I’d set the house on fire, see if anyone runs out, call the insurance company.
Don’t be stupid.
How’d I do? lol
Been there, done that. the old “Oh crap! that could have been really bad!” Or “Oh shiite! that was bad, I could be dead!”. All good advice.
You must be out in the sticks. Those of us closer to urban areas always lock the house, even when we take out the trash.
If you really want to get serious about it, practicing basic hand signals informally on a daily basis would be a good idea for being able to speak silently when you need to. Work out some useful words and connect them with hand forms.
Also, get a big dog and train it to search the house and yard.
I had a recent "bad guy" incident in which light discipline solved everything. I spotted intruders literally at my window, and in under 60 seconds I had all the interior lights off, exterior lights on, and had armed myself. Then I called 9-1-1. The police apprehended the (three) criminals at another neighbor's home. They were armed and had done occupied home invasions before. One of their comments was that they left my home and went to that house because "it was creepy" that someone would turn the lights off after seeing them. I think they're stupid that they didn't go home. The police took ten minutes!
What I did was an almost exact duplicate of what I had practiced two nights before in reviewing how I should respond to someone breaking in. Practice is everything.
If you’ve got a free hand while clearing your house, consider carrying your car keys in that hand.
Modern car keys have a panic button, so you now have a way to alert family members and neighbors immediately, should you need to. Of course, it’s a good idea to tell them in advance what that repeated car honking will mean.
By the way, that’s also why it’s a good idea to keep your car keys on the table next to you at night. Keep the spare set in the kid’s bedroom for the same reason.
Keep stuff cleared off the floor. For example, You wouldn’t want to stumble over a pair of shoes in the dark.
After shutting the lights, place your hands over your eyes (with eyes open) and count to twenty. When you remove your hands you'll be amazed at how much night vision you have.