An 84 yr old lady returned to her home in the early afternoon, and once she got inside the house, she heard moaning coming from her 93 yr old husband who, from the sound of it, was upstairs and in pain.
Imagine this was you (as the 84 yr old woman). What would you do at this point?
It is a fair bet that most of you will say ‘I’d rush upstairs as fast as I could to see what the problem was and to help him’.
Most of the time, this would be the right answer. But most of the time isn’t the same as always, as the lady in this real life situation in Kansas City found out, to her profound cost.
Unbeknownst to her, an intruder had broken into the house, started to ransack the house, came across the elderly gent, and attacked him viciously. When the wife went upstairs to see what the problem was with her husband, the intruder tied her up, robbed her, and raped her too. More details here.
We touch on this type of scenario in our earlier article, The Dangers of Returning Home.
As we explain in that article, what the woman should have done was called out a codeword/greeting to her husband, allowing him to respond with a codeword ‘all clear’ response, or alternatively, to use a codeword ‘danger’ response that would have allowed her to then flee the house and call the police.
It is a very simple thing to arrange with the other people in your house, and only takes a second and no effort to transact each time a person returns to the house. You’ll spend much more time and energy locking/unlocking the door than you will calling out a simple code phrase such as ‘Honey, I’m home’ and listening for an equally simple All-clear code phrase in return ‘Welcome back’ or whatever other phrases you agree upon.
We urge you to consider adopting this. You might be protecting your own life or physical wellbeing, and/or you that of someone else entering the house, and best of all, you might help get help summoned faster and increase the odds of the bad guys getting caught.