West Seattle Crime Watch: Door-locking burglar

| Crime | West Seattle news

Just out of the WSB inbox, from Joshua:

I live in a house with three friends on SW Charlestown St near the 7-11 gas station [map] and am currently out of town on business. I just received a phone call from my roommate saying that someone has broken into our house this evening and stolen a variety of things, mostly small and valuable: digital SLR, small stereo, jewelry, and etc… We are still waiting for the police to arrive and to file an official report, but please let this be notice to other West Seattle residents that this person may choose make this a trend in the area. As far as my roommate could tell, there are no signs of forced entry, even though all the doors were locked when she came home. The intruder *may* have come in through a window and, if so, maybe locked the door behind him/her.

lg December 9, 2009 (12:33 am)

Thanks for the heads’ up. We are Charlestown St people who both work from home and do a lot of walking. We’ll be extra vigilant! Wasn’t this the second break-in around there, like I think there was a forced entry ON Charlestown a month or so ago?

Nancy F, December 9, 2009 (10:54 am)

Meant to mention this in response to the folks who lost laptops in a burglary. There are cable locks available for laptops and other electronic equipment. Staples carries them. Anything that makes it just even a little bit harder to steal something helps.

tincanrocket December 11, 2009 (11:18 am)

I live on Charlestown and work from home. I am keeping a watchful eye out and have a brother on SPD. People who rip off others that work hard and honestly are scum.

That said, Only a fool would attempt to break into my house – I can assure them that it would be the last thing they do. :)

Josh J. December 12, 2009 (9:51 pm)

This is Josh, the original poster of the quote above. Upon further discussion with roommates and considering the length of time the robber must have been in our home, we think our home may have been “staked out.” Totally inconclusive, but two of my roommates remember seeing, over the past few weeks, a car (Cadillac, maybe?) parked outside our house a few times, but never knew whose it was. Our valuables were taken, but everything else was returned to its original state so as to make the house appear as if nothing happened; this would have taken quite a bit of time, so the intruder MUST have known they’d have a decent amount of time inside the house.

It’s really a horrible feeling having your privacy and sense of security ruined by someone merely trying to get some extra cash.

Suzanne December 31, 2009 (4:15 pm)

Josh we think the same intruder that broke into your house may have hit our house too. We live on the 3700 block of 42nd Ave SW near Charlestown. As in your case, our valuables were taken, but the house was returned to it’s original state. In fact, it took us a little while to figure out we had been burglarized. We figured he must not have felt rushed and took his time There was no evidence of a forced entry and items taken from our house were small and valuable and fit inside of a gym bag he took from us.

Sorry, comment time is over.