STS BBNJ 08805 & VICINITY FORUM - - NOW 12 YEARS ONLINE 2008-2020

Saturday night at around 11:30 pm (3/15/2008) someone rang our doorbell. My husband went downstairs to ask who was at the door, and there was no answer. He checked outside and saw an older woman up the sidewalk. When he asked her if she rang our doorbell, she told him that she had the wrong address.

Sunday morning about 10:10am ( 3/16/2008), I was awoken to the sounds of loud radio music playing in the home. Not knowing whether the sounds came from inside or outside the home I woke my husband up to go downstairs to find out if someone was in our home. To our surprise when he went downstairs there, in fact, was an older woman in our kitchen with the stove on making herself some tea. He saw a knife out with some cut lemons laying on the counter. The woman had on bath robe and what looked like night clothes and a hat. She also had a baby blue 3 quarter length light-down coat as well as a red purse and walkie-talkie like black handheld radio. It appeared to him that the woman was not fully stable mentally as she claimed that this was her house. He asked her how she got in , because he knew our doors were locked. She claimed that some man let her in. He talked her out of the house while at the same time I phoned the police who seemed to arrive just as the woman and my husband got to the front door. When I came downstairs I noticed that the lady had also added a small floor mat just in front of our door on the inside of our house. (This was the extra part that really creped me out)

One Male Officer was walking up the walkway and immediately confronted the woman saying that the she was not supposed to be there.Another female officer drove up and was able to call the woman by name saying are you not on your medication?.While the male officer escorted the older woman into the police car to be taken to psychiatric, the female police officer proceeded to fill us in on how the woman got in our home.She told us that the woman was at the police station most of the night claiming that she or her daughter lived at our address in canal crossing. She provided no ID to prove the fact nor did she give them a phone number to verify. While the police did say that they tried to knock on our door to see if anyone was home, they did not look our information up to verify that we were the people the woman was looking for and must not have taken her lack-of mental stability into account. We did not receive any phone calls from the police. Instead they called a locksmith and had the locksmith pick our front door lock and let the woman in.

We have been told that the lady paid $149 to the locksmith to have to the door opened, yet this information has not added to the police report. We are in the process of verifying how payment was made and what their process it.

We have not seen or heard from the older woman who was in our kitchen last week. I realize this sounds strange and believe me it is, but it really did happen. We are hoping that something like this never happens to us or anyone else again. I really want to believe that the SBB police will learn from this. I do not believe that they were intentionally negligent in judgment. My husband and I are safe. The painful part is that this is not just some story that I have heard about it actually happened. While some humor may be found here, there is no humor in the feeling that you get when you know that someone has been in your house while you were sleeping. I have to admit that I actually felt a little ashamed that we didnt hear the locksmith opening the door three stories down from our bedroom because anything could have happened to us. Anyway I hope this is enough info. We just wanted to make people aware of what happened so that they can be informed.