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donniet wrote:To answer another question. I had no intention of going out the back door and possibly encountering someone coming around to check out the back. As long as I was inside, I felt I had better odds of countering any attempt to enter my home.

I endorse this position.

It's always a judgment call based on circumstances, but I think you are better off with the cover and opportunities for defending a narrow entrance that a house provides.

What would someone do walking out the back door alone and finding four guys with shotguns? Wyatt Earp would be hard-pressed to get out of that situation unscathed.

It's better to harden the approaches to your house so that someone entering the yard has to climb a fence or break a lock. As for climbing the fence, that can be made difficult and noisy.

- Jim

I should add, with any of these visitors who seem suspicious, you'd feel terrible if you read in the paper the next day that they had robbed or assaulted an elderly or disabled victim a block away.

You should just shoot them.

No, seriously, you should report them to the police.

I've had a few over the years ask to use my phone because their car broke down or something like that. I always tell them to give me the phone number they want to call, and I will relay a message. Not one has ever done that. They either argue with me, or give me a dirty look and leave.

The people who do this are not necessarily the criminal who is going to rob you, especially if they are women. More likely they are performing surveillance to see how many people are in the house, whether they have dogs, are feeble or gullible, etc.

Also many of them are running scams rather than violent crimes.

- Jim

I think he was trying to draw me out from inside.

Yep. Otherwise he was a complete lunatic, which also is a category of person you don't want to pal around with.

I personally have never had 911 dispatchers tell me that I should not have called. They would rather make a note of suspicious behavior and have an officer cruise by in his spare time if possible.

There are stupid, time-wasting 911 calls like squirrels in the attic or cold French fries at Burger King, but weird human activity after dark is definitely in their purview.

The only thing I would add is that electronics have become so inexpensive that there is no excuse for not having cameras and intercoms at the outside doors.

- Jim