Someone was in our house last night.

[worried91]

Am so worried and confused about what happened.
1am- DH and I go upto bed, dd1 has popped out to pick up her boyfriend from the pub and bring him back here and dd2 has just arrived home from work. Younger dc have been asleep for hours.
5am- I hear a phone vibrating in the house and what sounds like an alarm, dh puts his ears to the older dc's doors but thinks it's coming from downstairs. Goes down past the (closed?) front door and locates the phone down the back of the couch. Knocks on oldest dd's door and throws the phone to her sleeping boyfriend saying he'd left it downstairs.
8am dd2 goes downstairs for a drink and the front door is wide open. I hear her coming up to check on the little two who are still asleep in bed.
At this point I start getting concerned so go into dd1s room and her boyfriend says the phone isn't his! He thought dh had got confused about who he was giving it to at 5am so just put it under the bed and went back to sleep.
Dh insists the door was closed when he walked past it at 5am (Yale lock no handle so when it's not clicked closed it swings wide open so I believe it was closed)
Back door is locked with the key in the door and the conservatory has an added locking system over the original lock that hasn't been moved.
We live in a nice area, we are on the edge of town with fields all around so you wouldn't walk past our house going anywhere else iyswim, you'd have to be deliberately coming this way.
We rent our house (moved in 18 months ago) so we don't know who all had keys before us which stupidly never crossed my mind until this morning 😕
Nothing seems to have been touched, my bag is over the end of the stairs, the cars and keys are all there and no laptops etc are missing.
I've no idea why anyone would have come in, lost their phone on the couch then left again without us hearing anything.
I'm worried that the person must have still been in the house when dh went downstairs then left the door open when he went out.
The only other thing to add is one night a few weeks ago dd2 came in at 1am then I went out at 5am and the door was wide open. I told her to be more careful when she came in and she insisted that she had closed the door properly but now I'm wondering if someone has done this before.
We've phoned the police who are coming out at some point to talk to us and pick up the phone (phones locked with a gaming picture on the Lock Screen) and will be going to B&Q to get new locks but I feel so on edge wondering what's been going on 😔

When I was a teenager my boyfriend snuck over to our house took ladder out of our shed and climbed up to my bedroom window. I woke up terrified and screamed as no idea it was him.

Parents rushed in, boyfriend fell off ladder and scarpered. Parents called police. Never admitted to them the truth and I’m almost 50. To this day they think it was someone trying to break in. I’d imagine this might be similar.

I lived in a flat and a few times drunk people in the corridor would try and get in thinking it was thier flat. Didn’t help all the corridors looked the same so easily done even when sober. Could be someone’s entered the house before realising it’s not the right one

@NumberTheory yup agree. Have disturbed two intruders in the middle of the night. They said hi then legged it 🤣. Not at all scared of being burgled as a result.

@Oaktree55 That’s hilarious! Do tell them!

You live in a quiet residential street? It doesn't sound quiet to me, car doors slamming, shouting out of windows in the early hours!

There’s a very slight risk a burglar who is sneaking into a house at night looking for some quick cash is also a psycho. But those ones will probably come into your bedroom anyway whether you leave your wallet downstairs or not. The vast majority of burglars won’t venture somewhere they think a person might be and if they come across someone in the house will leg it asap, not try and “take care of you”

I would still rather leave valuables downstairs, just in case. I can't imagine how terrifying it would be to wake up to a strange man in the bedroom. I'd hope that he would see my purse and car keys in the hall, and just leave with those. It's probably different for a guy. But I'm 5 ft 1 and couldn't fight off a cat, let alone a bloke.

It’s probably from all the people coming and going from your house in the early hours.
If I were you I’d be more worried about complaints to the landlord about being shitty neighbours.

About 20 years ago friends of ours in London were burgled at night. Ordinary Victorian terrace, nice area but nothing fancy. The burglar got in through the patio doors, found the husband's wallet in the kitchen, still went upstairs, took the wife's handbag from beside the bed while they slept and went out through the front door leaving it open. They didn't hear a thing. Very unusual but very scary. They got an alarm with motion sensors but until then left wallet and handbag out on the kitchen worktop every night before they went to bed.

There’s a poster on here who was living somewhere where a previous tenant still had a key and he came in one day and raped her. I’m not saying that this the plan of the person coming in (if there is a person), but just to those people saying don’t bother changing the locks. It’s probably statistically rare, but still.

@Jonad

There’s a poster on here who was living somewhere where a previous tenant still had a key and he came in one day and raped her. I’m not saying that this the plan of the person coming in (if there is a person), but just to those people saying don’t bother changing the locks. It’s probably statistically rare, but still.

On a new housing estate the tight as a duck's arse penny pinching housebuilders will probably only use 10 diifers across the whole estate so you have a one in ten chance of getting into another house with your key. First thing to do in a new house is change the cylinders!

BitOutOfPractice

On a new housing estate thetight as a duck's arse penny pinching housebuilders will probably only use 10 diifers across the whole estate so you have a one in ten chance of getting into another house with your key. First thing to do in a new house is change the cylinders!

Some builders & finish carpenters would tend to have a collection of duplicate keys of common locks for when sites / houses start to be locked up when empty.

I originally thought occams razor - daughter has left door open before so probably that but the timings and phone has thrown me off.

So alarm went off at 5am and DH went down and brought it up to boyfriend, door was locked at this time. So sometime between 5am and 8am the door was opened. OP/DH heard DDs coming back early hours but didn’t hear anyone else coming into the house so if it wasn’t for the phone I’d probably say sometime after 5am the door just clicked open? (Even though that’s weird in itself, that it was shut for so long) unless it was open but shut ‘to’ and DH didn’t see it properly.

The phone though I have no idea but I’d have done a bit of sleuthing before handing it to the police. I’d have taken the sim out and called another phone to get number then added as a contact to see any WhatsApp account and photo etc.

I hope you get an answer OP but I think this may be an unsolved mystery. I’d install a ring doorbell, make sure DD closes door properly in future and I’d possibly change the locks too to be safe.

You spoke to your DD2 OUT THE WINDOW at 1am when your neighbours are mostly young families and retired people. Why do you think this is appropriate? Voices carry at night. So inconsiderate.

Yeah i thought this too - but it doesnt explain the open door and the strange phone.

Initially I thought it was one of the DDs or the boyfriend sneaking someone in to crash on the sofa. But DD2 would have just quietly shut the door at 8am rather than raise the alarm and DD1/BF would have made some excuse about accidentally picking up a mate's phone and kept it to return to them. I don't think they would have allowed the police to be called and their mate's phone taken in for questioning.
So I think it's a coincidence. Random phone that was picked up accidentally or has been lost down the sofa by a previous visitor coinciding with a door that doesn't shut properly and was 'closed' by DD2, the last one home, who has form for this.

Sorry, DD1/BF were last home but still think it's a coincidence.

"the landord can only enter your home with your permission"

They may need to enter in an emergency.

Some of the replies on here are hilarious!
I wasn't "shouting" out the window to dd, I opened the window to ask (in a normal tone 🙄) if she'd had a good shift.
We also don't have car doors "slamming all night" one dd came in from work and the other picked up her boyfriend from a night out- both totally normal activities!

@Gwenhwyfar

"the landord can only enter your home with your permission"

They may need to enter in an emergency.

What kind of emergency needs the landlord rather than the tenant? If a fire, the brigade don't hang about waiting for the landlord to turn up, and I can't see gas engineers waiting either if there's a leak.

@HirplesWithHaggis my landlord needed to get into my flat when I was on holiday once as upstairs had a burst water pipe which was causing damage in my flat.

Fair enough on that one then. :)

But it's hardly a daily occurrence.

Ooh, I'd be getting another lock on that door as well as changing the wonky one too. And get a dog....

Have you checked the attic?

Thank god your all ok and nothing was taken! Intrigued to find out who it was! Hopefully they can do something with the phone

So it must be a random person (vs sleepwalker etc) if the phone was lost.

I knew a bloke who regularly got so drunk he went in his neighbours house instead of his own. He'd wake up on sofa, panic and exit.

Argh this would creep me out so much!! Glad you're all ok and nothing taken though! Intrigued to find out what actually has gone on here!!