I had to break into my apartment....

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Oh. Well I don't know if Trekker had a cellphone with him but if he had, he could probably have called the alarm company in advance and tell them that the thing was about to go off and explain exactly why it was going to happen. That way they could avoid having to send police out, and thus he probably wouldn't have to pay an alarm fee.

 

[Holdfast]

Couldn't help thinking of...

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ4rXeMgQNE[/yt]

 

[TorontoTrekker]

I didn't need to pick the lock, the key was working and un-locking the door. But the door handle's latch (the piece the retracts into the door when you turn the handle) wasn't working. I'd turn the handle and the door would only open a tiny bit (enough for the internal latch to move from center to the edge of its hole). The door handle itself was broken.

Is it possible that someone else had attempted to break in while you were out, and that damaged the handle? I had a similar issue about two years ago - I got home, unlocked my deadbolt, and then inserted my key in the lock, but it wouldn't turn. We'd had a bunch of burglaries in the building up until then, and I guess that day was my turn, but the deadbolt stopped them.

(Good thing, too. Had they taken my laptop, I wouldn't have been able to Skype with my bf that night, and it was the night of the Battlestar Galactica series finale. I would have been most upset. )

In any case, had there been a failed burglary attempt, your breaking in would no doubt have obliterated the evidence. It might have been better to let the alarm go off and have the police to show up. I'm sure you could have convinced them that the apartment was yours (if only by describing the location of various things in the apartment that you wouldn't have known about if you didn't live there, and you must have a neighbour or two who could vouch for you).