.
“Well,” she said, “I didn’t turn on the lights because I didn’t want him to be able to see me. I called 911 on my cell that my son makes me carry. Then I hid behind the kitchen door, trying to decide if it would be more effective if I hit the burglar on the head with my cane, or flipped down the ice-pick on the cane and charged him with it. More tea?”
The police arrived before she had to decide on the appropriate tactic.
Well, there’s what I think I’d do and what I really did when this happened.
I didn’t shout, lock the door, call the police. I convinced myself it was the cats and went back to sleep.
What about my dog, you ask? The one that barked up a storm at anyone that walked within 500 feet of our house? Apparently coming through the kitchen window didn’t count. She just went downstairs to make a new friend.
Weird noises in the house at night are probably the cats; especially if the dog’s not barking. And a human might be somebody I know, trying for some reason to take refuge here without waking me up.
However, if I thought it was an unexpected human in the house, I’d grab my phone, grab some clothes, turn on lights and yell “Who’s there?!” If I didn’t get a satisfactory answer, dial 911 on one phone, my neighbor on the other (I have both cell and landline in my bedroom), and shout that they were both on the way and you’d better hope the cops get here first but it would probably be the neighbor.
Rural NY State. Old woman living alone. The only people who have ever snuck into the house at night were people I was more or less expecting who identified themselves when asked.
I’m another unarmed American. And it would be the cats. It’s always the cats.
However, I always get up and venture timidly out of my bedroom, cell phone in hand, when I hear something. If I opened the door and both cats were there and I knew both my spouse and my daughter were out of town (therefore not coming home unexpectedly) and I’d checked to be sure none of the people with keys to my house had texted to say they’d be coming by…
Nope, I’d still go check, because it would almost certainly be something innocuous, and if you get a cop out in this town, it’s far more likely he’ll shoot you and/or the neighbors’ dogs and/or teenagers than repel an intruder. If I knew for sure there was a burglar, I’d stay upstairs and quietly call 911, in case they were inclined to violence. But I’d much rather let someone take my stuff than get anyone killed.
If I genuinely suspected there was an intruder in my home in the middle of the night I’d grab my pistol and investigate. I’ve had one person try to break into my home while I was living in Texas, but it was in broad daylight and when I confronted them they hadn’t opened the sliding glass door and didn’t have a chance to actually get inside. In Little Rock, I was watching television around midnight when someone starting jiggling the knob on the front door. By the time I recovered my pistol they were gone. The neighborhood in Little Rock was a rough place where hearing gunshots wasn’t a daily occurance but was regular enough that we got used to it. Most of my immediate neighbors experienced break ins while they were at work, but one poor lady had someone break in at night while she was home.
Another one whose dogs would be barking madly.
Then with phone in hand ready to send 911 I’d yell down “Hello?”
It could be something innocent. Or a casual thief or a professional one. Both would be disappointed by the poor pickings in our house. Both would vacate on the “Hello?” If they didn’t on the barking.
I am not concerned about someone intending to do harm; only that a confrontation might incite such.
I would try to keep the dogs in our room: I don’t want them hurt. They do look and sound scary when excited though. But they are just desperate for the attention of a new person!
I live in an area where there have been shootings within a few blocks, at a gas station and on the street, and I still have zero worries.
In my experience burglars would prefer you aren’t at home so they could take their time looking for all my nickels and dimes.
Creepers breaking into an occupied house, in my experience, are inclined to violence. I have solid wood doors on the bedrooms but alas they do not lock.
You’ve had the experience?
That’s what I said.
I have an ADT security system. Got it after someone walked into my garage twice while I was home and walk off with stuff. I arm the garage door motion sensor even if I am going into the house for a minute or two. I also have a really loud siren (128 db’s). I set it off a few months ago when I saw someone poking around my travel trailer. I didn’t see it but he ran into my neighbors pickup. When the police found the guy they had to take him to the hospital, he knocked out a tooth and busted open his lip.
We have burglaries in my town, but they almost always happen during the day, when no one is home. Burglars don’t want to confront homeowners. Sometimes people break into cars in driveways and steal whatever was left in them. We had a rash of car thefts in commercial parking lots for a while. And there are often bike thefts.
The only murder in my town in the past many decades was domestic. The husband killed the wife. And she must have been quite the number, because the kids stuck by their father.
So I’ve never worried about creepers.
This is what i was trying to get at above. I’d we actually had burglars at night, I’d probably convince myself it was something harmless and go back to sleep.
I’m pretty lucky to have really great hearing and sight and sleep next to an exit door of my building. Since it’s a heavy security door and I check it each night, I have an easy exit.
I surely wouldn’t want to be like my grandma. She woke to a shadowy figure fingering through her earrings on her bedroom table. She said, “Bob . . . What are you doing?” My grandfather drowsy in bed “What Mary?” The burglar ran off at this suffice it to say
Well, duh. My dogs or cats going bump in the night is a…well, nightly occurrence. A burglary is not, so at first I would assume it is my pets, not a burglar. But, I would investigate (keeping the lights off since I would presumably have the edge over a stranger if we both cannot see well).
I have less than zero interest in bringing a gun into my home, where my children live. But I have considered keeping a wooden baseball bat by the bed for this possibility. Honestly, I haven’t been concerned enough by this risk to do so; I’d imagine a house with two large dogs is not going to be high on any burglar’s list.