Crime wave revisited

Last night the Seattle police department sponsored a "Night Out" against crime, where they encourage people to have block parties to talk about neighborhood safety/crime issues. Some of our neighbors hosted one, and it turns out that Holy Hannah, we really are having a crime wave! Six houses have been burglarized in the past month, somebody's car was blown up (!), and then of course there's the slew of car crime I've noticed and, you know, THE ARSON ACROSS THE STREET. According to the police, our whole neighborhood is seeing an unprecedented encroachment of crime, all the way down to the big luxurious houses on the lake.

So for the first time, I find myself involved in a good old fashioned neighborhood block watch. Nothing has been organized yet, but things got started last night when we all exchanged names, phone numbers and emails. For the first time since we moved here 10 years ago, we will have the names and contact information of nearly all our neighbors, which seems like a very nice thing. I talked to neighbors that I've only nodded hello to before. And, we agreed we're going to start calling the police about absolutely everything that happens, in the spirit of the squeaky wheel. Plus, since I work from home a lot during the weekdays, I should probably get out around the block more during the day, just to keep my eyes open.

I guess I'll do a few things around our property for better security. I don't like having to think about crime and safety, I have never really done so before in our ten year here, except for the ongoing annoyance of car vandalism which I guess I just think of as an unavoidable part of city living. I don't much like the feeling. But it felt good to get together with our very diverse neighbors and declare our intention to reclaim our street. And when Enrico and I talked about it, there are really only a couple of things that we'd be upset about losing in a robbery - the computer, purely for the annoyance factor, the limited jewelry that I have inherited from beloved aunts, and the collection of personal stuff that would enable complete identity theft. The 12-year old television, the 20-year old stereo, the DVD player that doesn't record right - not too worried about that. So that feels empowering too, because we can do some additional things to secure those few items we really care about, and free our brains from thinking about the rest.