Post Closing: Annoyances, Road Blocks, and Terrible, Awful People

So we officially moved into the house yesterday! Our household goods were delivered, and I'm feeling so overwhelmed trying to get everything unpacked and organized. I got the bill for our hotel stay, and it was a total of NINETY SIX DAYS. I cannot believe I survived that! And that doesn't include the two months we lived in a temporary apartment after we sold our house in April, nor does it include the hotels we stayed at in between the time of the military packing us up in California in early June, before we moved to MD.

So I'll just say that we've been without a proper home since April 3. Crazy.

We closed on Friday, and on Saturday morning, our washer and dryer was delivered, and we brought over most of the items we had with us during our hotel stay.

On Saturday night, our home was burglarized. Yes, we were robbed before we even moved into the house! Sounds like Reddit post doesn't it? (AMA)

The burglars stole our television, a gaming system, all of our Wii games, plus my husband's XBox games, a very expensive handbag I was traveling with, but not wearing at the time, some of my clothes, and food. They ate all of the ice cream we had in the freezer (I think I was most upset about that, haha), drinks, cookies, snacks, and carried off with bottles of soda and who knows what else. It's really hard to think about what's missing until you actually need it, you know?
Not only did they rob us, but they also dumped an entire bottle of bleach into our brand new washing machine, ruining our clothes that we washed, not knowing that there was bleach inside (and the smell from the fumes nearly suffocating us once we turned on the machine), and they left our front door wide open. No rhyme or reason to their treachery at all.

How did they get in? I suppose we'll never know. I saw my husband lock our front door. He swore that he heard the lock bolt into place. I parked my car in the garage, and we closed the garage door and waited it to close before we drove away. All windows were locked and there was so sign of forced entry.

However. We did not change the garage code when we left, and perhaps that's where the mistake was made. I don't want to give too much information away because I don't want to endanger any new homeowners the way we were, but I will just say that our garage code was super generic, and anyone who bought in our area (and for all I know, this is standard with Ryan/NV Homes) would know exactly what our garage code was. The cops are absolutely certain that the burglars were privy to this information, saw us carrying various items into our house, and then leaving that evening, giving them prime opportunity to enter our home and have themselves a little party.
Also, the service guys from Lowes saw me punch in the garage code, but I (thought) was careful to hide the combination as much as I could ... but maybe not enough. I personally don't believe that the workers did it, and prefer to believe that it was some stupid, bored teenagers from the area. It's the only way I can sleep at night.

The Frederick County Sheriff have been absolutely wonderful, and instantly made me feel safer about the situation, and assured me that this is not a common incident in our area. The burglars left behind fingerprints on the appliances, spoons, empty soda containers, etc., and all of that was taken into evidence and is currently being analyzed by state law enforcement. They were appalled when they found out that they could basically walk into any new home with a simple garage code combination (and worse, they did. But the other homes were not occupied yet, and they needed to make sure that those homes weren't hit also.), and had a stern talking to with the sales people over at the model home. All owners should be strongly encouraged to change any stock security codes BEFORE they move into the house. I hope this is a policy that NVH will adopt.

As for NVH, our project manager and the sales team were aces, as usual. They of course were horrified about the situation, and came over the next day to help us change the garage code (there was a bit of .... faultiness going on there), and changed all of the locks immediately, since we did have spare keys in there, and couldn't be certain that they didn't take any to make copies. They were very understanding and wanted to help out in any way they could, but of course, they couldn't.

So what have I learned from this? That there are terrible, awful people in this world, pretty much, and no amount of researching, school ratings, crime ratings and the general goodness of a neighborhood will insure your own safety and well being. I unfortunately am a bit distrustful towards my neighbors now, which is a terrible feeling to have, but I am entitled to feel angry, hurt, upset, and betrayed. Having your home robbed is a terrible violation, no matter how small, and I know that it will take awhile for me to work through this and to get over the constant irritation I feel any time I think about it. Having all of our goods delivered and being surrounded by our stuff helps, and I'm feeling more and more comforted every single time a new box is opened and unpacked. I'm getting over it. Slowly.

Insurance will replace what we lost, and the cops stand a good chance of some day catching the jerks who did this. But confidence, trust, and security will be a lot harder to come by.

Other annoyances:

Construction workers pretty much destroyed the lines that Comcast (blurgh) will need to give us cable and internet, so we will be technologically homeless for a week. And this is fall television premiere season. Talk about pouring salt on our open, gaping wounds. I weep.

Window treatment people won't be able to come until next Tuesday, but we at least have temporary shades up.

Electricians, carpenters, and general handymen that I've contacted to do work around the house is apparently allergic to returning phone calls and scheduling appointments. Lovely.

No idea when we'll be able to get our house painted. The company we thought we were going to hire had to reschedule, so they couldn't paint before we moved in, and then told us that they would have to charge us a $40 per room fee to move our furniture. Saltiness abounds. Looking elsewhere now, but this is not easy or simple, moving to a brand new area, not knowing any people, and unable to secure good and reliable referrals.

I hope we have some good luck with our closet consultation tomorrow. We desperately need it.