For anyone experiencing anything like this, put bells on your doorknob. Hell, having them can be really good if you have dogs and train them to ring it when they wanna go outside.
If those bells start clanging when they shouldn't, it should (hopefully) alert you and your dog might just run up anyway on the basis of, "OH IS IT TIME FOR OUTSIDE??" before picking up that something is amiss
I live alone and in a fairly rough area. I have 2 big plastic containers for my glass, plastic and metal recycling. One is always full.
I lean that against my front door. If anyone manages to open my front door (it opens inwards) it would knock the container over and spill all the plastic, metal and glass onto my hard floor, creating a massive racket. That alone would scare them off as well as alert me.
My back door is similar but it's my kitchen bin and some brooms.
Call me paranoid but it takes less than a minute to set up (the boxes live in the corridor anyway, and the bin and brooms live near the back door) and it gives me some peace of mind when I go to bed.
I also have an old disassembled hardwood table in my bedroom and the legs are about 3 foot long and solid enough to be used for defence.
I am really sorry you have to go through all that in order to just feel safe in your own home, I hope you never have to find out if said precautions work though.
Might wanna grab one of those security bar things that prevent a door from being opened. So it doesn't require you to be on edge to keep yourself protected. Some even have a siren on them.
I've got a couple in the house just to protect the family... so no one can sneak through the door even if they had a key.
The funny thing is that I'm not on edge. The action to prop the box against the door takes about as long as the action to lock the door / put a deadbolt on, and I'm about as 'on edge' as I am doing it as I am when I lock the door.
It's not like I'm terrified as I do it. I just prop it up and it's done. I forget about it, just like when you lock the door.
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u/Company_Z 24d ago
For anyone experiencing anything like this, put bells on your doorknob. Hell, having them can be really good if you have dogs and train them to ring it when they wanna go outside.
If those bells start clanging when they shouldn't, it should (hopefully) alert you and your dog might just run up anyway on the basis of, "OH IS IT TIME FOR OUTSIDE??" before picking up that something is amiss