[bryanzs]

My wife and I own a house in Alto Vista, and this past trip (mid-May) we experienced a situation very similar to those described. We went out to dinner at 7, and got a call from our security company (Benjamin Security) that our home alarm had gone off. They called again 15 minutes later (when their security guard arrived at the house) to tell us that there had indeed been a break in.

We have a security system (obviously), and Retraco shutters rolled down over every window and the back patio door. The robbers pried open the frame around one of the Retraco, and pulled up the shutter, in order to break into the master bathroom (on the side of the house). They then managed to walk around inside our house, avoiding the motion sensors, until they got to the family room, at which point they finally tripped a motion sensor.

I've no idea how long they had to look through the house, but they did rummage through our master bedroom (not finding much of anything) and took our laptops and camera from the family room.

And like everyone else has reported, the police arrived (about 1/2 hour later) and were friendly but certainly didn't do anything to allay our fears (in fact, they told us that the robbers would most likely be back for our tv - how's _that_ for comforting news??). They also couldn't get the prints until the technical team came out the next day.

This was actually our second experience with the police. Last year, while my wife and I were watching tv in the family room (with all the windows open of course so we could enjoy the wind), someone reached into our house and stole my wallet and keys off the little table in our kitchen. Yes, while we were sitting in the house (backs to the kitchen) 10 feet away. Got to give the criminals credit for guts, at least...

Both of these incidents caused us to "ramp up" our security - now we keep the lights on the back porch on all evening to discourage anyone walking around there while we're home (or at least to increase the chances we'd see anyone loitering there), and after this most recent incident we put additional window sensors and interior motion detectors all throughout the house. And we, too, talked with more neighbors about checking around our house when they hear the alarm going off. One problem we have is that one side, and the entire back, of our house, faces into the cunucu, so it's easy for people to slip in and out without walkiing past anyone else.

I am at a loss as to what else we might do if these additional precautions don't stop the robbers in the future.

We've had the house for about 5 years, and I can tell you there's no way I expected problems like this - my concerns had been about what might happen to the house during our absences from the island, not about what might happen when we were actually present. But it seems like these criminals actually WAIT until the house is occupied to break in!

Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know that, if you assumed the rash of break ins went away when the "task force" rounded up the "criminal ring", that is NOT the case. Or else everyone in the criminal ring has been released and are back to their old tricks.