Police now are looking for several men who robbed a home on Gregg near Cline in northwest Houston, and attacked one of the people inside.
The victims say the two suspects were dressed in safety gear, hard hats and even pretended to read the water meter.
"I was just like whatever is going to happen is going to happen. I was ready for it," said a man we'll call 'Jesse.' He didn't want us to use his real name.
Jesse, along with his two friends, were handcuffed, ducted taped and robbed at gunpoint.
"We fought for like 2, 3 seconds before he put a gun on our face, and then they kicked in our roommate's door. He was in bed and they put the gun to his face," Jesse said.
This all began early Friday morning when two men, dressed in hard hats and safety vests, were allegedly checking the water meters inside the town home complex. Other homeowners even saw them.
"I saw him pretending to check the meter, and I didn't think nothing of it because he was dressed like as if he worked for the city," neighbor Myra Barron said.
But they weren't workers at all. When Jesse's friend opened the door to walk his dog, the two men apparently ran inside, tied up the guys, even beat up one of them.
"They smashed a hammer over my temple. They were trying to freak me out, man, but I didn't lose my cool," another victim, who also didn't want to be identified, said.
The suspects got away with $250 in cash, and the guys had to hobble out of the house with their hands cuffed until neighbors called police.
"The other guys had duct tape on their hands and the guy with handcuffs had blood all over him, so it kind of freaked me out and I was scared," Barron said.
It's another reason, residents say, they'll never look at a person in a worker's uniform casually again.
"You just got to be careful, you can't trust nobody. As soon as you get out of your car, you just have to be on guard ready to go," neighbor Junior Martins said.
Officials say to always make sure city workers are wearing ID badges when they're working near your home.
The city of Houston also says they typically don't go out to homes to check water meters anymore because all that work can be done electronically.
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