Hey OP, I want to apologize because I've had a little fun in this thread at your expense. I've been broken into twice. It's no walk in the park. The second time we waited 2 1/2 hours for the police to show up. (BTW, we live in a semi-rural, whitebread neighborhood)
The sad truth is that they are not responding quickly because there is nothing they can really do. Little property damage, little taken. If there has been a rash of these in the area, they may get more interested. The chance of them catching who did this are probably in the neighborhood of 1000 to 1 if not higher.
One thing, if they should offer to take fingerprints, make sure you really want that done. The powder they use for fingerprinting is virtually impossible to remove. I know, because I had to throw stuff away afterwords.
I have an alarm system. Would it have helped? Who knows? It would have had to be armed while your mother was sleeping for the siren to go off. Some say signs out front and stickers on doors or windows are a deterrent. I do believe they will keep some criminals away. They'll go on to another home.
Most break-ins of this nature are drug related. They break in to get money for drugs or items they can quickly sell for money, once again, for drugs. If the cops show up ask them, they'll tell you.
Sorry to hear what happened. Been there done that.
