It was a normal Wednesday night or at least I thought it was. I’d gone to school, came home and was now enjoying hanging around the house, relaxing. I had just finished my homework and wanted to take a break and lie down. My father and I were relaxing downstairs on the big soft couch in the basement, eating and watching some T.V. All of the sudden I heard the doorbell ring. It was around nine at night, so we figured if we didn’t answer it then the person would leave.

“Who is it?” I asked my dad.
My dad went upstairs to see who it was, but the person was unfamiliar.
“No idea. I don’t want them to see anyone is home, so hopefully they will leave,” my dad said to me.
The people rang the doorbell multiple times. My dad and I acted as if no one was home.
I started to panic. The nonstop ringing was freaking me out! We continued lying on the couch, trying to avoid any interactions with the strangers, especially at this time of the night. My dad went to lock the garage door like we did every night.
That is when it began. Out of nowhere, loud banging started.

“Dad,” I yelled. “They are kicking the door.”

My dad looked at me with a blank stare. “What do we do?”, he asked. “Come upstairs with me and help me out.”

I responded with an “Ok, let’s go.” We both ran upstairs with caution, trying to figure out what was going on.
The strangers banged open the door an inch or two, but my dad and I immediately reacted by pushing it back to close it.
I could feel the pulse on the side of my neck, and my heart felt like it was about to jump out my chest. My dad and I were both scared and confused. It was late at night and pitch black outside; for whatever reason, someone was at our door. At the time, we didn’t know what they were doing. We thought they just wanted us to open the door and were trying to grab our attention by making louder noises than before. That is why we did not call the police at that moment.
“Did they have a weapon”? I asked my dad.
“I don’t think I want to know that. This whole situation could get worse.”
“Are we going to get hurt?”
My dad and I ran to the door to try to close it to keep them out. As soon as they saw us coming to close the door, they took off, one of them said, “Oh S***”. Evidently they had thought no one was home. The robbers ran as soon as they saw us pushing the door back up after them. Both of them had hoods. We couldn’t see a face or identify, them and we didn’t bother chasing them because we weren't sure if they had a weapon. They left footprints on my lawn, but those didn’t last long because they ran in the streets which did not have snow at the time. We wanted to be safe, and who would have thought a safe neighborhood like Arlington Heights would ever experience something like this? Immediately as they ran, my dad told me to grab the phone.
“Grab the phone and call 911,” my dad said, trying to catch his breath.

“Here, take it,” I said. I didn’t want to talk to the police myself so I gave my dad the phone.

“Someone just attempted to break into our home,” my dad told the police officer. My dad gave them the address and hung up the phone.
Within the next few minutes two cop cars had arrived. My father and I did not touch anything, hoping that the police would be able to find some sort of evidence. We were hoping they could get fingerprints of either of the two suspects. However, it was snowing and very cold.

“Unfortunately we aren’t able to get any fingerprints due to the cold weather,” said the detective. “We will keep trying, but chances are there will be no luck.”
After a couple of minutes, one of the police officers called a detective officer to see if he could figure anything out. He took a couple of photos and inspected the door hinges to see if he could find any fingerprints. Unfortunately, after about twenty minutes of investigating, they were unable to find any evidence that would lead them to the suspects.
The main thing that worried us was that since these people were not caught, would they make an attempt of breaking in while no one was home?
When the police left, my dad went into the garage to grab some 2x4's to secure the front door. The door hinges were broken due to the robbers kicking the door open. It was a mess. A few parts of the wall around the door had chipped off, and it was dusty from the drywall. With the 2x4’s nailed to the wall guarding the door, it looked as if we were saving ourselves from a zombie apocalypse.
They had broken through the lock, so the only way to secure the house was by boarding up the front until we got a new door installed. Later, when my brother and mom got home, they were just as shocked as my dad and I.
“What happened”!, both my brother and mom screamed in fear.
“We were sitting downstairs watching tv and two people kicked open the door, but we were able to stop them before they got in. We called the police, but they weren’t able to get any fingerprints to identify the two suspects.”
Moving here to Arlington Heights from the city, no one would have ever thought this would occur in such a wonderful neighborhood. It was supposed to be a great neighborhood to raise kids, schools were at the top in the state, and overall it was a peaceful environment. But I was not worried about that. I was just happy that everyone was fine and no one was hurt.

“Thank god that they left,”I told my dad. I looked at my dad as he still had the sign of shock on his face. “They’re gone now; everything should be fine”, I said.
“We’re just lucky that they didn’t fully get into the house and that there was no weapons involved, my dad said as he looked at me. “We just have to be cautious around the house now and keep our eyes and ears open.” Lock all doors and windows, and don’t leave anything valuable in view. We can’t take anything for granted.

For the next couple weeks it was very terrifying being home alone because now I knew anything could happen. I had my eyes open at all times, trying to look out for anyone who could be suspicious. Everyone in our house kept a baseball bat near that bed from that point on. It was always better to be safe, and we didn’t know to expect anything else to happen. It took over a month to get over the whole situation, but now we know we have to keep our eyes open around the house.