Sorry, this is a little long.
The other day, I was working in my shop which is detached from my house. Around noon, I decided to have some lunch. As I was walking to the door, There was a man standing in my window looking at me. He looked in his mid 30's, looked Mexican and had tattoos coming up his neck. Looked like 3 letters "T" . I walked outside and asked him what he wanted. I noticed that there was a large panel truck with a ladder on the top and hauling 16' black covered trailer. This guy (He was Mexican) then said, "are you looking for a hot water tank?" As soon as he said that, I looked over to side door my house and COMING OUT OF MY HOUSE was another guy. He was inside my house! This guy was in Caucasian, and looked to be in his mid 50's. I completely lost my crap! I ran up to this guy and read him the riot act. I gave him a once over and felt his pockets to see if he had anything on him. He didn't like that, but I didn't care. He was about 10 seconds for being assaulted. After seeing, he was not armed, and didn't have anything stolen from my house on him, I told them both not to move, read him the riot act again, told them both to stay in the truck, and I was calling the state police. He tried to give me an explanation, but I didn't want to hear it. If he was a thief, what would that matter, he would just be lying. I figured to let the state police figure it out. The guys were not trying to leave so that put me at rest a little. I went back outside while I was waiting for the State police and took a picture of the truck, the small magnetic sign on the door and his plate. Pa. plates on the truck. I went back to the trailer and it had Tennessee plates. Everything here was sketchy in my mind. Nothing appeared to be disturbed or obviously missing in the house. I live in the country. My home is pretty far off the road and my driveway is clearly marked with the house number. Finally, about 30 minutes later, The state police showed up. To make this a little shorter, it same out that they contract for Lowes. They called the neighbor to tell them they were coming and she said she had to go to work. She would leave the side door open so they could just go in and get started! WHO does that? Who does that on all fronts? This is the 1920's Who leaves a side door open for complete strangers and what kind of contractor would agree to that? What if the homeowner tried to say they stole something? What if the contractors were FRICK'IN MORONS and went to the wrong house? Or a ton of other thing that could go wrong. Good grief. So after everything was straightened out, I told the guy that the only reason that I made such a fuss is that he was in my home. The guy then said, " I was wondering what was going on since you didn't need a hot water tank, yours was obviously fine". That means that he was not only on the house, but he was down in the basement walking around to be able to find it!
So here is the thing I have worried about the most since this happened. Because of my health problems, often I will take a short nap after lunch. It just so happened that this day, I was trying to get stuff done, so I skipped all of that. Had I been on the couch taking a nap and was wakened up hearing someone in my basement, he would, have only been brutality assaulted. Or, had a gun pointed at center mass. Worse case is he would have been shot and killed. Thank the good Lord that none of that happened. Think about it. It's the middle of the day, you're sleeping, you hear someone in the basement, you see a sketchy truck and trailer in front, one big enough to take most of your stuff. You live far off the road on a very clearly marked driveway. Let me ask you, what would you be thinking?

Holy crap ! That's beyond crazy.

Yeah that's crazy .....the guy in the house could be dead right now !

Having a large, aggressive dog would have prevented this problem.

Keith

I can't imagine that being a common occurrence,,,, luckily it turned out ok, could have went way differently.

50 years 1:30 a.m. my wife said someone is trying to get in the back door. The outside door leads to the basement and the second door leads to the inside of the house. I got up and loaded my 410 over under. I opened the door and put the barrel under his chin and cocked the hammer. I said get on your knees. The first thing out of his mouth was don't shoot me. Wife called the police. He as a drunk and did not know where he was. He got 30 days in jail for unlawfully entry.
That was 50 ago things were a lot calmer then. You just never know! Who is going to be next.

I am a large aggressive dog.....

And would create a potentially bigger problem with innocent visitors.

I wish the illustrator from outdoor life that used to do "this happened to me" could illustrate this. A surprised peeping Mexican and a bewildered white guy walking in your house.

Lol Sam. I have an enormous German shorthair , freakishly big for his breed. Big barker , intimidating. Zero people aggression. He 'd bark aggressively all the while I'd be taking a butt whipping. But he's alert and his 'alert' bark definitely let's you know FedEx is in the driveway. I don't want the headache of a people aggressive dog.

Stay strapped!

…. I think you could have gotten it figured out without calling the law

… a little on the dramatic side

I'm not a paranoid person and don't scare easy but I am always prepared. I have guns in all my vehicles and handguns tucked in the sofa cushions. I have come home to neighbors in my house. No reason to be in there. There dog coming in thru are dog door and going thru the garbage. Now days doors are locked even when we're home. Started locking doors 5 or 6 yrs ago. Had a guy drive into the yard at 2:10am when my ring door bell woke me up. I got up with a pistol with a laser pointer on it. And caught him walking back to my barn. I yelled at him and asked him what he was doing. He said looking for Josh my neighbor. I told him you won't find him in my barn. I put a red dot on him moving from his head to his body and into his eyes so I knew he seen it. Then I told him I know your here and you know your here. But know one else does, don't come back. I should not have let him leave. The Sheriff was out the next day and said they want to catch these guys.

Similar thing happened to my Ma back when I was a kid, dad was a long haul trucker so was gone sometimes weeks at a time leaving us home alone, one night ma heard noise from the living room so went to investigate and found a guy coming in the window, well she stuck dads browning A5 20 gauge about a foot in front of his face and asked him real politely if he was sure he wanted to come in he decided he didn’t dropped out of that window and beat feet out of there from the sound of it there were probably two or three of them

I really miss that old browning if any of you ever come across a browning A5 20 serial number 824 let me know that was my dad’s

The only reason the law was called is that the guy was in the house. If he was a thief, I'm sure I wasn't going to get a real answer. If he was not in my home, I would have nicely told them they were at the wrong house. Lucky, I wasn't calling the coroner.

…. Lowe’s got the wrong address and you called the law

.. am I missing something?

Yes, you have pretty much missed it all.
They came to the wrong house. They had the right address. They could not read the address at the end of my driveway. And then walked into my house. You're not calling the law if you see someone walking out of your house?

…. I’d handle it myself… in short order the situation would have been resolved

… calling the law would be way down in the list

oh it is

think about the number of times the police can't read the address right off the search warrant and no knock the wrong house. happens at least once a year that you hear about.

plumbers or other contractors walking into the wrong house probably happens near ever day some where

I have heard of people coming home to a roof half tore off their neighbor ordered the roof so the contractor has to finish them both.

or contractors having to drive the neighborhood looking for where the shingles got delivered

the local facebook page is a game of who's porch is this pictures of people trying to find their package.

people just leaving their door unlocked for a contractor , all the time.

does make you think about the motion activated cameras that notify your phone.

my aunt asked if I could could install her a doorbell camera this week , I have been researching them a little

her husband died on Christmas and she never really thought about it before that but it seems like a good idea to her now.