Burglary or Is This Anyway to Solicit a Yard?

So as we left for dinner a few night ago we saw the police cars before a neighbor's house two doors up. He was on the front yard with two officers. "Hmm, wonder what that is about?" we wondered.

The person is a retired school teacher. I'll tell you how bad times have become. First thought came to my wife's mind was a drug bust. There's been a couple nearby recently. I was even worse. First words out of my mouth were, "Child porn on the computer?" Terrible thing to think of a neighbor, but that's what you see in the news so much these days, some former worker with children arrested for child pornography. No matter where our evil thoughts went, what it was was a burglary.

Didn't know that yet. Looked online and in the paper next day, but nothing about our area in the crime reports. How often do we see a curious situation and never find out what the reasons were? A number of times actually.

The next night my daughter comes home from work announcing as she enters, "Why are the police all over the street."

I looked out and there were a couple cop cars up in front of that neighbor's again. Now a couple hours later, when we had guests stop by, the police were gone.

My visitors didn't stay long, maybe a half hour, and I walked them out to the street as they left. The police were back again. Two officers were across the street talking with the occupants. Meanwhile, I spent sometime talking with my friends, who were my pastor and two elders from my church. They didn't look the stereotypical such. We're not your grandmother's church, I guess. One elder had arrived by Harley-Davidson and they're big fellows with tattoos and such. And while we are gabbing the police amble down and motion me over.

"You live around here?" asks the uniformed officer. The other must be a detective.

"Right here," I say, pointing to my house.

He takes my name, birth date, telephone number and blood pressure. Naw, he really didn't take that last. He tells me there was a burglary two doors up. Then he asks if I saw a person mowing the lawn there a few days ago. No, I hadn't. He didn't tell me anything else. He did ask if I'd seen anything suspicious lately.

Why, yes I did, yes I did.

Maybe it's nothing, but I told them anyway.

It was the other day, I am on the computer and my wife calls me. "There are guys going around people's homes with clipboards."

I  rushed out to see and sure enough I saw a guy wandering from the side of the house on the corner. He indeed had a clipboard and seemed to be making notes. My wife told me there was a guy next door all the way into the backyard. While she says this the fellow came from that house and went to the driver's side of a white car parked on the street.

I hurried back to the computer room to snatch my glasses and my camera. As I returned I saw the white car pulled past our place and stopped and a fellow walking down our driveway. "Did he knock on the door?" I asked my wife.

"No," she said.

I was just going out my front door when the white car drove off with the two guys. I decided to follow and catch them and ask what they were doing. I drive after, but I lost them. They must not have stopped anywhere in the neighborhood. I wanted to get a picture of the car and license. We didn't know there had been a burglary yet, but this was suspicious behavior nonetheless.

As I was returning from my fruitless search for the clipboard guys, I notice the lady in the corner house in her yard. I go to her and ask about the clipboard guys.

"They were Scott's Yard care," she tells me. "They were real pushy, too."

I went in my house and called Scott's Lawn Care and asked if they had crews out surveying yards. The lady who answered said they did.

I said, "Their car didn't have any name on it."

She said, "Our sales crews don't use the trucks." She continued, "They knock on the door and leave a flyer."

Okay, but no one knocked on my door and there was no flyer left. I don't like people walking about my house making notes on a clipboard. I liked the idea even less when that cop told me there was a burglary two homes away.

Next day I went across to the corner house and asked if they left her a flyer. "No," she said. "He held something out, but when I reached for it he snatched it back. 'You're keeping it?', I asked and he said, 'Yeah.'"

As I left her I saw the neighbor across the street was out and about. He's a long time friend so I wandered over and told him my tale.

"They came up the drive," he said, "and I said , 'No, not interested.' They didn't want to take no for an answer, but I don't need them bothering me."

"Did they give you a flyer?"

"No. They said if I you wouldn't hear them out they couldn't give you one."

Is that anyway to try to sell your services, if indeed these guys were really from Scott's. If they were, I suggest Scott's rethink their training. If they weren't, I hope Scott's takes note they are being misrepresented by some people who may be casing neighborhoods for other purposes.