Bugger All!

So Alan and I packed our Christmas stuff into the car and drove over to our storage place. As we walked up to our unit, Alan noticed that the lock was different, so he goes off to get someone from the office.  That guy checks the records to see if there are any notes about why there might be a new lock, perhaps for missing a payment or somesuch.  There are none, so he comes down with the giant bolt cutters.  All our stuff is still there, right? But wait… what was in that big bare spot?

Urgh!  Somebody stole the fucking amplifier!

And damned if that wasn’t the only thing they took!  Whoever it was went through my black foot locker, but left everything in it.  I only know that much because the latches were hanging open.  They moved all my art portfolios, including the archive box with my wedding dress in it, which they propped on its side against the wall.  Fortunately they must have assumed it was more art stuff, because it doesn’t even look like they opened it. It was still folded up in muslin the way I left it.  They also left two car radios, which struck me as odd.  When I talked to my mom, she theorized that since they replaced the lock, they may have been planning to come back later.

So we filled out an incident report with the guy on duty in the office.  I also convinced Alan to stop at the police station on the way home to file a police report.  There’s no point tempting fate, and I want everything above-board.  We went back to the storage place to show the officer the unit and so that he could see about the security there, then headed home.  The security cameras over the doors apparently don’t record, so even though we know it had to have happened in the last month or so, there’s no footage of somebody leaving with a bass amplifier. Useful, right?  So unless it turns up at a pawn shop, we’re SOL.

Well, not completely.  Alan did get the insurance offered by the storage company.  It covers up to $2000.  He’s got to talk to the owner today.  According to the guy in the office, the owner "had to think about it."  Had to think about what?  The most valuable object in our unit was stolen. File the insurance claim. End of story. Full stop. Thank you. I don’t see that there’s all that much to think about. We didn’t get that response until we got back to the place with Officer McMahon, so I’m really glad we filed the police report.

There are other things to be grateful for in this situation, as well. For one thing, it wasn’t our home. I feel violated, but I’m sure it’s nowhere near what it would feel like if someone had broken into our home.  For another, they didn’t take anything else.  And most of all?  We were trying to sell the amplifier anyway.  So either the police find it and we go back to trying to sell it, or we don’t get it back and we’ve effectively "sold" it to the insurance company.  It’s not much of a bright side, but it’s something.  And I’m an optimist at heart.

I guess now would be the time to start looking into other storage places with a bit more security.  After we get this all straightened out though.

~Liz