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Original poster

Someone was in our house last night.

470 replies

worried91 · 10/04/2022 10:59

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 😔

OP posts:
WTF475878237NC · 10/04/2022 12:34

Best guess is a drunk got the wrong house

Shadow1986 · 10/04/2022 12:34

Could you go to your photos and randomly pick one to ‘air drop’ and hold near the phone…this sometimes gives you available devices to air drop to…which might give you a name? Mine is called ‘shadow iPhone’ for example.
Hope that makes sense.

Tiddlesthecat · 10/04/2022 12:34

Logical answer would be someone that ex tenant allowed to crash on their sofa from time to time and still has a key or a friend of one of your DDs. No ex tenant in their right mind would have a kip on the sofa knowing that the new tenants were in the house, surely?

HemanOrSheRa · 10/04/2022 12:36

I'm sure you've already checked but are all your car keys still in the house? Cars where they should be? Only we had our car stolen then a few weeks later a young lad climbed in through DS's bedroom window. DP bumped into him on the landing and had a whole conversation with him about why he was wandering around! The lad went into DS's room and sat on the bed (DS sound asleep!). DP woke me up and asked who the hell this kid was sleeping over! There wasn't anyone sleeping over. We ran into DS'S room but he'd gone back out the window. The police knew exactly who he was. He had form as a 'creeper' type burglar and he was coming back for the key to our new car!

Shadow1986 · 10/04/2022 12:37

Also, if it’s an iPhone. Even when my phone is locked, I can swipe up and it’ll show previous notifications so this may give you some clues as to who’s phone it is.

Seemssounfair · 10/04/2022 12:38

@MadMadMadamMim

I can't get over the fact your DH thought it was acceptable to knock your DD and bf up at 5am and throw a phone at them.

Wtf? They'd only been in for 3 hours. Why on earth would you wake them for this?

Ha!

Thought the same, also thought you were having a conversation with your dd out the window onto the driveway at 1am! Why couldn't you just wait until she got in the house. Nice quiet cul de sac, car doors going constantly and conversations out of windows at 1am.

Whoever the owner of the phone is will provide the answers. I would have been tempted not to call the police until someone rang it and I answered to find out who it was. I suspect it will go into police lost property, lose charge and you will never find out.

Blanketpolicy · 10/04/2022 12:39

If it is an iPhone does pressing the home key and asking Siri to "call mum" (or other random names) still work?

Sandinmyknickers · 10/04/2022 12:40

When I was a student there was a problem with house shares whereby previous tenants would make copies of the keys and give them to their drug dealers if they had debts and then the next year when new students came in, the dealer could go in and easily just take several laptops (this was 2010s when almost all students had a laptop but it was still big and bulky and they didn't take them to lectures so in the daytime an empty student house would easily have 6-8 laptops lying around.
As a result, most landlords in the area installed keypad locks so that they could change the code each year without having to change the locks (I know you can still break in but it suddenly makes it a lot more effort and the problem stopped)
Sorry its maybe not a helpful story, but I would check to see if anything is missing- the purpose of my example was that they weren't full on burglaries which ransacked the place, just opportunistic based on easy access and taking small items

nancyclancy123 · 10/04/2022 12:40

Could you ring the landlord? One way of checking if it's his phone?

NotSoLittle · 10/04/2022 12:41

Whatever the outcome, get a mortice lock on the door instead of just relying on the yale lock. One of our ex-neighbours used to frequently lock herself out & my dad used to use a piece of flexible plastic (that he had for baking not burglary!) to let her in again. It was ridiculously easy. Also get a chain on the door - last one in puts it on at night.

Summersolargirl · 10/04/2022 12:44

Suspect the two are unrelated.

The door wasn’t shut properly and just blew open after your husband went back to bed.

The phone was down the back of the sofa, so it’s someone who you know who has been in the house the last couple of days, or the boyfriend has a second phone and he’s denying it.

Original poster
worried91 · 10/04/2022 12:45

Youngest dc are at primary, definitely not them.
Dd2 came back alone as I was getting into bed so definitely not her. She's through the wall from me and I heard her coming to bed.
Dd1 and boyfriend came in after we were asleep but both swear no one came home with them. It would be 100% out of character for them to lie they are both really good kids but even if they did bring someone back they know I'd rather have a stray friend being safe so would have no reason to lie to me about it.
We are miles from and pubs so I suppose it could be a house party someone has come from and walked by our house but honestly in the year we've been here we've never seen anything that exiting going on. Our neighbours are mostly retired and a few young families as well.

OP posts:
NinjaQueen · 10/04/2022 12:45

I hope you find out as that is pretty creepy. I reckon drunken mate of one of your dc the r something else not sinister.

Wysterialane · 10/04/2022 12:46

Haha I was thinking the same, you sound like nightmare neighbours Grin

RosieRoww · 10/04/2022 12:48

@Snoopfroggyfrogg

Could the BF have picked up someone else's phone by mistake in the pub, perhaps forgetting his was in his pocket, and left it on the side?
Yes this was the first thing that came in my mind as well.🧐
PunchMunch · 10/04/2022 12:49

@MadMadMadamMim

I can't get over the fact your DH thought it was acceptable to knock your DD and bf up at 5am and throw a phone at them.

Wtf? They'd only been in for 3 hours. Why on earth would you wake them for this?

Maybe because the OP and her dh were also woken at 5am by an alarm they very reasonable assumed they boyfriend had set in his phone he'd left downstairs and needed to be awake for.

Why would he not wake someone he assumed needed to be up? Doesn't sound like he threw phone to harm the boyfriend but more like he's opened the door, thrown it on the bed to wake him up.

closetmeupandshootmetotheskies · 10/04/2022 12:52

If the lock on the door hasn't been tampered with, someone got in because the door was unlocked.

You need to be having a chat with your DD about remembering to lock the door when she gets in.

Also, as if people move into homes and keep the existing locks. Seriously? Really? Why would you do that? Anyone could have a key cut.

You got lucky this time OP. And yeah, I know, people shouldn't be going into properties that aren't theirs. That would be awesome if they could not but the world is full of jerks.

NeverChange · 10/04/2022 12:53

Maybe I'm over simplifying this. You can answer a call on most phones even if it's password protected.

Just plug it in and wait for someone to call and talk to them & ask whose phone it is.

Gwenhwyfar · 10/04/2022 12:53

[quote EatsQuorn]@Gwenhwyfar

Not at all , you keep the lock and change back if you move . Use your replacement lock in the next rental.[/quote]
Changing locks is still expensive.

2bazookas · 10/04/2022 12:53

Your DD and BF brought someone home to sleep on sofa ?

Original poster
worried91 · 10/04/2022 12:54

I'm sure we are nightmare neighbours 😂 I asked my dd how her night was while she was directly below me and my eldest dd went out to the pub on a Saturday night to pick up her boyfriend. We're practically what nightmares are made off 🙄

OP posts:
fairylightsandwaxmelts · 10/04/2022 12:56

I suspect your DD and her BF forgot to shut the front door properly when they came in and went up to bed.

The phone down the sofa is probably totally unrelated and someone in your household either has a secret phone, or had a guest over that they don't want you to know about.

SpinningTheSeedsOfLove · 10/04/2022 12:57

Changing locks is still expensive

Not as expensive as having an insurance claim denied because you don't know how many people might have keys to your house

irishfarmer · 10/04/2022 12:57

Very strange. It I'm going with the lost mobile/ accidently stolen mobile. Did you have any visitors yesterday earlier on?

Walkingalot · 10/04/2022 12:58

My money is on DD1's boyfriend not closing the door properly on purpose to let a mate sneak in on strict instructions to get up early and leave before anyone notices. They were then spooked by someone in the house so quickly left, leaving the door open, forgetting their phone in a hurry. The police should be able to identify the owner of the phone at least.