Stolen

Yesterday afternoon we learned our storage unit had been broken into.

Our TVs, washer and dryer, lamps, and other electronics are all gone.

The rest of our stuff is trashed.

They punched holes in some boxes to see if anything inside was worth stealing. 

Other boxes they just dumped over.

They stomped muddy boot prints on our practically brand new couch, and on our children's mattresses.

They stood on top of my night stand and smashed it while doing so.

They somehow got our rocking chair wet??? And it's moldy now.

It felt like a punch in the gut.

Yesterday morning we went and picked up a car we'd purchased ( a 2007 Prius...hooray!) and that had felt like a big victory. Not only had we crossed something sizable off our list (sort out one of two cars) but we'd finally managed to jump the hurdles of several hours and phone calls arranging car insurance. 

Apparently, if you have a lapse in coverage, you're difficult to insure again.

Like, crazy difficult. 

To speak to the agents at different companies we (and by "we" I mean "David") spoke with yesterday, you'd think we were the only people on the entire planet to leave the United States for two years and then return and want to drive vehicles legally.

But whatever, we finally got that sorted, and drove away with our new-to-us car. 

The kids and I took Natalie's car to Target to get car seats and a few other things, and David drove out to the storage unit to grab some of our things.

After we got back from Target, I put the kids in front of a movie and tried to take a nice afternoon nap.

When I woke up, David was standing over our bed, and looking at me really seriously. 

"We've been robbed."

I just stared at him, blinking.

Robbed? Where? We don't have a home? Did someone steal our car?

"The storage unit." He replied, reading my questioning stare.

"But HOW?!? It had a lock on it? It was behind a locked gate? The facility has 24 hour guards??" I just could not compute any of this new information.

Turns out we really only know a few things...at some point, likely shortly after we left, someone cut our lock, lifted our door, stole some of our belongings and trashed the majority of the others, then closed the door back down, and put a new lock on the door, so as to not draw attention to the door.

Maybe it was the people who rented the units next to us, when they realized we weren't frequently checking ours.

Maybe it was the previous landlord guy (the current worker has only been there about  a year) before he quit.

Maybe it was random.

I suppose it doesn't really matter.

I'm thankful it's just stuff.

My people are all okay.

Stuff is replaceable.

But it still sucks.

Dave spent a good chunk of time this morning looking through the pictures he took as he loaded up the storage unit to try and be able to decipher what all is missing, and he's out there now sorting through it all and cleaning.

We spent $9 a month for the last 22 months on insurance, and so we have $2000 coverage to replace stolen goods, but that won't begin to cover all that is gone.

It feels especially displacing as we don't have a place of our own to unpack it all anyways. We are VERY lucky to have tons of space at my sister's house, but it's not like we can unload our entire home here.

Two steps forward, one step back, I suppose. 

This just feels like a GIANT step back.