"What?" you may be asking yourself. "I've known you a long time, and never heard you use the word 'hate'. Not even in expressing your distaste for eggplant - you'll refer to it as 'the abomination of vegetables' but you've never said you HATED anything... where did this come from?"

"Well," I say, "there's a long history here. But the latest chapter was written today."

So, in the midst of moving and traveling and packing and all the general madness of daily life, we've been trying to clear the house out in stages.  Which means that the old house has been sitting vacant.  There are still a few things in there of value, which we are trying to sell but didn't have room to store. But other than that, there were just a few bins of personal items and the detritus of the dismantled studio. I've been back and forth daily to check mail, pack things, and clean - I actually spent all weekend there organizing and packing everything that was left.

So, I stopped by today to pick up some stuff, and as I walk through the door, I am midsentence describing all the work we've done, and my friend says "Dude, the place is still pretty torn up." I turn around and realize all of the boxes and bins had been dumped out and torn through - belongings were just strewn everywhere. I was shocked - I got about five feet into the house before I said "Someone has been in here." I walked down the hallway and was just saying "Someone broke in - " when a guy comes around the corner from the back bathroom. I totally lost my shit - I started screaming at him, and he took off - literally dived through a window into the backyard.

I ran around the house and chased him, while dialing 911.  I described him and told the police I was chasing him on foot - the operator berated me and told me to stop chasing him, so I watched as he ran down the street. By the time the cops got there, he was gone, and they said they couldn't find him. ARGH.

So, anyway - apparently I walked in on him as he was STRIPPING THE FUCKING COPPER OUT OF THE WALLS. He had turned off the water, tore down drywall, and had torn all of the water pipes out of the bathroom and laundry room. The hot water heater is totally fucked, and there is no piping in a good section of the house. He had also torn the electrical box off of the house, and cut a bunch of cabling, so that's awesome. And he had dumped out everything we had packed, and loaded bags with gear and personal belongings to steal... I have no idea at this point how much he may have stolen, as everything is such a wreck, and he was obviously making trips. :(

So, if anyone is bored tonight and wants to come over and chill with me while I redo all this work, that would be awesome. The guy obviously squats somewhere in the neighborhood, as he was on foot. I just need to get everything out at this point, and I don't want to be there alone with Crazy McTweakerpants watching my house.

GRRR. I should've just kept chasing him. I should've gone back and got the car (I almost did) and just ran him down vigilante style. The cops were so totally unhelpful - it took them like ten minutes to get there, and they made excuses as to why they couldn't take finger prints - as they were leaving, one cop even said "Well, if we know anything, we know they'll definitely be back. Copper is valuable, and now they know it's here. Hopefully we'll catch them next time..."

Next time? Yeah... that's my tax dollars at work.

Well, if I know one thing, NEXT time I'm not calling the cops til I'm done beating the Holy Bejesus out of someone with a baseball bat. That's legal as long as they are on my property, right?

I fucking hate tweakers.