Sean, a longtime burglar in the University Heights area, recently realized that thievery by South Campus is not a worthwhile venture.
After years of breaking into homes that owners don't even bother to lock up, presumably for their lack of valuable possessions, Sean, who has asked that his name be changed for anonymity (though it has not been), has taken to riding the bus 15 minutes to Amherst, where the windows are aglow with desirable goods.
"I don't know what I was thinking all those years," Sean said. "I was basically burglarizing people for their groceries. Aldi groceries."
Two weeks ago, Sean took his first trip to Amherst. That night, he came home with two duffle bags full of laptops, PDAs, Bose radios, a cornucopia of iPods and a golden retriever puppy.
"I had to plastic bag its hindquarters so it wouldn't piss on the electrical stuff. But do you know how much one of those things costs? Highly trainable animals, golden retrievers," he said.
"We miss Cinnamon," said 5-year-old Amherst resident Julie Daisy, whose family was one of several recent victims of Amherst burglary.
Sean said that in hindsight, he doesn't know how he didn't come to the conclusion sooner.
"Man, last month, I considered a VCR a big score. You know what a VCR pulls in at the pawnshop? $15. Outdated technology," he explained.
"We were robbed?" said Autry Mitchell of Winspear Avenue, who Sean claims to have burgled last month. "They didn't take the vacuum cleaner," she added, at once starting and finishing her list of theft-worthy appliances.
He said that the profits he made added up to less than the same amount of time, and certainly less effort, than a minimum-wage job.
"I mean, the face grease, the wool cap, all that damn crouching and crawling. The slim jims, the crow bars, coming home with glass in my shoes night after night. It seemed all for naught before. But now I realize the Heights was just preparation for the big leagues uptown," he said with a satisfied grin.
Amherst, once known as one of the safest cities in the country, has seen an increase in breaking and entering reports from three last year to 12 in the past two weeks, an impact for which Sean takes full credit.
"I've actually been thinking I need to come up with a calling card," he said. "I've been thinking I could leave a copy of the bus schedule behind."
"You have to understand, I never had that kind of option before. When all someone has worth stealing is their Amy's Place leftovers, it's tough to really rub it in," he said. He paused a moment before saying, "They probably just thought their roommate ate it on them."
Aaron Roberts, Sean's downstairs neighbor, said that Sean once even tried to rob him.
"He's not a very good thief. He just walked in and took some things up to his apartment," Roberts said. "The next morning I just knocked on his door and made him give it all back."
"That was a low point for me," Sean said.
To those who know him, Sean seemed not to understand one of the basic common-sense notions of stealing from people.
"You don't sh*t where you eat," said Tiffany Hardwick, Sean's girlfriend of two months. "I would always tell him that. I mean, I've dated crooks before, and that's the only rule. He never seemed to get it."
Upon the news that he had moved to greener, less neighborly pastures, Hardwick said she would consider seeing him again.
"I mean, I still don't think he's very sneaky or smart, but this is progress," she said.
Sean, meanwhile, is enjoying the spoils of his cross-town looting.
"The possibilities are endless. I might move on to Williamsville and Clarence after that."
