Made the Headline!

I forgot one more thing...
The partier-vandals!

See the photos? That is the result of one of the former tenants (unconfirmed, as of yet) who came back to pick up the furniture stored in the garage, have a party in the house, break two windows upstairs (only one window had the glass shattered), leave beer bottles all over and cigarette butts in the garage, and then leave and carefully lock every door up from the outside - with a key...

The event made the headline of the crimes section in the Spruce Grove Examiner.

Grrrrr!

But I have a lot to be grateful for, in actual fact. Some dear friends of the family had their house broken into during the day last week. The burglars trashed everything, dumping out drawers and freezers and the fridge. Ultimately, they only took the few pieces of valuable jewelry that were in the house. But then, inexplicably, they went down into the basement and lit a fire. The fire department said that this is the second worst arson ever seen in Spruce Grove and had the potential to cause a great deal more damage than it did. Thankfully, a passing delivery person saw the smoke and called it in. It will still be 6 to 9 months before they can move back in, and most everything will need to be rebuilt and replaced due to smoke and water damage.

So, in addition to my installing a security system at the Farmhouse, my mother is now doing the same. Bonnie was jumping up over all the furniture near the windows at the rear of the house last week (made quite a mess, too), and it could quite possibly be because these same burglars were casing out the house. The RCMP said that they do their research, and watch the patterns of the home owners carefully. They have even built little shanties in the trees in the Participark trails, with cases of tools and whatnot stashed in them. *shiver*