An 82-year-old, retired real estate agent took matters into her own hands on a Saturday night in June when she heard her front door burst open in the late hours of the evening.
Louise Pepper listened as a prowler entered her home and crep up the stairs to the second story of her heritage residence in downtown Bolinas.

"This person was apparently inebriated," Pepper said. "He broke in my front door and entered the house. I was about to get into bed when I heard the door. When I came out into the hallway, the person was urinating on the floor in my husband's room."

"As you know I walk with a cane and I swung it, hitting him. I got his attention. He ran out into the hallway and I smacked him again," the octogenarian said.

Half running and half falling down the stairs from the second story, the intruder ran from the house and into the arms of sheriff's deputies.

"I have no idea who called the police, because I was calling the police and they were already at my front door," Pepper said. "Maybe it was one of the street people who called for help. They have always protected me."

"He ran out of the house and the police captured him, but it all happened so fast I couldn't identify him. It's an experience I don't want other people to have, she said.

"It scared the daylights out of me, but it turns out it was a drunk trying to get into the wrong house."

Transients entering homes in Bolinas is no laughing matter in at least one case. An eighty-year-old woman was beaten to death with a hammer and her house set ablaze by a transient homeless person who had been chased off three times before her murder. Audrey Evans, a lifetime member of the community was beaten to death in her home in January of 1983. The perpetrator was caught, convicted and continues to be confined in state prison.

Louise Pepper, who retired from real estate after a 50-year career calls for her Bolinas neighbors to lock their homes. "I thought no one would bother me. The person got into the wrong house."

She added, "I don't think the street people are a problem. I think the street people called the cops. They always protect me. If they see someone they don't know coming up my front steps they contact me. They are my protectors. I respect them and they know me and like me."