Something broke my door
7Last night something hit my front door so hard it rattled my windows. It scared me and my pets so bad that I ended up grabbing my firearm because I didn’t know if someone was trying to break in. I couldn’t see anything out the front window, even with the outside light on. After a few minutes I went out with my flashlight to take a look. All I could see was that one of my walkway lights was knocked away from the house, as if whatever hit my house, hit the light on its way back out.
Today when I came home from work in the daytime, I went investigating and found that whatever it was, actually cracked the panel on the door.
Now I’m going to change the outside light back to a motion sensitive light because I’m still clueless as to what the fuck it was.
I have a big dog that normally alerts me. She’s always been a good comfort to me, since I live alone now.
Here’s a photo of my dog, and my cracked door. Any ideas of what it could be? Could a basketball or soccer ball do that much damage? Maybe a baseball? I figure a baseball would of left a smaller round dent though.
Door was due for a painting… Guess I need to do it sooner rather than later.
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Are you sure it wasn’t Mark Walberg?
@mfladd
Right away Mr. Wahlberg!!
Maybe a Pokémon trying to evade capture?
@msklzannie there has been several Nidorans showing up in my neighborhood lately… They do have a big horn on their head.
It was a bear. A drunken bear. Or a wild Pokemon with a ?? CP.
/giphy pokemon
@OldCatLady Totally a drunken bear… (Is there any bear looking Pokemon?)
I have a snorlax… He looks kinda like a big bear.
It was the Big Bad Wolf.
/image big bad wolf.
Definitely not a ball. What kind of area do you live in? Nearby houses? Could just be some young punks screwing around our could have actually been someone trying to break in who ran as soon as they heard your dog. The broken light certainly makes it appear someone took off quickly. I would call the police and report it. Not only is it vandalism but they would know if there have been reports of other incidents in your area. Reporting it may entice them to keep a closer eye on your house for a while.
@cinoclav I live in a dead end neighborhood. All of my direct neighbors are my age or older.
It was late at night, so probably not any young kids. Could of been teenagers.
Never thought to report it… Because if they were trying to break in, they were pretty stupid. My door swings outward.
Maybe I still will, even though the cop will wonder why I waited.
I forgot to mention, if it was a person, they would of had to run through thorny rose bushes to knock that light over. That’s why I was thinking some kind of bouncy item.
@RiotDemon Who the hell installed your door? A front door should never swing outward. Look at it, the hinges are on the outside. All it would take is popping them out to remove your door and walk right in. Is there another interior door? The only time that setup is almost okay is if it’s the exterior door to a building with individual units in it that have their own doors.
@cinoclav I live in Florida. It’s hurricane code to have the doors swing out. The pins are not removable in the exterior doors made to code.
@cinoclav After a theater fire killed 602 people, in 1903 Chicago, because the doors swung inwards all business exits must open outward. Not sure about residential or hurricane code.
The Post office delivering a package?
@KDemo lol, they’re usually nicer than that.
Probably just some clown.
@daveinwarsh But probably not a nice clown like that.
@daveinwarsh one of my favorite books. I’m actually pretty excited about the movie remake. I’m hoping it’ll do the book justice this time.
@daveinwarsh thanks for the nightmare tonight…
That is the weirdest front door I have ever seen. It is also a very bad angle for any type of investigative help. I see no paint transfer on the pic. The area of impact is very very small. So think small object with lots of force. Not sure the elevation of the light vs the door so can’t know for sure if the light was knocked down at the same time as the door hit or before or after. Any weird damage to the light? What is your door made of? Could it of been a low caliber bullet? Check for a bullet fragment. Look near and far. Bullet with that force could bounce back pretty far. Use a metal detector if possible. Closeup of impact point might help.
@Drunkenalien uploaded a full photo of the door below. That was just a close-up of the panel. The door panel is fiberglass… Not sure what the actual door is made of. I highly doubt it would stop a bullet though.
Is it low enough for it to have been caused by a kick of any sorts? A coworker had his house almost broken into because the person was drunk and confused the house with a different house.
@vanslaterco pretty high for a normal kick. I uploaded a full photo of the door below.
@RiotDemon After looking at the new photo, I still think it could’ve been a kick. But a kick that high up and that much force would’ve left a scuff mark of their shoe sole.
@vanslaterco yeah. I didn’t see any mark. I’ll look again tomorrow in the light.
The way the wood split seems to indicate there was some velocity to it. The point of impact has a small indentation, and there is another mark above the frame which looks like a secondary impact after the object glanced off the now bent molding. I would say it was a cylindrical object, like a 6 inch long piece of rebar. I think a bullet would leave a larger point of impact as it would flatten out, due to the relatively soft lead and rather high velocity. A 6 inch piece of rebar has a higher mass than the bullet, which would enable it to bend the frame like that without having enough velocity to punch through. As for the windows rattling, is it possible the object was fired from a homemade potato cannon? These “guns” use a low velocity accelerant that will give a much deeper boom, and would rattle windows if fired nearby, as opposed to gunpowder which accelerates very fast, making a louder pop, which will shake the windows less.
@mmmaxwwwell that mark might just be dirt. The guy that painted my door used a horrible flat paint that is chipping off and holds dirt horribly. I uploaded a photo below of the whole door.
The rattling windows was definitely from the actual impact, and not the noise.
I’m sorry, but when I zoom in, that does not look like a door. Do you have any pictures with a better angle? To me, it looks like a window that’s been painted shut and the damage looks like a big ding in the sill. Unless your house is painted lilac, it also looks like it’s the interior view, not the exterior view.
@cwolfpack3 see photo below. That was just the panel that was hit. It’s the panel on the right, 2nd from the bottom.
Here is the full door. I only uploaded a photo of the panel where the damage was.
I told you my door needed painting, so please excuse that. We’ve also had tons of frogs lately because of the weather and they’ve crapped all over the size of my house. I swear, I need to pressure wash every week to keep up with them.
@RiotDemon The frogs would be enough to get me to move. I have a very odd, ridiculous fear of frogs.
@conandlibrarian oh no. Better not live anywhere near any water. Outside my neighborhood is a wildlife reserve and the frogs breed by the hundreds (thousands??) there and migrate out into the neighborhoods. So annoying. They tend to hang out on the things around my windows that hold the hurricane panels. When it’s been really badly raining, you can hear their frog noises all night long. I don’t know how many times I’ve been spooked by some big ass frog jumping towards me at night.
@RiotDemon there is no way I could handle that.
/giphy scary frogs
@conandlibrarian omg that frog gif. Ugh. Eye stuff freaks me out.
@RiotDemon I could handle all frog related nuisances except being jumped at by the baseball-softball sized kinds at night outside.
@vanslaterco I’ve also had land crabs that throw up their claws at me when I open the door.
All sorts of fun stuff.
@RiotDemon Around my neighborhood in NE FL, we have alligators and BIG turtles, which would weigh enough to rattle the door if they hit it hard. The first year I lived here, a 30" alligator snapping turtle tried to claw through my front door, because my (new) house was in her way. We got her to latch onto a broomstick and wheelbarrowed her to the pond, 100’ away. I wish we had pictures; she was a real monster.
@conandlibrarian This guys been hanging around my porch for the past couple of days
@lichme Oh, he’s definitely up to no good.
@lichme I would be staying at a hotel.
/giphy scared
@lichme Where’s Pinkey? That frog is planning to take over the world!
@lichme If that frog got in my house (back when I lived in one) he’d be dinner for the cats. When stuff like that got in the house (easy since there were major foundation problems and so cracks that were huge) they basically played with, killed and then ate frogs, lizards, crickets and grasshoppers, killed water bugs (a.k.a. roaches) but didn’t eat them (each ate one only once and puked it up).
One night I woke up in the middle of the night because a cat was running all over my bed playing, jumping off and then starting all over again. I finally turned on the light - she was playing with a roach, when it would fall off the bed she’d jump down, carefully pick it up in her mouth and put it back on the bed. GROSS! I removed her toy and committed genocide.
I’d say human trying to pop that panel out so the door could then be unlocked.
@pitamuffin dumb human then because that panel is just trim. It doesn’t go through the door. Thanks for the theory!
@RiotDemon Lots of dumb humans in the world!
@RiotDemon i had someone bust a window once trying to get into my house. Busted the wrong panel so that it couldn’t be opened because of the damage even after unlocked. (It was laminated glass.)
@walarney oops.
In an old apartment I was in, I did have someone manage to get my slider door cocked open… My dog scared them away. Unfortunately one of the cats got out and stayed gone for a few days, coming back with a wound that turned into an abscess. It could of been worse.
I say Pokemon, or a seriously annoyed giant bullfrog, or one heckuva large moth, or a very focused swarm of night-flying locusts, or a chunk of ice from an airplane, or a bouncy meteor, or a raccoon doing a bucking-bronco rear kick, or one of the Little People unique to your region, or a rare Giant Jumping Snail. There, that ought to give you some options. What did the police say?
/giphy locust swarm
@OldCatLady I didn’t call the police yet. I’ll be home tomorrow so I’ll call and see if they want to come out or what.
Ok, now that I see the whole door, my thought is that some kids were riding around on bikes or something and used some kind of pellet gun or rubber bullet gun or other “toy” gun, which bounced off that frame, hit the light on the way back, and may still be laying around somewhere in the yard. It couldn’t be a potato gun, because that would have left some pulp behind and indented a larger area. Can you follow the trajectory from the door to the light and on out from there to see if you find anything?
/youtube potato gun
@RiotDemon Any further word on your door situation?
@cinoclav nothing else has happened. Light is being changed back to a motion sensitive light. Dog is still keeping vigil at everything. She’s very loud.
@RiotDemon I would say this is exactly why you NEED to buy today’s meh offering.
@ELUNO I’ve lived on my street for 6+ years and this is the only incident I’ve ever had… So I’m not too terribly worried.
My vote is Zombies. The apocalypse is starting…
I would say it was an Abbie, but one of those things would have easily come right through the door and eaten everyone.
Could it have been a golf ball?