NCed for this as it's very outing but I've been around on and off for a while (post-penis beaker but pre-spangran for a general idea.) I'll try to keep this as brief as possible while including all the information so I don't drip feed lots later.
We live in a 4 in a block set of flats, all with own front doors into gardens. We rent an upstairs flat privately and downstairs is also private but a different landlord. Downstairs has been empty for almost a year with the landlord appearing on random weekends to do work inside. There is a large shared back garden, with a shared area and then "divided" lengthways for each flat. However, there are no boundaries within the garden and our agreement with the previous downstairs tenants was just to share the whole lot as it made it easier. During this time they installed a large wooden playframe on "our side" which is still there although they took the swings from it with them. They also left a lot of damp-damaged furniture in the shared shed which the landlord has been meaning to clear out, and a bunch of toys across the garden which are piled up behind the shed now too.
Yesterday we heard the squeaky shared side gate open and close and some voices. The children from various neighbours often lose their balls into our garden so I expected it to be them but when I went into the kitchen I saw a couple walking along the back garden and a small child playing on the playframe. I guessed they were maybe viewing the flat and just wanted to check out the garden.
DD1 was at our front door with the dogs in our own enclosed front garden area when they were leaving, they asked if the driveway in front was ours (which it is) and then crossed the road to their car. DD1 got the dogs inside just before I saw their child run from the back garden to the road holding something (I guess a toy from behind the shed) and a large green hula hoop. OUR large green hula hoop. They loaded her and the hula hoop into the car and drove off before we had a chance to go down and say it was ours.
So should I put a note through the door for when the landlord is next there explaining that they mistakenly took our hula hoop and asking for it back? I could try and catch him in person but we never know when he'll be there and don't have contact details for him.
I know it's "just" a hula hoop, and it's a basic plastic one, not an expensive weighted one or anything, so I could just leave it, but it's the CFery of taking things out of someone else's garden that's pissed me off. If they do this when viewing a garden, I don't know what they might do as actual neighbours.
As per MN rules I've drawn a diagram to help. Not to scale. I'm using the app so I hope the photos appear as I know they don't always show up for everyone, there should be one bigger one then a cropped one of just our bit.