Neighbors, Alarms

Last December, someone kicked in my door and left with a few items…it seems they wanted to do their Christmas shopping at my place.

Because I don't want to repeat the experience, I've had an alarm installed in my house. It's taking some getting used to, and I've definitely already set it off once by accident. 

One of the things I've realized in this whole process is that a couple of decades ago, people didn't really have home alarms. 

They had neighbors. 

When my house was robbed, I couldn't even tell my neighbors to be on the look out, because we've never really spoke. I've lived here more than two years, and I know the name of ONE neighbor. I think it used to be that neighbors looked out for each other, and they would recognize when there was a suspicious car parked across the street. 

Home alarms are taking the role that our neighbors used to have. We would rely on our neighbors to watch over our house when we were gone, but now we rely on an electronic system. We simply couldn't ask a neighbor to gather our mail or pick up the newspaper, because that would be trusting and inconveniencing a stranger…who lives 25 feet away from me. 

I don't know what the lesson in all this is…it makes me realize that I wish I were more present in my neighborhood. If nothing else, that I could knock on their doors and tell them to be extra careful around the holidays. Maybe that's the challenge to me. Christmas is 33 weeks from today…I'm going to make sure that come December, my neighbors feel like they can trust me more than their alarm system.