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Posted by: thepinetree on 06/24/2013 10:39 AM
Updated by: thepinetree on 06/24/2013 02:28 PM
Expires: 01/01/2018 12:00 AM
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A Very Sad Story on a Complete Home Robbery in Valley Springs. ~ By Craig Mullins
Valley Springs, CA...First off I’d like to say I’m a pretty lucky man. I haven’t experienced much loss in my life other then being diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis a couple years ago. I didn’t have health insurance back then, simply because I couldn’t get it. Being self employed and a one man operation with a pre-existing condition. No insurance company wanted to touch me with medication (Enbrel) that cost over $1,000.00 a month. So I had to dig into my savings to pay for it. Once this new Obomacare thing came about, I can at least now get coverage. As it is currently, under one special program in California called PCIP, the insurance company can’t deny you based on a pre existing condition and it’s somewhat affordable at less then $300.00 a month for a male my age (36)....
My friends and family are all healthy and that’s what’s most important in life. Things can be replaced – People can’t.
For my job I do affiliate marketing and search engine optimization for various web sites I own, so my location doesn’t matter for the most part. I was trying to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life and move up to the country for a more simple life. Hoping to get that good feeling in your heart where neighbors care for one another and a mans handshake still means something and is his word.
I have a few friends who live in Valley Springs, CA and found an awesome deal on a 10+ acre foreclosed parcel of land with a house on it. I bought it roughly around 2 years ago. Calaveras County seemed perfect.
I was working on setting up Mullins farms (Facebook) and merge away form the other businesses. Maybe grow some grapes, fruit trees and have a large commercial aquaponics facility where we could sell the vegetables to local stores and farmers market and donate a portion of that to our local food banks – with so many people homeless and without jobs the community needs it.
Now comes fathers day. I went to a couple family events for the fathers day weekend. Had an amazing time. Then I go back to my house and the first thing I notice is a gas can sitting on top of my RV that used to be in a locked box on the back of the vehicle. Upon closer inspection the locks had been chopped off and they took the five other filled five gallon gas cans I had stored inside the box.
Then I turned around and noticed my 8’ x 10’ black utility trailer was gone and the three locks securing it and been chopped off and were lying on the ground next to where the trailer had previously been. Looking just a few feet further one of my locked shed doors was open with the contents missing.
At this point I’m scared and by myself. I can feel the adrenaline pumping thru my blood. I grab my gun from the car and walk around the perimeter of the house looking to see if they got inside or were still inside. I peeked thru each window until I got to the back of the house and found the back door had been busted open. I walked thru each room checking to see if anyone was in there all the time my heart was sinking seeing the empty rooms and the damage they did.
You hear things like this on the news every day. I would always wonder what it feels like to be victimized like that. Now I know. In such a small community like this I will probably see the person who did this to me and walk right by them on a weekly basis. As I feel up my gas tank, is that them filling up next to me? Are they in line with me at the grocery store or sitting next to me in church? When I hear a branch that creaks outside or when I hear the animals stop singing. Are they coming back for more stuff?
So I call the Calaveras sheriff’s office to file a report. The deputy comes by. He really doesn’t ask much. I had to press him to dust for fingerprints. He did three cd’s and one piece of wood off a shelf. Nice… Not sure if he got any good prints or not. I asked him how long it would take to get the prints tested at the department of justice. He said on a case like this probably a year. There is no budget for this anymore and we are down officers.
I asked him about canvassing the neighbors and he said we don’t do that. I should go to the county records office and look up the county records for the addresses of my neighbors and try to contact them that way. In a way I felt victimized again. Ugh…
Not one to sit and do nothing, I went back to Pleasanton where I had “things” and could use a computer. I turned to social media sites like facebook. I joined local groups where they buy and sell things and where neighbors post things suspicious.
I must say the people on those groups have been amazing! They have offered help. Said they would keep an eye on my place, many have offered to donate food, clothes, household items and money. Several people have said they saw the people driving into my place. So I have a few leads their as well. I’ll keep this post updated as we get more details or find the people that did this. That gave me a lil warm fuzzy feeling in my body that we still have great people left in the world that care. Calaveras County has some great people.
I’ll post a list of things later as I can get the list together. Maybe someone has seen them trying to get rid of that item at a garage sale, swap meet, eBay, Craigslist, Facebook or one of the many other ways people buy and sell things.
What else can I say. This jus happened so as I gather my thoughts together maybe I’ll add more. Maybe offer some tips. Please put in tips or other comments you have in the comments section or just say hi! I’d love to hear them.
Keeping your house secure:
Keep all door and windows locked.
Keep your shades closed so they don’t know what you have inside
Put lights on timers and change when they go on and off regulary so they don’t see a pattern
Meet your neighbors and talk to them
Ask friends to check on your place regularly if you’ll be on a trip or vacation
Install an alarm
Set up security cameras so you can see if people are watching your place
Make sure those cameras email you the footage or it gets uploaded to a remote computer so if they break in and steal the camera system, you still have all the footage.
In California you can’t protect your property with deadly force. The only way you can shoot someone is if you feel your life is in immediate jeopardy. Once that stops you no longer have the right to shoot. If they are running away, you can’t shoot.
I have a large parcel so do things like:
Fence off your property
Put up wireless driveway alerts so you know people are on your property
Put up no trespassing signs and signs that say you have dogs
Buy those hunting cameras with nigh vision and hide them places. The batteries last 6 months in some.
Insurance
Make sure your house has “replacement coverage”. If they burn it down and you don’t you might get a lot less for it.
Make sure your property has “replacement coverage”. If the property is older the 5 years in most cases the insurance will not give you a dime for it unless you have that coverage and it’s not included in 90% of the policies, it’s an add on.
Check for policy limits – for example on most policy’s now your only allowed $2,000.00 per type of item, like electronics. So a couple TV’s and you’ve hit your limit. What about the DVD player, the stereo, speakers, computers, CD’s, DVD’s, Software. All coverered on that one category of loss. I specifically asked that when I got my policy and they said I was covered. Now I find out I’m not. That limit was in place and the rep I talked to made a mistake. So now it’s my word against theirs… I had a lot of electronics in my house unfortunatly.
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