Later that winter there was a thaw, and i noticed a brown stain spreading on the ceiling above the front vestibule. This got my attention and i scaled the roof to see what was what. On the roof, about four feet from the edge and in line with my front door, i discovered a smallish hole about a half inch (~12mm) in the shingle. i probed the hole and felt something push through the plywood and fall into the attic. A few feet away, on the reverse slope of the roof, i noticed another pockmark in the shingle and a few feet downslope lay a bullet.
i live in a relatively peaceful suburb,and stray gunfire is not a regular occurrence. i called the local police to make a report and turn in the recovered slug. The officer who came out resembled Colonel Flagg. He was not impressed by my discovery, and offered no useful info about how far such a round might have traveled before lodging in my roof.
The round that pierced the roof fell about 6 feet (2m) past my front steps and i wonder if others may have fallen nearby. i'm glad no one was standing at my front door at the time- it could have ruined someone's day...
Well, the patch i did back then finally failed (Damn! we'd just repainted that ceiling!) causing me to scramble up into the attic crawlspace to improvise a more permanent solution. Not much fun climbing about on 2X4 stringers trying not to have my 80 kilo self fall through the ceiling! Here's the offending slug, retrieved today from the insulation:
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| Looks like a .45 hollow point. Nasty piece of work. |
At the time they struck, the roof was less than a year old. Damn, again. i hope the crawl through the dust and fibreglass shards won't need to be repeated any time soon. Now for hop into a nice hot shower...
(We'll have more bike-related stuff soon...)
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