This past Sunday morning, at 5:00AM, our front door was broken in. The
guy pried the astragal (the wood strip that covers the gap between a
pair of wooded doors) off of the double doors, and then pried the latch
plate (the non mechanical part of the deadbolt lock) by working some
kind of a device slowly back and forth until all the screws were worked
out. The little bit of noise he made doing that was just enough to alert
our dogs. They didn't do a lot of barking, but were growling enough to
wake Gary up. He went out into the first floor hall just as the guy (@
5'6, early 20's , dark complexion) was opening the door. When he saw
someone was up he took off, too quickly for Gary to remember much else
as far as a description. The police did respond quickly, and then
advised us not to repair anything or disturb the "crime scene" until we
heard from West Dectectives. That Saturday night must have been busy,
as they called and told us to repair the lock without their coming out
to look at it. (not much to see- a lot os splinters, might have been
fingerprints, but...nothing was taken, so...)
We've reinstalled the lock, with some modifications. We've fasted the
astragal with non removable screws. We're glad we paid attention to the
dogs in the middle of the night, and glad that the burglary was
interrupted. We're glad the 114 year-old doors were not irreparably
damaged.
There are lights on our porch, but our door is blocked from view on the
east side by the wall off the old store front. Enough of a screen that
the guy must have felt comfortable working on the door for a period of
time, and just had to worry about looking over one shoulder. There's
usually foot traffic on Baltimore Ave. long after the bars shut down.
Fred Wolfe
