Trusting Your Instincts

I was talking with my neighbor Susan today. She was raking up the last of the leaves in her yard. I noticed a “For Rent” sign in her garage. I asked her what she rented, what she used it for. She said that she has owned a duplex for about 10 years now. She bought it when her and her husband were realtors. Thanks to the economy, they have had trouble renting one side for the past 6 months, but they finally found good people to rent it, so they had just put the sign back into their garage.

I spoke with her a bit about being a realtor, as myself and my husband were both realtors about the same time frame. She said that she had to stop because she was assaulted when she was showing a house once. She was a bit leery to hold open houses on her own, and show houses at night, but it was the job she had chosen, and they put a lot of time and effort into it.

She was mentally beat up to begin with because there were so many realtors out there, so many with years of experience that nobody wanted to list their house with her. Not to mention, she made the mistake of going with a not so well known company. She didn’t receive any leads from her broker, and cold calling was the worst. When she did finally have someone to show houses to, they would find a house they liked when they were on their own, call the number on the sign, and leave her out of it all together after all the time she spent with them, driving them around.

Well, one night she went to a house a gentleman was interested in that was in a pretty secluded area. She went up to the lock box to open it, and all of a sudden, he came up behind her and grabbed her. She had a bad feeling to begin with, and she was prepared to defend herself, so she already had pepper spray in the pocket her hand was in, pulled it out and got him good. She fled out of there as fast as she could, and that was the last day she worked as a realtor.

What a shocking story. If you yourself may have a job where you feel you really should have some sort of protection on you, or a close friend, a security care gift set has all the necessities. It contains a personal alarm, an easy to conceal pepper spray pen, a stun gun, and a key chain alarm with flashlight.