Home Based Businesses Beware

Home Based Businesses Beware

On Monday October 2nd, three females posing as customers rang the bell at my home based boutique located in Bothell, WA. I did not open the door for them as they did not have an  appointment. We only take customers by appointments at our home boutique.They kept ringing the doorbell and started banging on our door, which at first I ignored. Still they continued to ring the doorbell and banging on our door. To which my toddler son got up and ran towards the door, they saw him from the glass and started saying hi and hello to him. At that point I went ahead and opened the door for them.

There were three females out of which two looked like innocent young girls, in their late teens or early twenties  and the third female was an older lady. They were all standing at my door and it was raining outside. They asked me if I sold ethnic clothes as they wanted to shop for some ethnic clothes for a wedding. I told them that I had an event over the weekend and most of my merchandise was still packed in boxes, it was still in the car and my husband has taken the car to do grocery shopping so I don't have much stock right now to show them. I asked them to come back at a later time. to which they insisted that they are coming from really far away and would like to make the purchase today itself. I told them to come back in half an hour when my husband is home as my stuff is still packed and in the car. To that they insisted if they could just come inside and wait as they were coming from very far. In the meantime my toddler was pulling me to go outside  with him since the door was open. I was trying to control him to keep him inside the house while saying no to the three ladies to come inside. My toddler was on the floor literally pulling me outside and I was trying to maintain my grip with him as well. The three ladies kept on insisting that we can see whatever you have in stock till your husband comes home. I allowed them to come inside, so my toddler could stop dragging himself out the door.

When they entered the house, I saw a fourth lady roaming around in our backyard, I am pretty sure that our side door that leads to the backyard was latched. I said who is that lady in my backyard, to which one of the younger females said, oh she is my mom. I asked what she was doing there? They said she was in the car as we have little kids in the car, she is not going to come inside, she must have wandered off. I didn't pay much attention to it at that time.

The older female kind of distracted me by saying that she needed to buy a lot of sarees (ethnic clothing) for the wedding and wanted to see the pieces that were available. So I showed them the four sarees that I had in my red almirah located in the front portion of our home. They were all wowed by the sarees and said they were all very beautiful and started deciding on the ones they wanted to buy. Both younger females asked for water so I went to the kitchen and got them two glasses of water, which they drank a very little of. The older lady asked to see the sarees draped on the two younger females so I draped three sarees on them and they like all of them. In the meantime  while I was draping the sarees, my back was towards my front door. The fourth female, who was the  mom of one of the younger females, sneaked in from the front door,  went straight up the stairs  to the second floor where we had our bedrooms. I could hear some noise coming from upstairs, there was supposed to be nobody upstairs as my husband had gone grocery shopping. I did mention the noise to the three ladies while showing them the sarees and the older female again said that she did not hear any noise at all, must be coming from outside. I still went towards the stairs to take a look and found out the fourth female, the mom of one of the younger females was coming down the stairs.

I asked her, what are you doing here? She stated she wants to buy clothes from upstairs. I told her I was showing the sarees downstairs, so she came down the stairs. Then the four females started talking to each other in their native language that I could not understand, they told me they were polish. At this point I started having doubts in my mind about these females that something was fishy. All sorts of thoughts started running through my head, the most I was concerned about was the well being of my three year old son. So I gave my son one of his favorite books, The little blue Truck, so he would sit calmly at one spot and I went and sat right next to him, rather close to him.

One of the younger females again tried to distract me by stating that I had a beautiful home and asked questions like how long had we lived in our home, whether we rented or owned the property, what will be the rent for such a property today etc etc. Then they asked me if I had change for sixty dollars, they gave me three twenty dollar bills and asked for six ten dollar bills. I told them I will have to check on that and will wait till my husband gets home, no way was I going to leave my toddler and get change for these females. I kept the three twenty dollar bills on the top of the red almirah from which I was showing the sarees and sat right next to my son again.

They finalized the three sarees they wanted to buy, I told them the price for their order, then they asked me whether I took cash payment only. I told them we take both cash or credit card payments whatever works for them. The older female asked if I had any gold jewelry, that was another red flag question for me and I told her that I didn't have any gold jewelry, just regular fashion jewelry for sale. My fashion jewelry boxes were in the garage and I could show it to them when my husband got home. I did not want to leave my toddlers side at all. They insisted that I can go to the garage and get the jewelry boxes and they can watch my son in the meantime. One of the younger females even said that she sang really well and she could sing a song to my son while I was in the garage. I firmly refused her offer and told her that I would rather wait for my husband to get home first as it will be difficult to manage the tiny jewelry pieces with my son around.

They started talking in their native language again, which I was told that they were polish. The mother of one of the younger females stated that she needs to go outside to get some cash to pay for the sarees. I told her we take credit card payments too but she wanted to pay cash which I did not question. The older female asked me for water. I quickly rushed to my kitchen and got water for her, when I came in the front area, the older female was closing our front door giving the impression that the mother of one of the younger females had gone out of the house to get cash from an ATM. I gave the older female water and sat right next to my son again. My instinct  somehow did not believe that the mother had left the house. I wanted to check on that so I told the three females that I will go upstairs and get the skirts that go with the sarees that they had selected. To this all three females got up and started walking inside my home in the dining area towards the family room. They wanted me to follow them so I didn't go upstairs. At this point I did not like them freely wandering in my house, I asked them where are you going? They said we are going to the garage to see the jewelry. I yelled at them and told them to stay in the front area of my house as it's not easy for me to manage everyone with my toddler son. Then one of the younger females asked for water again, they had all already asked for water once they had  first entered and they drank very little of it. Her glass of water was right there, I just gave it to her, held my toddlers hand and quickly ran upstairs.

To my shock and surprise, the mother of one of the younger females was in our bedroom, roaming freely. At that point I knew these females are not customers but imposters who have come to our home to steal. I yelled at her What are you doing in our bedroom? She was not shaken at all, she stood tall in front of me without any guilt and stated, " I just want to buy stuff. She started pointing at things in our bedroom saying I can buy this, I can buy this and so on. I was fuming from inside and at the same time worried about the safety of my Toddler. This  big size female with broad shoulders was standing in our bedroom which had been a safe place for all of us before this. Now we had this intruder standing right in front of us threatening our safety and security within our own home. She was not at all bothered that she had been caught, she was standing tall like she did nothing at all. Seeing her shamelessness about invading someone’s private space and having no guilt at all,  I just don't know what happened to me. I felt a certain energy within me and shouted at the top of my voice "Get out of my house or I'll call 911 right now. I guess the three females downstairs heard me and got scared hearing 911, they grabbed their shoes and ran out of my house. I could not even see them, they were out so quick. The mother of one of the younger females spread her arms sideways and said "OK get me checked I don't have anything" and she also started running downstairs. Again I don't know what got into me, maybe the thought that she must have stolen something from our bedroom, I ran after her downstairs and caught her by the door. I was trying to grab her sling bag just in case she had stolen something from us. I tried to get a hold of her, but she pushed me sideways and ran out the door bare feet in the rain. Left her black and white adidas sneakers at our doorstep. I ran after her through the end of our driveway towards a cul-de sac and saw those four females rush into a minivan that was waiting for them at the cul-de-sac that drove them all away. When I saw the minivan, it clicked that this was all a planned act. The way those 4 females got in the minivan and it took off, I had only seen it in the movies.

Parked at cul de sac: caught on camera

I walked back home from our driveway and saw my toddler son already outside enjoying the rain, at least he got to be outside for a little bit. I took him inside with me, my heart was palpitating so fast, I was trying to gather my thoughts around what just happened? The ordeal we just went through, the palpitations just won't go away and they kept getting faster and faster. Thankfully my husband got home after 15 minutes. I had been trying to call him throughout this ordeal to ask him to come straight home, but was unable to get a hold of him. Finally  I sent him a few text messages to head home straight. He had skipped the last grocery store and came straight home. I told my husband everything that happened, my heart still palpitating. My husband went and talked to our neighbors if anyone caught a glimpse of the minivan in their security camera at the cul de sac so we could get the license plate number. We got a glimpse of the minivan hidden among the trees in our neighborhood in one of our neighbors' security cameras but the license plate was not visible at all.

My husband also called 911 to report the incident, they asked their standard questions around if something valuable was stolen from our home, which we had not had a chance to check yet. So my husband told them that nothing major was stolen. We did see the broken child locks at my dresser drawers and a few cupboard door child locks open in our bedroom. I was trying to control my heart's palpitations before I could check on if anything had gone missing. The 911 agent told my husband that he should expect a callback from the local Sheriff and to answer that call. When my husband was at the neighbors checking their security camera, he did get a call from the local Sheriff who told my husband that it's your responsibility who you let into your house, since they were allowed to enter your house and nothing major was stolen, they can’t do anything about it. My husband did ask the Sheriff, what about awareness in the society about people like these so it does not happen to anyone else. The Sheriff stated they could not do anything about it.

Being a mother this incident is so fresh in my mind that my heart palpitations have not yet stopped. I cannot just sit there and do nothing about it. That’s why I sat down to write down the entire incident exactly how it happened. To get it out there to the general public and let them be the judge of how an incident like this should be handled by our country’s law enforcement. Just because nothing major was stolen or no one got hurt, just take a moment and picture this” You are alone in the comfort of your home with your three year old child and you suddening find a stranger roaming freely in your bedroom. How does that make you feel? Well I have experienced it today with my toddler son, it still gives me jitters while writing about it.

As the Sheriff said, maybe I was wrong or poor in my judgment to let those four females in our home by trusting and going by what they told me , not let them wait in the rain and have them come inside my home. Maybe as a society we have come to a point where we cannot trust anyone who we don't know personally or don’t have a relationship with. As the Sheriff said “ Times are bad and be careful who you let in your house” especially if you run a home based business. 

Hopefully my story will create awareness amongst women who run home based small businesses and this incident will not have a repeat occurrence. Coz those four females are still out there roaming freely probably planning their next target. Who would have thought such innocent faces could be predators in disguise. Being a mother,  I feel sorry for those two young females who instead of enjoying their youth are learning to cheat people. I hope someday they can get on the right path and see the light they carry (Michelle Obama).

One of our neighbors' cameras caught a younger girl jumping over our side gate and opening the latch. This probably happened when these females were ringing the bell and banging our door and I wasn’t opening the door, till my toddler son ran towards our front door. The camera also caught the two younger females running towards our front door from the side gate. That must have happened when I had finally opened the door for them. One of the middle aged females was already in our backyard by then. We got footage of the rear end of the minivan parked at the cul-de-sac and also the footage of the minivan driving up to our neighbor’s driveway from our neighborhood cameras. I just want to post this story along with the footage information so all home based businesses can be cautious and aware that these females are still out there till they get caught.