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 😔

I used to have a lock that operated the same way…. If I did not lock the door it would open itself in the middle of the night, I lived in a flat so assume that it was caused by air being disturbed in the communal areas when other doors were opened/closed… but it used to freak me out no end…. You have to make sure door gets locked and not just closed

@Mumof3girlygirls

Have you checked the attic?

Oh my god. This is the sort of stuff I have nightmares about....

Re changing locks, if the property is rented you must tell the owner, managing agents. Think you should inform them about your worries anyway they maybe able to follow up with previous tenants

Hope you get it all sorted

Definitely check the attic/loft just to be thorough. This can be avoided in future if you get a door lock that can be locked from the inside when it’s shut, plus a chain. If everyone agrees to lock it each time they come in and the last person puts the chain on you won’t have a repeat of this experience. I would also bug the hell out of the police to disclose the identity of the phone owner- otherwise they just won’t bother.

My house got broken into years ago (obviously different as it was more obvious) but I never found out the motivation behind it because nothing of value was taken.
But I’m willing to bet this has (a) something to do with one of your daughters or (b) someone else has a key.

Needless to say I have locks everywhere now, even on my bedroom door. Even if someone else managed to get a copy of my key, they’d not get past the chain or the alarm.

Ooh er how odd! Good you’re changing the locks. I’d check the loft/ garage/ shed but i’m ultra paranoid.

@worried91

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!

I doubt your neighbours found it as hilarious as you do. Obviously for you, it is totally normal to call out the window to someone at 1am, in my home it wouldn't be normal - everyone's different just. Thankfully my neighbours are really considerate and don't do this. Voices really carry at night when there's other noise.

To be on the safe side, don’t just change locks.

Get a sliding latch and maybe a chain latch as well, just as an extra lock to ensure the door can’t swing open.

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.

You should be careful, this can easy be misheard, shouting or not...

Some many years ago my mother woke me up to say front door was wide open and I should of closed it when I came in the night before.... I had. But I sleep walk and had apparently been out after coming home as my shoes and jeans were muddy. No recollection of the incident. Maybe sleep walking ?

I think it's brilliant, OP. Maybe next time an intruder will leave you a nice iPad or perhaps some jewellery! Better than the Tooth Fairy any day.

New locks,a ring door bell and alarm as well, you'll feel much better!

Have you heard of Phrogging OP, if I were you I'd consider all the possible hiding spaces in your home were someone could be cohabiting while you are there.
Basically Phrogging is where they hide in a place in your home an attic or Crawlspace and stay hidden then they come out when your all asleep and use your home like their own.

Whole thing very bizarre, why wouldn’t you ask your DD if she had a good eve once she was in your house rather than out the window? Lobbing mobiles at sleeping boyfriends…

Get yourself a little camera to record the front door to see who's coming and going. Only costs about £20 and it'll put your mind at rest.

What made your DH assume it was the boyfriend's phone?

Don't know what your relationship is like with your DH but there have been threads before where the husband has had a secret second phone so he can call the woman he's having an affair with. If it started ringing in the house in the early hours and woke up the spoue then someone in that situation would have to try and claim that it must be someone else's....

Make sure all bases are covered, OP.

@ToffeeMamma

Have you heard of Phrogging OP, if I were you I'd consider all the possible hiding spaces in your home were someone could be cohabiting while you are there. Basically Phrogging is where they hide in a place in your home an attic or Crawlspace and stay hidden then they come out when your all asleep and use your home like their own.

Bloody hell. I watched the Helen Hunt movie about this - didn't realise it was a real phenomenon!

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.

At 1am it would have been better to wait til she got into the house, rather than communicating from the bedroom window to the drive below? I know it’s only one small detail but I agree with other posters who suspect your house may be a bit “chaotic” and this may have unwittingly caused the strange events?

Basically Phrogging is where they hide in a place in your home an attic or Crawlspace and stay hidden then they come out when your all asleep and use your home like their own.

I’m not denying this is a thing but don’t a lot of lofts only open from the outside through the hatch? Ours you can’t open from inside.

Any update OP ?

" Even in rented properties we have done this and then just put back the landlord's original barrel when we move out."
Did you ask your landlord? I can't imagine they'd be too happy about you changing the locks on THEIR property.

Hope you get to the bottom of this OP and it was something not creepy.

Definitely get landlord to order you a new lock, it’s very easy to switch locks on a Yale door. My guess would be prior renter/owner bit weird and sneaking back? Maybe ringing themselves on the phone to try and locate it but then scarpered when they were disturbed. Would be strange for them not to bother closing the door properly though as presumably they’d be familiar with how to do it!

My first thought as well (after one of your DDs letting a mate crash) was the previous tenant needing somewhere to kip. Or maybe even giving the key to one of their mates who needed a place to stay. The only thing is, why then leave the door open when they leave? It seems silly to give the game away. Very unsettling for you, but if nothing was taken then they probably meant no harm.

@CurlyhairedAssassin as the H was alone and found the phone himself, all he’d have had to do would be switch it off and say it wasn’t coming from downstairs. You’re really reaching there!

The thing ringing alarm bells for me is the situation where this happened before, and DD had insisted she'd shut the door properly; I suspect that she had.

Both times, it's been after 1am. Plus, you'd gone down at 5 and seen the door open then, and the next time, the phone alarm itself was going off about that time (i.e. this might have been to avoid people waking up if someone had known that was what happened before). It's a strangely narrow window of time.

I'm not one for cameras but I think this would persuade me to get one.

We had a problem like this years ago when renting it turned out it was thr landlord letting himself in on nights out we lived in centre of town we moved out ASAP creep!