Looking after neighbours suitcase

My thought exactly. Have you seen her husband recently as he could be chopped up in the cases.

The chronically incurious scare intrigue me 🤭.

I can think of some 'valid' reasons.

Surprise trip for hubby.
She has a big gathering planned, wants them out of the way without having to lug upstairs again.
Pets that she's worried will spray on them/claw them.
Having a workman in, not wanting to advertise they're about to leave the house vacant.

What's weird is asking without explaining and whats weirder is accepting with no explanation!

...Apart from her husband, the remains of whom are now obviously in the cases...!

Are the cases ticking or moving, OP?

😂

You've known her 7 years, OP. Is this the first time she's ever been on holiday? Is she a bit new to the whole packing and taking your own suitcase thing?

Not worth a blazing row over in my books but I’d be nagging at dh all evening asking why he hasn’t asked why!
WHY DIDN’T YOU ASK, OP?!!

My biggest regret in life is missing that very obvious joke 😭 as soon as I hit post.

So she’s packed several days early expecting someone else to store her bags? Sounds very weird to me. Surely she can keep them in her car, or a corner of her own house. Or is she running away and doesn’t want her husband to know?? I hope you at least asked what time she’s being picked up and it’s not 5am!

Or any bodily juices leaking onto the carpet?

I'm also intrigued as to why she specifically asked you to store them "in your living room"🤔

Oh and I’d be laying them on a tarp and putting on a pair of marigolds before touching them. I don’t want any of my DNA on those cases when she gets asked if she packed them/carried them/stored them herself!

This is what I think. 'Silver Separation' is a growing phenomenon. Especially among older women and even more especially for women who have lived in abusive situations and have reached their breaking point. It could be that she's stashing the suitcases at yours until one of her children or a friend comes to get her. Or that she has a real fear of him and realizes that she may have to leave in a mad rush. The idea of a 'go bag' (or go luggage) is common advice for anyone wanting to leave an abusive relationship.

@ShakyBake If she's married or living with someone (even with an adult child) I don't think there's any problem with expressing to her that you feel there may be more to this than meets the eye and that you are concerned that she may be wanting to leave the home due to domestic abuse. I'm an 'older woman' and that question wouldn't offend me in these circumstances. In fact I'd probably be pleased that a neighbour was concerned enough to ask me. And if she is not married or living with someone/a child, there is no reason why anyone should have to store her luggage for her and I'd ask for an explanation as to why it was necessary. She doesn't sound like a likely drug smuggler (or someone getting rid of a body), but these days you never know what someone (of any age) may be getting up to.

I appreciate that you want to be a good neighbour, but your DH is right to be suspicious. So solve the problem by talking to the neighbour or asking your DH if he'd like to be the one to ask.

Maybe there's just some really dull unsensational explanation, such as not wanting her husband or partner to open the cases, take stuff out and kick up a fuss about how much she's bringing (three bloody cases!) or that he's a last-minute packer who would shove four pairs of shoes in on top of her stuff?

Maybe it's the husband in two of the cases and drugs in the third. She dumps him en route and heads off for a new life in the sun.

Who takes 3 suitcases on holiday at 70?

Having a 'blazing row' about it seems unnecessary and completely OTT, but you are seriously weird for not asking your neighbour why on earth she wants to put her suitcases in your house for a few days. that is a very odd request to make however old she is.

The only thing that gives me pause about the DA angle, is surely the OP would be given the heads up, so that the OP or OP's husband doesn't say anything to the neighbours husband - if that makes sense.

Does she have an adult child and they are the dodgy one?

ABSOLUTELY NOT!

I'd have to, if I didn't understand online shopping. 4 packs of incontinence pants for a week - those packs are BIG - plus a ridiculous number of medication packs & bottles. I have to bring the meds, so I leave out the shampoo & lotions, etc, and have those delivered.

However, the state of OP's neighbour's bladder is a far less pressing issue than the Mystery Case Drop and OP's strange compliance.

This is what you get when you listen to all those commands to Be Kind - piss-takers!

Or she's not going anywhere, but has decluttered and discovered all the rules on what you can't easily dispose of? She'll never pick them up, will stop speaking to you and leave you with the problem of her expired batteries, defunct tech, knackered shoes and two cans of arsenic-laden fence paint 😉

Maybe the husband…..is in all three suitcases 🙀

edit..sorry, I read the thread arseways and missed the hundreds of others saying this earlier 👆🏼

@GarlicSomething good points.
now I’m wondering how heavy the suitcases are