I Was Burglarized Yesterday

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I had gone to the Paso house on Tuesday night and worked there until about 9 trying to spiff up the living room, family room, and kitchen because we were supposed to meet someone there today to collect a deposit on a rental. He had to cancel because of having to work a double shift. Meanwhile, I had a meeting tonight and afterwards I went over to that house because I needed to get some books I was storing there to fill an order. I think I've mentioned in the past that I store a lot of my book inventory there. When I opened the front door, I first thought there might have been an earthquake in that part of town I hadn't heard about, but on a closer look, I saw that the pictures on the floor had been taken out of their frames. In the kitchen, all the cupboards and drawers were open. So were the refrigerator and freezer doors on the side-by-side and the package of ice cream had been opened and left on the kitchen floor, along with other stuff that they had shoveled onto the floor. They didn't want it, but they wanted to make sure all the food would spoil. They only took the 2-pound jar of my favorite chocolate, which hadn't been opened yet. There was also a peanut can in the kitchen -- a large one I'd eaten most of. They took about a cup of peanuts and scattered them all over the carpet in the family room. They had opened every drawer and cabinet in the dining room, but at least they didn't throw the China and serving dishes around and break them. They left the kitchen pretty intact, too. I don't even want to talk about the bedrooms and office where I store books. They pretty much overturned every drawer in the master bedroom and dumped the contents on the floor. They also dumped the contents of about half my boxes of books and photos on the floor. The police couldn't even get in there, so they gave me permission to put some of the photos and slides scattered on the floor back in their boxes and to move the empty drawers and contents out of the way to clear a path. Fortunately, after not finding any valuables or drugs, they must have decided all the boxes contained clothes or books or paper stuff that was uninteresting to them, so they didn't bother with the clothes closet. We were fortunate that they didn't find the only things in the house that might have been valuable if they had understood their value. They did get at the two computers and mess them up. They dismantled the laptop and threw the tower and desktop monitor on the floor in the office. They were both obsolete Windows XP models about six years old. I suspect they took the hard drives, so I'd better call my banks and credit card companies tomorrow. They threw the keyboard and other peripherals around the room. It will be quite a job cleaning all this up, but I've needed to sort through it all anyway. This just puts the pressure on to do it now. I have no idea what, if anything, besides my hard drives, a music box collection, and some custom jewelry, I might have lost. Except for one hard drive with important data, nothing they took means much to me. It could have been much worse. I could have walked in on them and gotten hurt. I was spared that. Have any of you been robbed or burglarized? How did it affect you? I feel violated, but not as much as if they'd torn up my photo albums and destroyed my memories of loved ones who have passed on. Since I don't really live there, my personal space was not as violated as if they'd broken into where I live. I've actually been wondering if I'd be hit, since there have been burglaries in our city frequently these past few months. I have to get the door they broke down fixed, and the police say I need to get a timer for lights. They also suggest I get a neighbor to park a car in my driveway.