Phantom dog door

When we got Apollo in 2006, we got this fancy dog door for him. It's magnetic, so he wears a little magnet on his collar and when he approaches the door, it senses said magnet and opens. There is some electricity involved (it plugs into the wall), so there's some noise associated with it's opening and closing. You can hear it, once you are attuned to the sound, throughout the house. It's more secure than those flap-style doors, and it has a switch to turn it completely off. Plus, it keeps the cats inside (except for Atticus, who has figured out how to sneak out behind the dog).

Lately, I've been awakened at night by the stupid door "going off". At first, I think it's just the dog making a late night potty run, but then I hear him snoring in the corner of the bedroom. The first time this happened, it totally freaked me out. I laid awake in bed convinced that there was an intruder in the house, yet somehow too coherent to wake Jeremy because I knew I was being ridiculous. A person CAN fit through the door, but it wouldn't be easy, and it would make a lot of racket. Plus. Apollo would (hopefully) hear it and go investigate. Last night, the door "went off" about 5 times in a row. It was so annoying! I finally had to walk downstairs and deactivate the thing. There were no human footprints in the snow outside, so I figured we were safe.

It got me thinking: why would anyone want to intrude on our house? We're so boring, and its not like we really have anything of value. No money lying around, no jewelry...just a big TV and a Wii (ha ha ha .... we got so addicted to Guitar Hero that Jeremy bought a Wii yesterday with some bonus money from work. I hope we get our money's worth out of it, but that is anouther story). But how can you "steal" a big TV in the middle of the night? Do people just intrude for the sake of intruding? I hope I never have to find out!