Pin that badge right here Sarge

I feel like I'm writing this post just for Mel, given her, I'll be quite honest, rather unnatural obsession with dirty curtain twitching. I am to blame for the onset of twitcheritis, having blogged about my own regular dabblings in twitchery.

Well guess what haters*, my curtain twitching has finally had a positive outcome. Thanks to my keen eye and even keener busybody-ness, I have discovered a burglary which would have gone undiscovered for weeks. Yes, I have uncovered a crime, all by peering out of my window like an 80 year old woman who has turned curtain twitching into a fine art betwixt viewings of Matlock and Murder She Wrote.

Our lounge window overlooks the three-story fire escape in the back of the building adjacent to ours. Halfway up the fire escape there is a glass door leading to the second floor flat. I have only seen someone in the flat a handful of times in the nearly 4 years we have lived here, and that is despite some heavy twitching time. Sunday, I noticed the door was wide open. It was a warm day, so I assumed that the person who occasionally inhabited the place had opened it to air the place out. Two days, three days, and then four days passed with the door appearing to be open all day, every day.

Naturally I was suspicious, but as this is a culture of minding your own, I just hid behind the curtain, watching this door which never shut. Today I decided that it was too odd to be nothing, so I called the local non-emergency number. When speaking to the woman at the precinct I felt like a complete loser, recounting this story about a door open for 5 days. I thought, for good measure and perhaps to make me look less like a woman who stands at a window all day watching the most minute activities of her neighbours, that I would mention that I was worried given the rash of burglaries in the area. As a victim of this vile, get-a-fucking-job-you-smackhead-scum activity myself, the woman on the end of the line agreed that my concern was well-placed.

As I mentioned, I phoned the non-emergency number. Non-emergency. HOWEVER, the police turned up to check out the flat within 30 minutes. 30 minutes people! Here is where it gets embarrassing for me. :::deep breath::: I curtain twitched the very outcome of my curtain twitching. Sigh. It's an addiction, back off! I didn't stand at the lounge window to spy on the police, as it's at the same level as they would have been and about 10 feet away. I'm not proud of my twitching, so I cowered beneath the bathroom window, occasionally popping up to see what the police were doing.

The extent of the policework seemed to involve opening the door, shutting the door, then opening it again. The police left after 15 minutes or so, and I figured that I would be forever doomed to be the reporter of a possible crime without finding out whether a crime was actually committed. Thankfully, twitching has its advantages, as the police phoned me back earlier this evening to confirm that someone had broken into the flat. In fact, in a burst of creative fury, they stole a laptop. Quelle surprise. Sounds eerily familiar.

I was praised for being so eagle-eyed and civic-minded, and amazingly, the words "nosy bitch" were never even uttered. I've been trying to convince The Dude that I totally deserve a medal of honour for curtain twitching valour and attentiveness, but he doesn't agree. If not a medal, at least a badge.

The moral to this story is that there is some pride in being a dirty ol' curtain twitcher. I like to view it as a sort of passive, armchair crime fighting tactic. Twitchers unite! Together we can stomp out crime and make this world a better place. Might put us out of a job though...

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*I've just realised that I have used the word "haters" twice in as many posts. I don't really know what this says about me, but I doubt it's good.