the doorbell rings - what is the most unusual thing you opened the door to?

[purplesequins]

the last couple of weeks we had a few people trying to pick up the key for an air b&b
clearly something was wrong in the instructions.

I grew up living on a ‘police street’ there was always a lot going on at all times! Often there would be huge groups of cops and food vans, I loved it as a child!

My street now is the polar opposite and rather dodgy to say the least. We’ve had a certain drug addict neighbour at our door many times, trying to sell stuff or wanting to use the phone (we say no). The most annoying was at 3am asking for vinegar (I had to google why) my dog hates him so was barking his head off so the whole house woke up.

NCed for this as I've told a few people about these.

Once had the police at my door when I lived in a block of flats asking if I had seen one of the neighbours moving out because they'd apparently also taken the boiler and a lot of the copper piping with them.

Another time, same flat, I was downstairs in the block so people knocking on my window was common. This time it was two men in suits who wanted into the building, I popped out in my socks to open the security door for them and found broken glass all over the entry. When I told them to watch for the glass they told me that's why they were there, they were CID and there had been an attempted murder (I had apparently slept through all the noise.)

Last one was on Valentines this year. Not the same house as I've moved a couple of times since then. A flower delivery came to the door and DD answered it. The man said "flowers for [my name]" so she accepted them and brought them in. I read the card and was really confused as while it was addressed to my name, the number was my neighbour's (she'd heard the name and sent them to our door), and I didn't know anyone with the sender's name (only first names on it.)

After a couple of posts on social media in local groups to try to find them and a message to the florist we managed to trace the real recipient, she lived on our street but further up on the other side but was the even number in between mine and my neighbours (eg she was 24 and we were 23 and 25.)

I took them along to her myself and let the florist know I'd found her and taken the flowers to her. The next day the florist came to my door with a massive bouquet of flowers for me to say thanks for going to the trouble of finding her.

2 policemen in full gear with tasers and the lot wanting to search my house!

My phone had gone all wonky and I'm trying to reset it I accidentally sent out an emergency alert and couldn't turn it off. Then when they were trying to get in touch with me it had crashed completely so they sent these two massive beefy men round to check if DH was attacking me.

Scary and embarrassing but very reassuring to know that they can be there so quickly and take things very seriously!

My father and a couple of his friends ran a fan club for an American singer (we were in the UK!) and it went really crazy! They weren't expecting it and had used our address for correspondence! We got hundreds and hundreds of letters!

Then one summer (circa 1994/5) when my sisters and I were middle school age there was a knock at the door and some random guy had come over from Italy to see the fan base headquarters! He was lovely - we had some photos with him and he stayed for tea! My dad quickly changed to P/O address after that though!

I'm glad people still open their front door

today we had some primary aged school children ask if we had odd jobs they can do for tuck money.
I was tempted to give them my laundry pile to sort and fold but decided on giving them a bucket of soapy water to clean my bike.

A few months back there was a neighbour at the door who said, "I think my son has just flown his helicopter into your garden."

Said garden is a pocket handkerchief and the aircraft was one of those little remote control machines no longer than about 15 cm long. His lad played with it for the first time and pressed the button too hard, then had a panic as it flew over several gardens out of sight. Luckily we found it nestled between a rose bush and the fence. He's been very careful ever since.

Very late at night, my mother opened the door to an unknown older lady who said her husband had been chasing her round their kitchen with a sledgehammer. She had been forced to run a mile up a country road in the dark. She had run past every house in the village to get to ours, despite not having met us.

While waiting for the guards, she explained that she couldn't go to her daughter's home because the daughter was 7 months pregnant. My mam was confused as she was days away from giving birth herself. She wasn't thinking straight.

We heard of the lady sometimes as you do in a village. Not long afterwards, her husband went on to win the lottery and she became a millionaire several times over.

Other than that it's been sheep, mainly.

Cows, but they didn’t ring the doorbell

A German Shepherd!

He was lost and he came to my house and scratched on the door.

I heard him and opened the door and he smiled at me and came indoors to the delight of my dogs and promptly laid down in the living room and made himself at home.

He had a collar and tag and I phoned his very worried owners and they came to collect him!

No idea why he came to my front door as the front is gated and I have a long drive so he must have jumped in! He was gorgeous and we were sad to see him go!

A policeman came to tell my flat mate that his father had died. Flat mate was out at the time and I had to tell him when he got home.

The undertakers to collect the deceased. It took a while to convince them that they had the wrong address, they seemed to think that i was in shock/denial...

My neighbour called after being away "traveling" for over a year to see if we had any post for them and to check if there had been any issues with the tenants that had been letting their property. The surprising thing about it was when they had left on the trip she was a very stylish feminine woman called Leigh Anne and upon return she was heavily tattooed bald male with a massive badge on their T shirt saying "Hello my new name is now Lee my pronouns are He/Him".

Apart from the badge no other mention has ever been made to the radical change, he wore it for about a week while he was out at the local shops and around the park and square. He is a great neighbour, no complaints here it was just very surprising. It took DH awhile to believe it was the same person.

I've just remembered my poor old MIL who walked to our house one Sunday morning. She didn't know a shorter route so came 'the way the bus went' - she was exhausted and thought it hadn't seemed very far on the map. It must have been 4 or 5 miles and she'd had to cross a very busy dual carriageway. I think reality hit her when she realised how lucky it was that we were in - DH worked shifts. We made her a cup of tea and DH drove her back before he went to work. At the time it was put down to her eccentricity.

In the middle of a hurricane with the rain pelting and wind howling a man in a rather inadequate rain poncho knocked on the door, soaked through. It turned out to be a neighbour who was knocking on all the doors to collect up old towels etc to take to shelters for those evacuated or flooded out of their homes.

A man handing me a small bag of weed. I was 39 weeks pregnant and burst out laughing. Poor guy.

While staying at my grandparents' house, next door to a night club/bar that has been closed due to covid, I opened the door (well, actually, just a window on the door) sometime past 10 pm to a man asking if we were open. What is open? The brothel - the phone says it's here. Oh, in that case it's closed. - shuts door firmly.

Armed police officer asking us to evacuate the house as a woman 2 streets over (terrace street) was threatening to blow her house up 🤷‍♀️ not ideal with 3 dogs and 2 small children by yourself!
Bless him! Think he felt bad for me as got another officer to give me a lift to my in laws with the dogs and kids as my car was in the garage! 😂

a man who held his very bloody wrist out and said "can you help please" but refused to come in incase he dripped on my carpet. I rang an ambulance and gave him a towel and stayed with him until they came. He'd had an accident with some sort of tool and was very obviously in shock. He came back later to say thank you and brought me a new towel.

A very young woman knocked on my door at about 1 and said she was having trouble with a taxi driver. She jumped over my wall away from the road and left. Then a couple of hours later the police knocked saying she had jumped the taxi and I had let her in to my house. I told her I had done no such thing and I had to be up for work soon so could people stop knocking on my door please. Never heard from them again.

Not us but, My dad was staying with us once and grew up a few streets away, had gone out with his friends one night and in a not quite drunk but definitely merry state tried to get into his childhood house instead of ours by mistake 😂 got a call at 3am from a very confused dad asking where we lived 🤣

This is terribly outing but never mind!

Many years ago I was woken at 7.30 on a Saturday morning by a furious knocking at the door. I was horrendously hungover and when I opened it thought I was hallucinating as there was the single most attractive man I've ever seen holding a kitten.

He explained that he was on his way to work and had heard a noise in my bush (!) which turned out to be this absolutely tiny kitten. I told him that it wasn't mine (allergic to cats!) but I took it in. He went off to work and I spent the day ringing round rescue charities to find someone who would take the kitten for rehoming.

Managed to get the kitten collected by a very nice lady who ran a rescue centre and I'm sure it had a lovely life.

Anyway, attractive man came back that evening on his way home from work to check that the kitten was ok and long story short.....that's how I met DH!

@AlexCabot that’s beautiful!

Ours wasn’t the doorbell, it was a knock - it was a peacock

Alex Do sell that lovely story to Chat and give everyone reading in on their lunch break and in hospital a warm glow.

@Queryquestion

Alex Do sell that lovely story to Chat and give everyone reading in on their lunch break and in hospital a warm glow.

What is Chat?

It was a knock, and it was a man holding an enormous, still feathered turkey minus its head. I couldn’t work out what the fuck it was looking at it in the gloom.

It was an unbidden pre-Christmas gift from the farmer who rented my parents’ paddock. Luckily grandma was staying with us and she plucked and prepped it.

Another year he “gifted” us a truckload of rotted horse manure dumped in our foldyard. I wonder if he hated us and was actually the king of passive aggressive gift giving?

An elderly man who lived in our house as a child. He brought some photos of his family in the house and we had a lovely chat over a cup of tea and a walk around. He said his parents and all his siblings had now passed away so he wanted to see their home one last time.