Have you ever been burglarized?
Yes.
Have you gone through this?
Yes.
How long did it take to feel safe in the house again?
A few months. We used to close all the windows and lock all our doors when we left the house, but now we just leave everything open. Anyone that really wants to break in, will be able to even if we obsess about “security”, as evidenced by the past break in, so we choose to go the other direction and flagrantly disregard it altogether. It has worked so far. I definitely felt violated afterward, and it was a stressful time. I had a lot of personal info on a laptop they took, so I mourned the loss of that for a long time. I’ve been meaning to create a back up of my data and stash it somewhere unexpected (like in a cereal box in the kitchen or something, but I haven’t got around to it yet.
Did you discover things missing long after submitting the claim?
No. They tore our house apart – everything was on the floor in heaps. The only things we were missing were sizeable electronics (computer, cameras, ...). We don’t have any jewelry worth much (they tried so hard to find some, though, and we got a kick out of that). We have a lot of expensive tools, but the robber either didn’t know they were worth money or couldn’t carry them out. They only made off with a backpack’s worth of stuff, so we think they were on foot.
How did the claim you made work for you?
It was a useless exercise. It made me feel better at the time, but I’m virtually certain the police did absolutely nothing to try to reclaim our stolen goods. Even if they did find it in a pawn shop or elsewhere, they said it would be years before we’d get it back because they have to keep it impounded as evidence for a certain amount of time or something. When the cops came, they didn’t even look for fingerprints. It was pretty lame. If you have insurance that covers this sort of thing, it is worth filing a police report to be able to claim damages, though. And also, I think it is a good idea to report it anyway just so that there is a public record of it.