Blockwatch

News a couple weeks ago of two burglaries on the block behind ours, including one that resulted in our friends' 15-year-old son being locked in a trunk, had us kind of freaked out for a while. Suddenly we had neighbors coming to the door with police drawings of young African American suspects, rumors of fake security alarm salesmen going door-to-door in the neighborhood, and ominous warnings that we all have to stay vigilant: "Trust your instincts! If you see anything suspicious, anybody that doesn't belong, call 911!" Suddenly it didn't seem like such a good idea to leave all the doors wide open while we were out in the back yard weeding, or to leave the kids home alone while we went to the store for limes.

One afternoon in the middle of all this, an African American man in his 40s stopped Simon and me on the sidewalk outside our house and asked us for money, spinning a laughable tale about some guy who offered him a ride to the train station and brought him here instead. Right.

"Sorry, man, I don't have any money on me." (This was true; it was also true that I could have gone inside to get some, and didn't.) I gave the guy directions to the nearest bus stop, wondering if maybe I should also warn him that people in this immediate neighborhood are feeling a little edgy right now, and that he might have better luck getting bus fare together elsewhere. As he walked away, a white neighbor approached me with a clipboard, collecting names and contact info for a new blockwatch group. As I signed her list, we watched the guy chatting easily with the African American family across the street.

The whole thing felt horrid -- the fear, the racial dynamics, the questions from Simon (who had stood wide-eyed at my side soaking in many of these alarming conversations): "Is that guy suspicious? Should we call 911?" "No, honey, he's just asking for money. He's not going to hurt anyone." I suppose this is all part of the damage inflicted by the burglar -- we will all have to make a conscious effort not to let this incident reinforce our more alienating "instincts."

A few days later a flyer appeared under our doormat inviting us to a blockwatch meeting -- so Tuesday night we walked around the corner and joined thirty or forty of our neighbors in a circle of chairs on a backyard lawn. Captain Leggins from the Seattle Police Department and a couple of gentlemen from the King County Prosecutor's Office were also in attendance.

The neighbors all introduced themselves and their criminal histories (as victims, not perps). It was great to put names to these familiar faces, even in a context where the first thing you learned about each of them was that their cars keep getting broken into, or that their house was trashed by burglars a couple of years ago.

Captain Leggins and the prosecutors had great news: the burglar had been caught! Apparently the KCPO office has launched a new initiative to link burglary cases and crack down on repeat offenders -- and it worked. They had also recovered 600 stolen computers out of a home in Rainier Beach -- a huge coup.

Captain Leggins praised the energy & vigilance of several of our neighbors, crediting them for noting and reporting crucial information that led to the arrest of the culprit. Go neighbors! He also reminded us that the constitution guarantees a right to travel, and that even people who don't "belong" are legally free to walk through our neighborhood unmolested. "Once we see a behavior that's suspicious -- going into people's yards, looking in their windows, etc. -- that's when you call 911." We appreciated this clarification.

We also appreciated the captain's advice about getting to know our neighbors, and putting together a phone tree or e-mail list so we can share information about goings-on (bad & good) in the neighborhood. The discussion about making your house a less attractive target for burglars was also helpful, though it took some bizarre turns.

Full disclosure: when I was growing up, my parents never locked their doors, not even when they went on vacation. The one time we were robbed, the burglars didn't try the (unlocked) door before breaking a window to get in. The only time our unlocked doors proved to be a problem was when a neighbor we hardly knew wandered in -- she was never clear why, exactly -- and immediately called the police, because our house had clearly been ransacked. My mother did not take kindly to this assessment of our housekeeping standards. "What, now I'm a criminal because I didn't make the beds?"

Now, I do understand the risks of leaving your windows open, or having dense shrubbery outside your house where someone could hide. And alarm company signage clearly has beneficial deterrent effects. But it seems to me that, like so many things, this concept can be carried too far. I was a little alarmed, for instance, when one woman stood up and said, "I want to know how to make my house scream "GO AWAY!"

I know she probably didn't mean to send quite so emphatic -- and we all had the kid in the trunk on our minds at the time, of course. But I couldn't help flashing back to a December evening a decade ago when I was out jogging around the hill behind our house and decided to add a little length to my run by circling a cul-de-sac at the top of the hill. As I huffed along the sidewalk, a snarling dog came charging toward me across a dark lawn. I stopped running, my heart pounding, and it stopped in front of me, barking and growling. There was no one around. I was terrified, and also furious; after a brief struggle, furious won out. "WHOSE DOG IS THIS?!" I bellowed into the empty street. "WHOSE!! DOG! IS! THIS!?!?"

A woman came to the door of the house and called out, "Oh, he won't hurt you! He can't leave the yard -- he's got a special collar!" Well, Jesus Christ, how the hell am I supposed to know that?!

I suppose this woman is extremely unlikely to be robbed, or locked in a trunk, or to have scammers knock on her door with their cockamamie stories. But she is also never going to have neighborhood children leave flowers on her doorstep on May Day, or help a desperate mom out with a couple of eggs for a birthday cake, or have someone alert her to the fact that her car's domelight is on. And frankly, that's not a trade-off I'm willing to make.

I've played it both ways: I have turned away a man who said he was trying to turn his life around and could he please wash my windows (in the middle of a freezing rainstorm), and then heard him quietly complaining to God on the front porch as he gathered up his buckets and squeegees. And I have given $10 to a woman with a black eye who claimed to be a battered wife from up the street, even though I was pretty sure she didn't live in the house she said she lived in. And maybe she was casing my house while I went for my wallet... but I don't regret the lost $10 anything like as much as I regret not inviting that would-be window washer in for some hot lunch.

I don't want my house to say GO AWAY! I want my house to say: Come on in! Would you like some coffee? Or a beer -- there's some in the fridge, I think. Have you been up to the treehouse yet? I want our house to say: Sorry the place is such a mess -- we're in the middle of building a miniature skate park (or riding the boogie board down the stairs with all the couch pillows piled at the bottom, or mixing up magic potions from the contents of the bathroom cabinet, or whatever). I want our house to say, Welcome! We don't have a whole lot that's worth stealing, so you needn't bother ransacking the place -- not that we'd notice. But if you'd like to join us for dinner, I made plenty of lasagne.