Poll: Home invasions and the fear thereof.

[union_maid]

45. We don't worry about it

I don't know of any real home invasions that have occurred in this neighborhood since I've lived here, which is about 40 years. There was one horrible situation, about 25 years ago, where a man down the street shot and killed an intruder in his garage. The intruder turned out to be a friend of his son. Not sure what the kid was doing there, but i don't think the guy would have wanted to shoot him even if he was up to some mishchief. The shooter was or had been a cop. He was well within his legal right to have the gun. The family moved away as soon as they could after that. That was the only home invasion situation I've heard of.

There have been occasional burglaries.Vehicle theft or, more often, vehicle break-ins do happen from time to time, too. All those are pretty much done by local teens. They seem to come in waves when there's a generation of particularly troublesome kids. Everyone seems to know who the culprits are, too. It's just not the kind of neighborhood that people bother coming to for criminal activity. There's stuff here, but no one's really wealthy enough to attract pros. It's not poor enough to suffer the problems associated with poverty, either. And it's suburban so unusual activity is generally noticed by someone. Seriously, there have been home invasions in communities not terribly far away, but they always happen in distinctly more upscale or downscale areas than this one. Also, someone is almost always home. Most usually more than one person. When my adult son is living here - which he is now - his hours and schedule are so variable you could never be sure someone wouldn't be about to walk in. That's well known and probably obvious. Anyway, we've never had guns in the house. We've always had dogs, though. So far, so good.