Looting (1 of 9): Preparation.

The first night after the looting broke out, it was clear to me that I'd need to spend the night at the resthome and at the apartment of my one assisted living client with disabilities, both of which had been cleared in advance, the first as part of the resthome's general emergency plans that they had in place for blizzards and stuff and that they then had updated for Covid.

I made sure to let my landlord know that I'd be gone for like a week, and I also had sent him this list from the Minneapolis city government on how you make your house safe, and we started putting that into effect.

First, we took out pretty much everything from the backyard: lawn furniture, flower pots, a detachable pipe attached to a drainage pipe, decorative bricks that were lining one flower bed.

(In retrospect, don't decorative bricks seem like a naive thing to have just sitting out in your yard?)

Then, I took some rags and an old sheet and put them up to cover the windows on the enclosed back porch, so that no-one could see inside.

He was getting his wife and kids to go stay at their in-laws for the night - they all live upstairs from me - so I then went and did the last step, putting water over the garbage and recycling in the bins next to the back couchhouse in the alley, and I made sure to let a tenant in the couchhouse know, so he wouldn't be freaked out if he saw this liquid suddenly everywhere in the alley and he wasn't sure where it came from.

The next morning when I went to go get in a cab to get to work, too - there was no public transportation in my part of the city, and the resthome was paying for a cab, thankfully! - I made sure to leave a light on in my apartment, and the enclosed back porch.

I had also left my laptop and ID documents with my landlord to keep in a closet in his apartment, so that way they were safer once they got back, rather than having them just sitting out in my empty apartment.

That seemed a little bit much to me, but better safe than sorry, if anyone broke in.

That night, my landlord texted me to see if the front light on the porch was blue, since people on Facebook were saying that rioters and looters were targetting porches that had blue front porch lights.