Intruder stories that happened to YOU!

When I lived in Meriden, CT, somebody broke into our house while we were moving in. We werent currently occupying the place at the time. But we dont got too much valuable stuff, or didnt when they tried breaking in. They cut open some boxes of like VHS tapes taped off TV, and that's about it.

They cut their losses and decided just to go home.

We found out they kicked in the basement door, so we put like 3 locks on it.

The cops eventually came, and told us to get a dog. Sure.......



Overall, I did like Meriden. Besides the one burglary, nobody really bugged us much at all. Nobody really cared what you did as long as you didnt harm anyone else, and I felt more comfortable walking around in the early morning in Meriden than I do in Newington.

When I was a senior in high school a buddy got my Dad to let him in, and tried to 'wake me up' he was suprised by the .357 I kept under my pilow.

Same buddy and I did WW2 renactments together. We were leaving a renactment in the New Orleans park, and going to visit his grandmother.
We wound up in a BAD section of New Orleans, only white faces around, blocked in at a red light.
Buncha 'Brothers' start comming after us... I kept a 6" .357 under my seat at this time... I put it on the dash just after my buddy dived for the back seat and comes up with the Winchester 1897 shotgun (I THINK with the Bayonet attached!)
-They changed their minds... good thing b/c we had no ammo for the shotgun except blanks!

My one instance happened a number of years ago. Lived in a third floor apartment w/ a friend, he worked days, I worked nights...

On one of my days off, I'd been to the range, came home, and saw the front door a little bit open. Not that unusual, roomie occasionally did that for some cross ventilation in the summer. Get inside the door, when that sudden realization hits: "Oh #%@, roomie is at work".

Grab the gun out of the range bag, start clearing the apartment. Sure enough, punk kid is in my bedroom, rifling through my desk (good thing he didn't rifle through the closet, there was a shotgun in there). Point the gun at him and calmly tell him to put his hands up and then not move. He looks at me, looks at the window next to him, and then realizes he's three stories up and I'm blocking the only way out. Call the cops, walk him back out at gunpoint to the living room, sit there until the cops arrive, they cuff him and take him to jail. Turns out he was a 15 year old who lived in the complex, but ended up spending the next 5 years in juvie.....

I love this thread!

This is my first post here. Found this place through an unrelated google search and really like the threads. Lots of valuable information and not too many armchair warriors dreaming about the day they can unload on a Jehovah's witness that "trespasses."

On to my story...

My first job out of college had me living in corporate housing in Tampa, right near the airport. Not really a bad area, and the company touted the "gated complex" and security to make the ladies feel comfortable. The place was partially under construction, and I shared a ground floor 2BR apartment with another guy.

I owned several handguns at the time, all of which were at my parents house >1000 miles away. I was a good company man at the time, and the HR policy was clear that no guns were allowed on company property, and the corporate housing was considered company property.

My roommate was out partying one night, and I had just come back from SCUBA diving so I had some gear on the kitchen table, including my titanium dive knife (a 6" "i plan on wrasslin' sharks" knife rather than something more functional). Anyway, I woke up with that classic feeling that something wasn't right, about 2AM but was still groggy. I assumed my roommate had just come home and whet into the kitchen to grab some water.

The door to the porch was open, and I wondered why he would leave it open. Still thinking something wasn't right, I slowly began to wake up and realized the TV was missing, along with my dive knife and some appliances, and the window (a cheap apartment complex special) had been jimmied open. I woke up my roommate, who had come home around 1:30 and said everything was fine, so I must have just missed the BG(s).

I called the police, and they responded, took a look and then basically got ready to leave. I asked if they were going to take a report or look for fingerprints or anything, and the cop told me they would never catch them and it was a waste of time, and finally took my name and gave me a number to call. Someone from the company showed up, and revealed that the fancy security cameras were "not yet operational" so they had no footage of the BG or anything.

We got a move to a 3rd floor apartment, and the company never compensated us for anything even after some bigwig made a lot of promises. I've since left and now work for myself. Our HR department (mainly me) had a VERY liberal policy about employee's carrying, and in about 2 months I am moving out of the northeast to a state where I can actually exercise that right. I made out fine on the incident other than a few hundred bucks in lost stuff, but I get a little jittery even now wondering how different that experience would have been if I had come out of my room 20 minutes earlier, unarmed, to find a BG holding a 6" knife.

South Austin, 1997

I was sharing a one bedroom apartment with a friend of mine from high school. He was in his second year at UT, I was taking a few classes at the community college.

I was asleep when I heard someone test the handle on the front door (right outside the bedroom). I sat up, and when I heard the door open I got my friend's shotgun from under his bed (pistol-grip Maverick 12 gauge). It seemed a little more appropriate than my Marlin .22 semi-auto rifle.

I went into the main room, pointed the gun in the general area of the intruder (not at him, just towards him) and asked what he was doing.

"Maintenance. Call the office."

"No. You leave, and call me from the office."

Almost ten years later and I'm still waiting for that call.

I don't doubt he worked at the complex, but we hadn't set any appointments for service and the place wasn't famous for preventive maintenance, so I believe he was looking for something to steal.

This is as close as I ever got to an intruder or to shooting someone.

Was surfing the Net about 1 AM, and someone knocked rather forcefully on my sliding glass door. Blinds were closed so I couldn't see who it was, but my first thought was it's the cops and they've got the wrong address on a warrant. So I waited with hands in plain view on the keyboard. Second knock was very tepid so I knew it was not the cops.

I go scurrying into the master bedroom and grab my snubbie Magnum and pouch. Don't know why I grabbed it rather than my Glock that I carry everywhere and almost every day. Anyway, wife is watching TV, but sees something is up so she follows right behind. I check on our son. Sound asleep. No windows broken or anything. Back out to the living room. Stood at the edge behind cover of my computer hutch.

Verbally challenged.

"Who is it?"
"It's Candi." [I don't know any Candi, and I don't recognize the voice.]
"Whaddaya want?"
"I need to use the phone to call a friend of mine." [Again, 1 AM, and we don't know each other.]
"I don't think so."
"Oh, well OK. We're sorry." [We?]

Call 9-1-1. Got County and then switched over to local PD. Operator dispatched officers and then stayed on the phone with me for several minutes. She asked me whether we were in any danger. Pretty good question, and pretty good thing to recheck.

"No, we're fine. Front door's locked. Sliding glass door is locked. Blinds are shut. Living room lights are on. [Illuminated target.] Wife and I are OK. Baby is asleep. He's fine. No windows broken. And I'm armed."

Wife kept going back and checking the baby. She heard voices and saw shadows outside. I told the operator if officers are outside, I'm probably the only one with the lights on inside and I'll come out and talk with them. Got off the phone, peeked out, cops were curbside and appeared to be talking with someone. Gun back in pouch.

I turn on the outside light and step out on the patio. One of the officers comes over to talk with me. Told him what happened and that I called 9-1-1.

He motions back towards the other officers and the woman they appear to be questioning. He's smiles and says, "She's known to us." I smile a knowing smile. I'm thinking drugs or prostitution.

I told the officer "1 AM and someone knocking on my door, I'm thinking they wanna buy drugs and have the wrong address."

He smiled and said "You may not be wrong in thinking that, sir."

I was asleep one day in my 2 bedroom apartment and forgot to lock my door. I woke up to someone opening my bedroom door. I immediatly yelled "What the F**k!" and jumped out of bed. Turns out it was a girl that was drunk and had opened the wrong apartment door thinking it was her own. What I realized from this was: A) always lock your doors and B) my guns where in a case closer to her than they were to me which was a real eyeopener. Im kind of glad I didnt have a firearm close though cause I probably would have shot an innocent college girl. From that day on I always sleep with a firearm close however.

This is an intruder story that happened to a friend of mine, James. He and I are about a year apart in age, but in 1975, when I was probably starting T-ball season, he, his Mom and his little brother were among those evacuated by helicopter off the rooftop of the American Embassy in Saigon.

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My roommate Tony and I took a couple of years off from BSU because we were burnt out on school. We moved up to Seattle to experience the big city life and have fun. We scored on a killer house over looking downtown and Puget Sound on Beacon Hill.

We were waiting tables at a restaurant down by the pier when we befriended a fellow waiter name Shawn. He was pretty cool and needed a place because he had to move. So we invited him to be our roommate and splitting the rent would also help.

However, he gave me the story of bills that he had to pay and couldn't make rent. He seems to be a cool guy down on his luck so I spotted him for about 4 months.

Finally my roommate Tony and I decided that he was going to pay or move out. So one night, Sean had been drinking so I told him about the rent or move out ASAP.

Anyway, after some verbal exchanges, he took a swung at me trying to sucker punch me. I've learned marital arts since I was young, so I automatically blocked his punch and punched him straight in the mouth and knocked out his front tooth. I have the scar on my left knuckle to prove it.

He speed off and we didn't see him that night. Anyway, next night around 7ish, we were home watching TV when we heard the locks on our door unlocking. Comes in Shawn and two other big guys with one of them carrying a sawed off shotgun with a towel wrapping around it for concealment.

After many repeated threats of just "lets just kill them now", we talked them down. We managed to calm them down and convinced them to leave after 3 hours.

After they left, we called the cops.

Never in my life did I felt so "helpless" because we were unarmed. I am determined to never be helpless again. That's when I met you and Joseph. You guys introduced me to a brand new world. Now I feel safe to pack when we camp, hike, bike, etc. because I have an Idaho CPL now.