‘I just saw a hand reaching for our light switch’: New Kelowna residents wake to home intruder

A couple who just moved to Kelowna’s Glenmore neighbourhood from New York less than a week ago had an alarming wake-up call on Wednesday morning.

Around 5 a.m., Lisa Farlow said she’d just put her toddler back to sleep and was resting in a bed in his room when she heard the door creak open.

“And then I just saw a hand reaching for our light switch,” she said.

When Farlow realized it wasn’t her husband, she started screaming.

“She was screaming in like the most visceral, guttural way I’ve ever heard in my life, and I instantly thought that something had happened to our son because to hear that kind of raw emotion coming from her could only mean danger,” said Ben Gorodetsky, Farlow’s husband.

Gorodetsky ran down the hall to his wife, but the man who had broken into their home had been spooked and fled.

That’s when the couple looked around at their living room and realized what was missing.

“Irreplaceable treasure after irreplaceable treasure.”

The couple had moved to Kelowna from New York less than a week ago because Gorodetsky had been offered a job teaching creative studies at UBC Okanagan.

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In addition to stealing clothes and laptops, the thief also took a hard drive with 15 years’ worth of Gorodetsky’s plays, photos and music.

“It was just so violating and so heartbreaking to have lost all of my creative work, everything I’ve ever made,” he said.

Gorodetsky is planning to debut his new show Biblioteka at Kelowna’s Living Things Festival, but all of his research materials for the play were also taken.

“There were so many notes, and so much content and details that don’t make sense to anybody except for me,” he said.

“They’re not valuable in any way except for me because they’re a year’s worth of research and thinking and drafts. It’s devastating.”

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Farlow said she was devastated by the loss of her husband’s work.

“A friend actually said she wanted to buy the replacement mitts for us, so that when we put them on him, we remember that we were cared about, rather than remembering that we were hurt.”

Being from Brooklyn, Farlow said the family locks the door and doesn’t know how the thief got in.

“Last night was really hard,” she said. “The toddler woke up again in the early morning, and I just had this frozen flashback.”

“I didn’t want to touch the light switch. I used a toy to turn it because I didn’t want to actually physically touch the light switch,” she added.

“We put a barricade at the door. I feel really scared.”

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Gorodetsky said the whole incident feels violating.

“I didn’t realize how physically palpable it was. It’s just like a shiver that runs up your spine,” he said.

The couple is hoping that somebody will find a blue Herschel backpack with Gorodetsky’s hard drives and notepads inside.

“The stuff that is of value, keep it, but the stuff that is only valuable to me, if someone could return it, that would be the most amazing thing in the world,” he said.

Police said the suspect was described as a male wearing a navy blue jacket with a fur hood.

Despite extensive patrols in the area, he has not been arrested, according to RCMP.