Armed Intruder In Our RV!!!!

[Nick Russell]

Friday night we encountered an armed intruder in our motorhome. It was a pretty scary event Nick's Blog » Blog Archive » A Violent Encounter

[RV Wizard]

Nick, sorry to hear of your plight with the intruder but now you have learned that you cannot let your guard down. I am sure you will never forget this and if it ever were to happen again, you would handle it much differently. Glad to hear you both are ok. Good luck in repairing all the damage and I hope the sale still goes through for you.

[ronharp]

Wow! Close call. I'm glad you are ok. Your post is also a reminder to me as I've become fairly complacent in the past few years. We are dealing with our 2nd vehicle theft here since mid October. I've been up most nights from 1:00am on just waiting to hear the sound of motors in the park.

[CLIFFTALL]

Originally Posted by ronharp

Wow! Close call. I'm glad you are ok. Your post is also a reminder to me as I've become fairly complacent in the past few years. We are dealing with our 2nd vehicle theft here since mid October. I've been up most nights from 1:00am on just waiting to hear the sound of motors in the park.

Ron

Sorry to hear about the losses in your park and of course Nick's horrible encounter. Did you mean rv's when you said vehicles where stolen or cars and where is your park?

Cliff

[WeatherTodd]

sorry about the encounter.
Unfortunately animals like that need to be wounded seriously, to learn. Material or not... the intruder wont differentiate between a tv, gun, or your life.

[Max Hubrich]

Nick,

OMG---- I'd probably shot the SOB-or at least fired in his direction when he came back! You are to be commended for your presence of mind-as you said it's only material things!

Some years ago I caught a Peeping Tom in an apartment complex in Michigian at 2am. I came up behind him, knocked him to the ground and held my .38 pistol to his head as my wife called the police. He was a guy in the porn business peeping at two young ladies, and had been doing it for some time, who shared an apartment on a ground level apartment.

I guess I'll start carying a weapon in our RV when parked in what I'll call "questionable" places.

I certainly won't let my wife read this one. Back many years ago when I got our first RV a friend's wife told my bride "It's unsafe to get up and do things as your tooling down the highway". I now have all I can do for her to get me a coke! She'll tell me to pull over and she'll go get it--ugh . The ironic part of this "fear" is, as I was driving in front of my friends "Dynasty" sometime later, I noticed, in my mirror's, "she"- the voice of advice, was frequently gone from her co-pilot seat. Upon arrival at our destination I asked where she was, and in a sheepish manner, answered, "I was making George a sandwich" .

I hope your sale went through okay.

Best of luck to you two in the future

[ronharp]

Cliff
We are actually in a MH park with a small storage area. The first theft was a classic Buick and a couple of nights ago a TV was stolen that was backed up to a long trailer. They broke the lock off of the trailer so the thought is they plan to come back and get the trailer. The car was recovered not too many miles away and in good condition. The truck was a Dodge diesel 3500. We had one break-in last year and the rear camera and monitor were taken from a MH. There is a very good view of our RV parking from a street overhead right next to it. I monitored it pretty heavily for a couple of years because of my, not to be envied, sleeping habits and we did not get hit. I may have to start in again.

[Wayne M]

I hope his arm hurts him for a long, long time.

Great presence of mind on your part.

[TXiceman]

Thankfully you and your spouse are OK. Material possessions are replaceable. I have a CHL and the one thing the instructions really made a point of was that your material things are not worth a life. As long as you are not threatened do not make it into a life or death issue. They also pointed out that you NEVER tell the law that you intended to kill anyone...you felt your life was in danger and your intent was to STOP them.

Hope you get it all sorted out pretty quickly.

Ken

[EngineerMike]

While helping a buddy upgrade a potential steering problem recently, I noticed his preferred weapon of defense by the motorhome door. He was a highway patrolman and had kept his "stick" when he retired. His was an aluminum side-handled baton. For those who don't want to carry a gun, and who are willing to get trained (BTW a caveat I'd extend for any proposed weapon regardless) this may be a great alternative.

With unemployment way up, we will likely see increased break ins, and increased brazenness in the methods for some time. One easy in for a motorhome is the driver's window. I read of one park episode where the thief went from coach to coach checking driver's windows till he found one unlocked. While the occupants were in bed he crawled in. This is a case where a gun in the hand of a trained person would be nice, but such an encounter is still a rare event and carrying a gun brings with it a laundry list of new issues. Anybody can buy and get trained on the use of the baton. I thought this was a great alternative to firearms in an RV for those not willing to take on the escalated responsibility of guns.

[dieselclacker]

Nick, glad you had enough presence of mind not to use deadly force on the burglar. I too hope you gave the SOB a really sore arm.

Dieselclacker

[sknight]

Bastards! I'm really glad this turned out alright, nobody got hurt, hopefully your insurance will take care of you and you'll be able to sleep better knowing that you acted properly to defend yourself and your wife. Good restraint also. I wouldn't have shot the guy in the back, but when I saw him facing me peeking around the building that could have been really, really bad for him.

I've seen and heard a lot of brow beating about weapons since I started this nearly eight years ago. It's safe, not worth it, lots of reasons to not have a weapon. To all those people that want to try and push their anti gun beliefs on me I really wish that they'd print that blog page out and hang it on their bedroom wall. Read it every day.

An Asp baton is a wonderful weapon but is the proverbial knife at a gunfight. You have to get way too close to use it. If that's your preferred route then get trained in it's use.

Use your second amendment rights, get trained, practice to stay proficient.

[read & learn]

Nick, glad you and the wife were not hurt. Know the feeling of having someone break into the MH. We were in a Storage Yard and were 1 or 3 RV,s that were broken into. We were the luckly ones of the 3. 5th wheel entry door destroyed, other MH broken window. They used a slim jim to open our window.
We lost very little and of no value. They took our Newmar information paper case for all our products, lucky they dumped contents, so still have paper work. Police feel the case is ideal for future break ins to carry things. Biggest problem is they dumped everything from the back to the front out of the cabinets.
The wife still 4/5 months later feels violated.
Our MH was only partly cover by camera and the window that was opened was not covered. The next day the area where the 3 RVs were parked has coverage.
The Storage company told the 3 of us whatever was not cover by our insurance would be picked up by them.

[Miljet]

About 30 years ago we were camped in a remote location on one of the lakes on Barksdale AFB. I got up early, put on a pot of coffee, and went out on the lake to run our trot lines, leaving my wife in the camper. She awoke to find a black man standing just inside the door of the camper. She reached under her pillow as if reaching for a weapon and told him that he had ten seconds to get out or she would blow his head off. Evidently he believed her and beat a hasty retreat. Every RV that we have had since has always had at least one firearm as standard equipment.