Five Recovery Steps After a Break-In

A young woman called me today. Seems her husband inadvertently left the garage door unlocked and someone wondered into her home and stole her purse. Fortunately nothing else was taken and by the details provided, it didn't sound like a professional thief who did this, more like bored kids. Here are five quick things I told her to do:

1. File a police report.
2. Re-key all of the locks (if the person has your keys it's a good bet they may return...maybe with a U Haul).
3. Cancel all credit cards and bank accounts then put a fraud alert on your credit report.
4. File an insurance claim (depending on what was taken)
5. Go about replacing what was lost (driver's license, library card, etc). Note that when doing this you will want to alert the agency that your cards/documents had been stolen.

Recovering from a theft or break-in will take much longer to heal psychologically however it is imperative that you take immediate action to deal with the immediate things that can ruin your life (such as identity theft, the possibility of further damage, etc). Fortunately, while the young lady was disturbed about the situation, she was able to think logically and be appreciative of the fact that no one was home when this happened, no one was injured or killed in the incident, and it was just stuff that was taken which can be replaced.