I grew in a neighborhood that isn’t the safest. It’s not an urban ghetto, but probably the closest thing you’ll get to a suburban ghetto *lol*. Just a street over is gang territory for the local Hispanic gang. We’ve had our sidewalk and trash cans tagged with their initials. There have been shootings over there and no lack of hover police helicopters late at night with their spots on. It doesn’t phase me. That doesn’t mean I’m not careful when I’m out and about, however. I’d consider carrying with me some pepper spray just to feel that much safer. I think it helps that we don’t pose a threat to the gang. We’re a simple middle-class family that show no appearance of relating to any sort of gang, which is pretty much the only people they target to my knowledge.

We were burglarized back last December, though. It’s the first time we’d dealt with any sort of break in since my parents moved into this house around 23 years ago¹. They didn’t use any excessive force to break in and they stole primarily my brother’s game systems, my mom’s costume jewelry and the husband’s electric guitar. They almost got away with my laptop, but we assume they heard my dad pulling into the garage and they bolted out the back door. My parents think it wasn’t the gang members, but some delinquents from the high school that’s just a few blocks down. It’s a new high school, about 2-3 years old, and there’s a continuation school attached, as well. Who knows, really. My parents didn’t file a claim with their insurance or call the police since they didn’t take too much and nothing that was worth a lot. I do feel terrible that they made off with the husband’s Fender. It was old, yes, but he loved it.

My parents used to have an alarm system installed on the house, but after some false alarms and the response being slow, they decided it wasn’t worth it to keep paying for it. The burglarizing made them reconsider, especially since my dad was to deploy to Iraq and my mom always feel less safe when he’s not around. They didn’t end up going through with installing a new system in the end. I think our house now being one of the shoddiest looking on the block makes it unappealing to most burglars, anyway