I just got robbed!

[chowmama]

Ok, this isn't exactly national or international. In fact, not that much happened. But it's a pain in the ass.

I came home after a ten-hour day to be confronted on my porch by a woman who claimed to have inherited my house. Everything in it was apparently hers. I was firm but reasonably polite and sent her on her way, instructing her to come back with papers, the police and a lawyer. She was more than a few fries short of a happy meal.

She came back, all right. Within 10 minutes, she'd entered my back yard, broken out a window to the enclosed back porch, had stolen a battery to some tool we had back there and was emptying my chest freezer. To access the window, she must have used a garden spade we had back there (it wasn't where I left it) and climbed up on our garbage bins.

I snatched back all the frozen food but elected not to fight her for the battery. If I ever figure out what tool it belongs to, I'll get another one. Assuming we still have the tool and need the battery. My neighbors heard the yelling and came out to help me evict her - apparently, she's been bothering people in the neighborhood all day. (She also owns the house across the way and a car/truck that belongs to the people two houses south of us. In the world she lives in. There had been a number of reports, I heard later.)

I'd called the cops by that time, and it takes a lot in my neighborhood to motivate me to do that. I live easy walking distance from the George Floyd grocery and memorial intersection. The men who showed up were too late to find her but were entirely professional. They were a little upset that I'd sliced myself on the Glad Ware freezer containers and was bleeding pretty good. I assured them that she hadn't done it and that I didn't need an ambulance. Seriously. half an inch and shallow. Bled like a stuck pig.

Anyway, they went away. DH went to a hardware store for a padlock for the back gate. (The front gate is worthless, as she could just walk onto the porch and hop over a short fence, but it made us feel better.) While there, he saw the woman at a nearby convenience store but didn't think to alert the cops. While I was trying to hammer plywood over the now non-existent window she came back down the alley to ask me if she'd left her EBT card. As DH said - the nerve! She honestly didn't act like she expected us to be the slightest bit upset.

I called 911 again. I also started following her, much to the upset of the 911 operator (and DH). I wasn't about to confront the woman but, in her condition, if I stayed about 3/4 of a block away, she just didn't know I was there. The cop came down our alley and started cross-hatching the area. When they pulled up next to me, I was able to point and say 'That's her". Saw her cuffed and on her way to the car.

We've got at least 24 hours to try to secure the house, but that whole porch is so old that I don't know if we can. I hope A: (best case scenario) that she gets committed and gets some treatment/help or B: that she gets released into the wild in some other neighborhood. She is definitely on track to hurt herself or somebody else.

LSS, don't mess with old people. We don't give up. We will find you.