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 😔

@Horological

The most puzzling part of this story is that police came to your house to collect the phone. Do you live outside the UK OP? I am certain police in London would not do this.

You do know that there is more than just London in the UK? Where I live I could expect the same response within the same timescale from the police. Why would youa ssume the OP was not in the UK just because you don't think it would happen like that in London?

When I was in my early 20's I got drunk at the bar, went home and in the morning couldn't find my phone.

The later afternoon the strange woman knocked on my door and handed me my lost phone and told me she found it in her flat, because her friend brought it in there after a night out.
This could be something similar?🤷‍♀️

@rainbowunicorn you beat me to it! 😄

She phoned to my last call and they gave her my address.:/

@Horological

The most puzzling part of this story is that police came to your house to collect the phone. Do you live outside the UK OP? I am certain police in London would not do this.

Or maybe she lives in one of the other thousands of towns, cities and villages in the UK?

There is so much more to the UK than London

I keep a really old i phone as an emergency spare. It just has a pay as you go SIM. If fully turned off. the battery holds its charge for months. If left on standby (sleep mode) only,with no Apps left running in the background, the battery lasts for 2 weeks. So, the phone could have been down the sofa for some time.

What kind of phone is it? Has it rang or received any notifications or anything since you've had it?

@ItsDinah

I keep a really old i phone as an emergency spare. It just has a pay as you go SIM. If fully turned off. the battery holds its charge for months. If left on standby (sleep mode) only,with no Apps left running in the background, the battery lasts for 2 weeks. So, the phone could have been down the sofa for some time.

Maybe but that doesn't explain the alarm, the most time it could have been there is a week less a few minutes if the alarm was set for Sundays only.

I don’t know why people keep banging on about it being the BF or DD secretly letting someone in , surely they’d just ask if a friend could crash! Also the BF wouldn’t have just handed the phone back to OP if he knew whose it was.

I think there was someone in the house with ill intentions who heard your DH coming downstairs to investigate the vibrating phone (perhaps they’d been using it as a torch and had briefly put it down when their alarm started unexpectedly going off?) and hid in the house at the time as they would have been caught trying to leave through the front door, then made a run for it when he went back upstairs, not shutting the door as it would have made a noise that would have brought DH back downstairs. That would explain why the door was closed at 5am but open at 8am, and the mystery phone.

I really hope you get to the bottom of it!

I don't want to freak you out but I'd scan the house for hidden cameras and unknown plugs in sockets in case an ex tenant/landlord/someone you know is trying to perv on you. I question this as why weren't any valuables taken. This type of thing is more common than people realise. I can't imagine an ex tenant sleeping on the sofa. I'd consider the idea someone may have copied one of your keys. I'd get motion activated security cameras on the outside of the house and also in my hallway and living room. Make sure everyone keeps their new keys on their physical person at all times. Could it be worth trying to set them up with Police keeping watch this week if they've been in twice this week already?

Cameras, inside and out, and a security system. I really appreciate how unsettling this must be for you. The thought of someone sneaking in your home is terrifying.

I guess the door hasn't been shut properly and has blown open. And if the phone has got a gaming screen lock it could belong to a little friend of your younger children? Have they had any pals round?

someone is sleepwalking - we had one boyfriend who slept walked occasionally, wed point him back towards bed if we found him wandering

door appear shut but catch only partially caught - so when dh went down it was shut but between then and later it unchecked and as you said if open it swings back -ive had this happen before

IcedOatLatte, i phone lets you set alarm for specific dates in the future,it's not just a case of repeats on certain days of a week. So, the phone could have been there for a few weeks.

I've lived in a couple of rented house's with dodgy Yale locks. Sometimes it feels properly shut but a gust of wind can blow it open. I'd advise getting a second lock or chain on the door as a back up for overnight.

Drunk/lost person wanders into wrong house, sits down, fiddles with phone, falls asleep briefly, wakes up, realises is in wrong house, panics, bolts.. leaving phone behind.

Or, someones picked up someone elses phone without realising, dropped it in the sofa - door blown open by wind.

I would doubt the memory of the front door being closed, we remember things oddly particularly when asleep and often 'remember' what we SHOULD see, rather than what we DID see.. so we could see a door ajar.. and remember seeing a closed door, because that what we typically would see.

@ElenaSt

Drunk person followed them home and tried the door they hadn’t shut properly and crashed out on sofa leaving phone. Woke up to pee and realised they needed to leave and go to their own home. Couldn’t find phone as it had dropped down sofa so they just left.

Phone was ringing as they tried it later to see if they could find it.

That’s the scenario I’m getting rather a than an intruder with bad intent.

This happened to us once, before we had the kids. We had a front door you had to hold up to lock properly, and my husband obviously hadn't done it properly that night.

Heard a noise in the night, and came downstairs to find a man asleep, sitting up, on the sofa. I shouted at him to get out, and he was really confused and apologetic (and very drunk!). He lived a few doors down, I think, and had just got the wrong house.

It might be the old resident doing the same thing - automatically asked for a taxi to drop him at his address, but used the old one, and, if he'd never bothered to take the old key off his keyring, just come in and passed out?

I think someone has accidentally pocketed it he phone (boyfriend?) it’s slipped out onto the couch when they’ve got In. Someone has then tried to track the phone (calling it) and then likely used some gps tracker to your home and entered it to look for it. Been unable to find it and left? My best bet.

I also agree with PP’s. I think a non sinister explanation is:

• Your DD or BF picked up someone else’s phone by mistake. Bought it home and dropped it downstairs. Completely forgetting they’d picked it up? Although if they went straight upstairs that probably doesn’t answer it?

• As for the door maybe it just didn’t catch and the wind was strong enough after 5am to blow it open?

It’s quite scary though. Maybe just get security cams or an alarm system so you can be very sure you’re safe.

@ElenaSt

Drunk person followed them home and tried the door they hadn’t shut properly and crashed out on sofa leaving phone. Woke up to pee and realised they needed to leave and go to their own home. Couldn’t find phone as it had dropped down sofa so they just left.

Phone was ringing as they tried it later to see if they could find it.

That’s the scenario I’m getting rather a than an intruder with bad intent.

Yes but the phone rang and the door was closed at 5am, the intruder had left by then and used another line to call his phone, then the door was open at 8am. Did they perhaps return to look for phone between 5am and 8am? But it had already been removed from the sofa.

@Horological

The most puzzling part of this story is that police came to your house to collect the phone. Do you live outside the UK OP? I am certain police in London would not do this.

London isn’t the only place in the U.K.

OP, Did you tell the boyfriend you are calling the police over this BEFORE doing so?

My wild guess is that it's the boyfriends second phone and possibly for dealing.
He stashed it down the back of the sofa to retrieve later.

@QueenCamilla

OP, Did you tell the boyfriend you are calling the police over this BEFORE doing so?

My wild guess is that it's the boyfriends second phone and possibly for dealing.
He stashed it down the back of the sofa to retrieve later.

Really? That’s your conclusion? My god.

Advice for tenants. Change your door locks by all means. Your landlord can only come in with notice and permission. Put the old barrel on when they're expected. If they ever randomly discover you changed the lock they were coming in without notice and permission.

Changing locks gives you security of knowing who has access to your home.