Fall is my favorite time of the year. I love the cooler weather, I love the leaves turning colors and I love the holidays that occur this time of year. To me, this is "Holiday Season"...the Big Three: Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Sunday night I decorated my house for Halloween. I don't go all out, and mainly put a few decorations up in the house, and a few for the outside. One of the decorations I have is a lighted multiple pumpkin thing that sits outside. I have it on a small table next to my front door. At night I turn it on, and then turn it off before I go to bed.
I need to explain how my house is situated. My front door is somewhat recessed, and not easily visible unless right in front. When stepping out the front door, there is a wall to the left that extends about 10 feet out. To the right there is a wall extending out at a 45 degree angle for 5 or 6 feet. In the wall to the left, there is a door. Not sure who designed this house, but that door opens up to my house's hot water heater and air conditioning/heater unit. Who would put these things in an uninsulated room with a separate outside entrance .... well, that's another story. My weed eater and other assorted yard/outdoor things are stored in this room as well
So, Sunday night about 11 PM, I go out and turn off the pumpkin decoration. For some reason, I stay up another hour, and then crawl off to bed about midnight. I'm lying in bed a few minutes, and my cats are going a bit nuts. I hear them meowing over and over. Since I could hear the rumblings of thunder, I figure the cats might be crying because of the impending storm. Windows had been left open (broken air conditioner, remember?) so I decided to get up and close the windows. When I got up, the cats met me at the door and just would not stop meowing. They followed me as I walked to the dining room window and started to close it.
As I was closing the window, I noticed a light on outside. My motion senor light under the carport was on. "That's weird", I thought. For a few seconds, I look outside the window, then decide to open the front door. Opening the front door (I still have a closed clear screen door) I see that the door to the air conditioning/water heater room was standing wide open.
That door wasn't open when I turned off my decoration, so it had to have been opened within the last hour. This isn't a door that can be blown open, or just come open on its own. It takes a LOT of effort to get this door open - it sticks. So someone opened the door. Someone set off the motion sensor light under the car port. I wonder if the cats were going nuts because they knew something wasn't right? I don't know, but I think the noise I made shutting the windows scared them off.
Of course I quickly went around the house making sure every door and window was locked. After that, I checked to make sure that nothing was missing from the "water closet" (yes - I know what that means in other parts of the world). Nothing was missing. Not sure what was going on... but it was not easy going to sleep. I guess I don't need Halloween decorations this year to feel a little spooked.
