Came home last night to find a ladder lying beside my house. I walked by first without it registering and then went back and looked again. 8 feet long. Like a painter's ladder. You know what I mean? Looks like a capital letter "A" when open, with a little tray to hold stuff towards the top.
What the heck? What's it doing here? Landscapers doing something? Maybe someone was trimming the pine tree and forgot to put all their equipment back on the truck. Though the pine tree doesn't look trimmed to me...
I asked one of my neighbors. She hadn't noticed anything. I thought maybe I should move it, then changed my mind. Maybe they'll come back for it.
And maybe in the middle of the night they'll climb onto the roof of your shed and break into your house through the bedroom window.
Oh, stop it. That's just stupid.
Stranger things have happened. Remember last October? Someone walked right into your cubicle and took $60 out of your wallet. Which was in your purse. Room full of people, no one saw a thing. You were away from your desk maybe 15 minutes. Economy sucks, people are desperate, turning to theft.
Yeah but, no but...hmm.
There's never a car in your parking spot, most of the drapes are the thermal, black-out kind so you can't see the light on when you're in the room. It might look to anyone casing the place like you're never home.
Awesome. Thanks, italicized little voice. How the hell am I supposed to sleep now?
Just doing my job, ma'am.
Well, it took a while but I did manage to get some sleep. Today I called the people who administer for our owners' association in the hopes that they'd be able to say yes, there is some maintenance being done over here. They checked. There isn't.
So I sit in my cubicle, getting more and more nervous. Really not liking that there's a ladder next to my house. And, feeling a little silly about it, I use vacation time and leave work early to check on things. The whole way home I'm hoping that a) the ladder's not there any more because whoever used it remembered where they left it (and not because they burgled my house) or b) ladder is in exactly the same position as yesterday 'cause whoever used it really has forgotten it.
It was still here. I picked it up and wrestled in into my shed. Locked it in. I'm going to put the word out around the complex about what I found. Unless someone comes to the door asking for it, I guess I'm now the proud owner of an 8' painter's ladder.
Then I checked the whole house to see if anything was missing or out of place (hard to do when you're untidy, I know, but my memory's pretty good), and tested every single window to make sure they were all still locked. Just in case.
4 comments:
That's one of those "trust your gut" situations and I think you called it just right. Better safe than sorry.
I agree. I've seen one too many episodes of "It Takes a Thief." The first thing they do is grab the ladder from the side of the victim's house, so even if it were left by a contractor, some unsavory character could make use of it.
And you could always call the cops and ask them what they think about it. They might know something.
I thought of that, but since nothing seems to be disturbed I didn't want to bother the police. I figure if whoever owns this ladder was up to something legitimate they'll come looking for their equipment. If they weren't, then it serves 'em right that their ladder got taken, and I may have stopped a crime spree before it started.
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