Garbage outside my house: funny. (See last week's entry)
Chasing the crackhead from the alley who's "looking for refundable bottles" in my backyard (about every 6 months): also mildly entertaining.
But getting a call at seven in the morning, saying that my newly installed office door has been kicked in: not funny.
Not even a little bit.
Luckily, it must have been crackheads doing a smash-and-grab: they gave up on seeing a second locked door. In Hochelaga, you don't have master criminals to contend with. They won't spend hours cracking a safe. They will, however, smash your car window if you leave your ipod, or try the door handles just to see if you forgot to beep the door locks shut before going to sleep.
But this morning wasn't the best time to test my sense of humor. You see moving into the new office has been enough of a challenge. My facade guy (story to follow later in the week) ripped off the old siding, only to do a shoddy job of installing plywood underneath. I fired him. But now I have plywood where the facade should be: shoddy, ghetto plywood. I wish some kids would come and tag it! The opening is in two weeks.
And this is not to mention the heating situation. Turns out we didn't have enough capacity to install enough heaters in the place. It's now cold outside, which translates to its now cold inside. We moved the files. And so while the electricians have been installing the additional electrical capacity we've been working in our coats.
Like I said: sense of humor being tested.
But back to the break-in. This time we got away lucky: the guys gave up after breaking just the wooden door frame. But my question for the week is this: considering we're dealing with low level smashers here, what's the best way to make my place just less attractive to break into than the next guy? I've been told that's what helps deter crooks: just being less vulnerable than your neighbors.
And any ideas on alarm system vs. physical protection (eg. bars etc)? Decisions to be made by Friday (hopefully)... so I can solve me facade problem.
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