Stalking to Burglary: Bag Bandits – Part 1

This is part 1 or a 2 part series of posts on what I am calling the “Bag Bandits”. This particular part of our story happened over what I believe could have been as long as a 3 year period was a systematic stalking process.(The entire story is much longer, the bag bandits was just one part of it) The bag bandits involved regular home invasions and theft, various types of harassment and an extreme amount of crazy making by bagging up belongings (anything really) and leaving them hidden in different parts of the house. There are a number of layers of activities going on here and yes we did realize that there were a group of folks involved on some level or another yet were only able to get evidence on 2 people.  Anyhoo…  moving on to the rest of the story. Like most really creepy circumstances it started fairly benign looking because you don’t always notice the books on the shelf being pushed 4 inches to the right, the coffee cup that got moved 8 inches, or the hand towel once on the counter is now by the sink etc. Well, after surviving this, I am that person with such a fine eye I could do set consistency checks for movies(in fact I am a complete pain to watch movies with right now because I look for inconsistencies more than watching the movie). We would find one or two Wal-Mart bags around the house with knots tied at the top that had random stuff in it. I am talking seriously random like masking tape, a sandpaper block and a handful of pens. (Pens and anything that writes was a huge fascination were constantly stolen) These bags would be found tucked away in places like the cabinet under the kitchen sink, the bottom of a closet shelf, the back of the pantry.  Who does this??? I think the idea was to make it look like there were just random things that I put in a bag like I was going to throw them out or I had no clue, memory, or intelligence really and just either set it aside or see if the bag was even messed with. This is important because as we found out later anything to distract you in the moment created a space for something else way worse which could happen without you even knowing. So the moving stuff around in your environment sure was in its own literal way its own things but we also found out at the same time the cell phone tracking was also an issue as well as some spying was being done by a neighbor on behalf of the stalker.

“Yes, its still stalking if you do it for someone else…”

Crazy Making and Layers of Creepy

Ok, so it’s not at all lost on me the layers of creepy, and seriously twisted emotional issues that are coming out here and no I won’t be able to articulate the process for working with each on in this article. In the midst of all of this you have to keep your wits about you and never get to involved in what is happening. The weird factor just pulls you in. If you are an idealistic type you may get too upset to the point of not being able to function, if you are more of a shy person you may be more hurt. Then you can get stuck in the emotional mindset and that is when you are most vulnerable to people who do this kind of shit to other people. Depending on the type of person you are will show how you cope with stress and this type of crazy making. If you are not that aware of how you handle this then you will find out. Save your energy you will need it. We did. Half of what people who do this shit want to know is your boundaries, stress points and the fortitude you are made of. So, be good at disguises and be a good actor/actress. Don’t show them. If you don’t know what duplicity is, learn. If you don’t know who your stalker is then keep as much of how you really feel to yourself and put on a different face until you do and can get some closure. I mention this only because I still cringe at the mindset of someone who:

• holds so much judgement (and very possibly hate) towards people they spend so little first hand contact with
• plan and organize their own time so they figure out strategic details (such as entry into the house, bypassing cameras, tracking cell phones) in our lives which would allow even the possibility for this to happen
• then follow through and do this again, and again, and again

I have just too much to do to even be writing this blog… Let alone to obsess, track, obsess, fixate, and stalk another human being. But others feel this kind of abuse is a priority in their life. Obsess much? So, don’t ever be lulled into a complacent state when you have items moving around in your environment. Get cameras, and cameras that watch cameras.