I think I avoided a kick-in robbery today?

Macchina said:

Yeah, I'm comfortable (of course) with carrying concealed when I talk with people on my property but I don't want to live in a world where people brandish guns just because they never met somebody before. That's wild west stuff and honestly would just tell a potential burglar that I may store guns in the cabin.

I met one of my neighbors for the first time a bit back in the same manner as these guys (drove to his house and knocked on their door). He let me in after I introduced myself as his neighbor and I met his wife and we talked for an hour. If he had answered the door with a shotgun we would have a lot different relationship than we do now.

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The way you wrote it in your OP these two didn't just drive up to your cabin and knock on the front door the way a new neighbor would.

A much worse tragedy was averted years ago in very rural, night time Vermont, by simply listening to the "inner voice". This was on tv.

A knock on the door was followed by the visitor describing a car accident, but no sounds had been heard beforehand. The cabin renter was an off-duty NY LEO who displayed the gun on his hip (etc).

The cabin renter had a bad, strange feeling, and when the visitor noticed the gun, he left.

When the LEO found the nerve to finally venture outside, the next morning, he saw that two shallow graves were visible, which he concluded had been quietly dug the night before (or earlier) for himself and his five year-old son.

Call the sheriff and give details.

Expect the house to be ransacked in the future.

They are LOCALS and they will be in the area to monitor inactivity. It's a losing battle without getting the local LEO's involved. Only they will be around to prevent an intrusion while you aren't there.

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There's really nothing you or the Sheriff's Dept can do to prevent your cabin from being broken into, especially if it's vacant. Cameras might help catch whoever does it but really your best recourse is to make sure you don't leave anything valuable inside when you're away.

My buddy's cabin in rural NH was broken into several years ago. Other than the damage to the back door, nothing was taken. Although he suspected some canned food was gone, he couldn't be sure.

As others have said, keeping items of little value seems prudent. While the full-time neighbors are willing to keep an eye on things, the cabin is right off the Appalachian Trail and at the trail head to a popular day hike, so there are a lot of hikers in the area.

If we're having a fire and some beer out front (which is 50% of the reason we go to the cabin) then we'll offer to share with hikers. We've met some good people that way.

Ignition Override said:

When the LEO found the nerve to finally venture outside, the next morning, he saw that two shallow graves were visible, which he concluded had been quietly dug the night before (or earlier) for himself and his five year-old son.

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It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you! That is downright scary. It pays to listen to your gut.

When the LEO found the nerve to finally venture outside, the next morning, he saw that two shallow graves were visible, which he concluded had been quietly dug the night before (or earlier) for himself and his five year-old son.

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Holy crap <shivers>

Ignition Override said:

A much worse tragedy was averted years ago in very rural, night time Vermont, by simply listening to the "inner voice". This was on tv.

A knock on the door was followed by the visitor describing a car accident, but no sounds had been heard beforehand. The cabin renter was an off-duty NY LEO who displayed the gun on his hip (etc).

The cabin renter had a bad, strange feeling, and when the visitor noticed the gun, he left.

When the LEO found the nerve to finally venture outside, the next morning, he saw that two shallow graves were visible, which he concluded had been quietly dug the night before (or earlier) for himself and his five year-old son.

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....sounds like a good scary story to tell around the campfire to the grandkids.

Just wondering why to dig two graves... I think criminals who didn't appreciate a Live have no respect to dead body either..and they're just to lazy..so why a double work??

...sounds like a bad movie plot to me - but then I'm a retired cop and have seen a few strange things myself from time to time. Down here in paradise the warnings come in the form of chicken or goat heads with appropriate amounts of blood and ceremonial feathers as well..... We've actually got every back alley religion (if you can call it that...) from the Caribbean here in south Florida. Wish it weren't so.

aidast said:

Just wondering why to dig two graves... I think criminals who didn't appreciate a Live have no respect to dead body either..and they're just to lazy..so why a double work??

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.......especially when the graves were so obvious and easy to find. Dig a grave miles away to haul the bodies to and hide or leave them lay where they fall as opposed to wasting the time and effort burying them in the yard where they can be found right away. Not something a real life criminal would do......maybe Jason or Chucky tho.

lemaymiami said:

...sounds like a bad movie plot to me.

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....same here, that's why I said the story would make for a good campfire story for my Grandkids.

Maybe I'm just a tad skeptical tho. Sometimes, being skeptical of folk's actions and why they do them is a good thing tho. This is part of being aware and observant. While the OP does not know what the real intent of the person at the door was, he did do several things right to make sure he wasn't taken advantage of. Right or wrong on the person's intent, kudos to him. Better to be safe than sorry. Just the other day I was told my son's 75 year old mother-in-law had been conned outta $500 in one of those "You've just won 1 million dollars in the Zimbabwe lottery" phone scams. Now who does that anymore?

aidast: as for the two shallow graves, I can't remember how far they were from the cabin in VT, or whether the off-duty LEO stated the distance.

That disturbing episode was on tv within the last few years, and I've never heard about such a 'close call'.

If the LEO had not exposed his holstered handgun to the "visitor" to test the stranger's reaction, the visitor might not have immediately left the cabin. Can't remember whether any other details were described. Really scary!

There is no yard work in rural areas. Why drive all day to visit houses often more than a mile apart set in dense woods far off the sightline of the nearest road?

To ransack them and sell the goods for your drug habit.

People looking for yard work do it in suburban neighborhoods. Around here is you aren't hauling a zero turn mower on a trailer you will be treated as if you are just casing the property. You certainly don't spend money on gas chasing down remote cabins just to rake the leaves.

A much worse tragedy was averted years ago in very rural, night time Vermont, by simply listening to the "inner voice". This was on tv.

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Sounds like a scenario covered in one of the training videos Rob Pincus and the PDN put out a couple of years ago, except that the man was a jeweler or something.. and no mention of graves. It was paired with a story of a couple of professors who got murdered in their home and story of a teenager home alone.

Hate to tell you OP but being an absentee landowner means you're the target and more than likely it's one of the local's kids.

I stopped what I believe was a random B&E attempt.

Two twenty somethings park a car just before my yard on the edge of the dirt road and climb a 3' ditch, I heard the car stop and witnessed them coming through the woods so I armed myself and quietly slipped onto my front deck.

I was standing there with my arms crossed(concealing the gun) and when they came out of the woods into my yard, I asked loudly can I help you. The look on the Dudes face was priceless and he immediately spun around sprinting past the girl back through the woods, she was a bit slow to react but when she saw him she took of running also, they both took a header down the ditch climbed into the car and roared away.

I was working part time then and it was only by fluke that I was still home at the time, ever since then I make it a habit to sit out on the front deck(weather permitting) to smoke my pipe and be seen during the day.

My cousin lives 1/2 mile down the road and both him and his wife work, they've been hit twice because his house is back off the road and can't be seen.

Tirod said:

There is no yard work in rural areas. Why drive all day to visit houses often more than a mile apart set in dense woods far off the sightline of the nearest road?

To ransack them and sell the goods for your drug habit.

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Where my son's cabin is an area where there are 40-80 acre pieces of recreational(hunting) property interspersed among larger farm acreage. The area is heavily forested bluff and coulee terrain within the Driftless Area. Even in the open, line of sight is short. Most all of these smaller properties have some sort of cabin on them, ranging from a old travel trailer, to a "cabin" nicer than many folk's primary residence. While beautiful hunting country, as farmland, it is only marginal. While the soil is rich, the steep hillsides and lack of flat ground makes modern tillage techniques difficult. Economically the area is fairly depressed, and locals and local businesses depend on tourism, hunters during season and "weekenders" as they call us, for much their income. Many of the so called "weekenders" do not like to come on Friday night and leave on Sunday afternoon having to mow the yard, and pickup the lawn. They like to pull in to a freshly mowed yard and relax around the fire pit, doing fun things. Thus they depend on the locals to do the mowing, trimming and brush pick up. Many of these local look like locals....especially when they are in their work clothes. They drive old beat up vehicles. They look shady, but are just trying to make ends meet. My son, because he owns a big commercial Zero Turn, actually does a few of his neighbors yards for the privilege of hunting their property. He looks a tad shady too......

I don't know what the scenario is for the OP. I do know he took some proper precautions and learned a lot from his experience. Just like him, none of us really know the intentions of his visitor, especially those of us with only the little bit of info we have gleaned from our computer monitor. Not all thieves dress in shabby clothes and drive old beat up cars. Last time my son had stuff stolen it was when the local Phone company was burying new cable and they hired an out-of-town contractor to do the cable laying and hook-ups. Him and several other cabins in the area were hit on Friday(the day the laborers went back home, 120 miles away). The local sheriff suspected the cabins were cased while the work was being done and those that were vacant were targeted to be hit so the loot was gone and out of the area by the time the weekenders came and the thefts were discovered. The employees of the cable company were questioned on the following Monday, but of course there was no loot in the motel room where they were staying. Sheriff told us the same company had previous complaints from other towns where it had done work. That was when my son put up and disguised the trail cameras on the house and outbuildings and installed the web-cam doorbell. For the previous 8 years, he never had a problem with losing anything to the locals, even tho one can count the cars that go down his road in a day on their hands.

If one has property that is vacant more than it is occupied, one needs to do something to protect it. The value of what is left there is moot as long as one has insurance, unless it is irreplaceable. In that case it should not be left there because of fire or Mother Nature either. My son has an elderly lady that lives over the hill from his cabin. She keeps an eye on the house and the livestock when he and his family are not there. One cannot drive in his driveway without her walking down the road to check it out. The same cable layers were in her yard that week, so she had no reason(or so she thought) to keep an eye on them, when she saw their truck in my son's driveway that Friday.