buggery | I feel considerably better now.

So I've made my report to the local police about the break-in Friday afternoon.

The officer who came by was very nice and very sympathetic, and never once suggested, even by body language, that I was going overboard by filing a police report over my building's maintenance staff coming in when I wasn't home. As a matter of fact, he said it was highly unusual of them to even ask for blanket permission to enter apartments when residents aren't at home (as opposed to one-time permission when something goes wrong and needs to be fixed and scheduling is problematic). He was very clear that they were absolutely wrong to have done what they did. He did ask if I'd spoken to management, and I explained that there wouldn't be anybody from the office till Monday morning, just the on-call maintenance people in case of an emergency.

After taking down my story, he explained that the report would go on file down at the station, and that, if I wasn't satisfied with management's explanation, attitude or apology (should one be forthcoming), it would be my option to call down and pursue pressing charges. Interestingly, if it does come to that, there are security cameras in all our common areas including hallways, so that will reveal exactly who it was who went in even if management is reticent to give up the culprit. Of course, I'm more concerned with who made the decision that they should ignore my lack of permission, as opposed to the poor schlub with the monkey wrench, if those are two different people; but, well, that's something I'll get to if it becomes necessary.

The officer also clarified some legal terminology for me: it wasn't breaking and entering, because they used a key instead of disabling or going around the lock. Even if they had, it wouldn't be burglary unless they went in with the intent to commit another crime (theft, for example). Most likely it was simple trespassing. If it should turn out that they did take anything they oughtn't've, then that would be a separate crime.

In other update news, I've found a way to rig a telltale that will show whether anyone but me has opened my apartment door... crucial to my sanity, I found, when coming home after a mere hour out doing volunteer work yesterday afternoon gave me that horrible crawling feeling of violated space all over again. Not having any way of knowing whether it had happened again would make me nuts, especially during the week.