SCARY!!

So, last night just might have been the worse night of my life. There may have been worse nights, but I can’t think of any right now. Everybody knows I am a huge scaredy-cat and am really afraid of being home alone at night. I don’t mind it at certain places (where I feel safe) but I definitely mind it at our new apartment. It is in Suitland, Maryland which apparently is a very bad area. We live on the far edge of town so it doesn’t look too bad, thus I was fooled into thinking it was safe to live there. But most of my co-workers can’t believe we moved there since it has a pretty bad reputation. Brandon is in Norway this week so I am home alone for 4 whole nights in the creepy new apartment. The windows are pretty old and I can hear the tiniest noises outside, including the cars that drive by all night long blaring their gangster rap music.

Anyways, we’re also on the ground level and there’s a large sliding glass door in the back of the apartment which faces an empty parking lot and a forest area. This door terrifies me because I think it would be so easy for somebody to break in through it. Before he left, I asked Brandon to move some furniture in front of the door but he forgot, so I had to push the large bookcase and dining room hutch in front of it myself. Then, I pushed the couch in front of those. I know this wouldn’t stop somebody from coming in, but at least I would hear them and have time to jump out the window and run to my car. I have been taking other safety precautions including leaving every light in the house on all night, locking myself and the cats in the bedroom, and sleeping with my cell phone and keys on the nightstand (just in case I have to escape out the window).

Well, last night at 2:59 a.m. I was woken up from a deep sleep by this loud banging that I could tell was coming from the outside door of the apartment building (which is about 3 feet from my bedroom window). It sounded like somebody was hitting the doorknob with a crowbar. I freaked out, my heart started racing and I bolted up, grabbed my cell phone, and called 911. I told them somebody had just broken into my apartment building and she asked me what my address was and if I could see anything so I looked out the window and saw a few guys standing around wearing police vests over their clothes. I was a little relieved but there were no police cars anywhere and I still had no idea what was going on so I was still pretty scared. The 911 operator told me that there were officers at my building responding to an “emergency” and that they had needed to gain access to the building. She wouldn’t tell me what they were doing there so I asked her if it was safe there or if I should leave. She told me to just stay in my apartment with the door locked. Great… that doesn’t make me feel safer.

I kept peeking out my blinds watching for anything to tell me if I was finally safe. All I could see was a big black van with a few guys in police vests standing around it and I could hear people moving around upstairs. About 10 minutes later, an actual police car drove through the complex and circled around every few minutes. Then, like a half hour later, I saw 10 or 12 police cars and vans pull out from behind a water tower across the street and drive off in the other direction. Creepy!!! Like they had the place staked out!! A few more police cars showed up and parked in front and I finally began to relax a little. Police officers kept walking in and out of the building for the next couple of hours. I couldn’t sleep so I just kept praying and peeking out my blinds. I stayed awake until about 5:30 or 6:00 and then finally dozed off. When I woke up again at 7:00 the police were all gone.

I called the police department this morning and they told me that the police were serving a warrant but they were very vague and wouldn’t give me much information. Everybody that I’ve told so far said it sounds like a drug bust but that the dealers probably weren’t home so they just searched the place. Great, so we live in the same building as a drug dealer or maybe worse. The scariest part was all the police cars that were across the street watching the place, like they were expecting something bad to happen. So… we just moved into our new apartment and I already want to move out. I officially hate living there and now I’ve even scared of our neighbors. Luckily, my friend Jessica was nice enough to offer to let me stay with her until Brandon comes home. So I won't be murdered tonight after all.