Someone is trying to get in to our house

[piscofrisco]

....it started in summer. I came in through the door, shut it behind me and put my keys down on the side. Went to go out later and the keys were gone. The car was still there on the drive. Two days later Iwa idly scrolling through Facebook and saw them on our local towns lost and found type forum. They had been found on a bus in an area of town that I have never been to.
We had a lot of people doing work on our house last year after a huge house fire. Any number of them could have copied the key.
We changed the locks and although very freaked out, just kind of carried on as usual.
A few months later dh was away with three of our kids. I was at home with dd1. We distinctly heard someone try they handles on all three our our exterior doors. The dogs were going off it. We were terrified. We called dh who thought we were winding him up. We told the police who said there was nothing we could do bar put a camera up. We duly installed a ring doorbell.
A few months passed with no incident until this past few weeks. Dh and I both laid up with Covid. In the lounge with the blinds shut. Someone aggressively knocked on the window right behind us. When we looked there was no one there and no one showed up on the ring camera (which shows the whole front driveway).
And now today. I'm
Wfh and I could hear someone rattling the side door handle. Dogs going mad. I thought it was dh back early and not taken his key. Went to look-no one there. Dh is at work still.
Ring camera is charging up so not on to check.
I am now pretty nervy when in the house on my own. I'm going to work from Starbucks this afternoon.
We have a sort of granny flat thing in the back garden which I daren't look in.
The police basically said just keep your doors locked.
What else can we do?

It does sound incredibly unlikely but people do think that phones pick up what you talk about so Facebook AI may have heard a conversation about lost keys and promoted that post

You've never seen Home Alone 😮ill thought out and childish is the synopsis😂😂

Internal bolts will make you feel more secure when you are in at least.

Maybe leave some secret agent style traps before you go out- paper in door jambs and so on. It would be reassuring to know no one’s getting in at least.

Are you sure the wind doesn’t catch the doors and windows in a weird way?

She also mentions that she has 3 other children. I wonder if all the children are DH's or if they have different dads. Could be an ex (step children's mum and dad) or ex's family and friends wanting to scare OP? I also think OP's husband needs to say no to working away for a while considering his wife and children are scared.

Bloody hell OP this sounds awful for you. I second getting some blinds put up. Sooner rather than later. It'll give you piece of mind, and they are a ball ache to get through if someone wanted to get in .

I imagine the marbles could be a good deterrent actually, depending on the type of door/entry you have.

my front door opens inwards, onto tiles. So if anyone opened the door, the marbles would be swept everywhere, loudly, and the intruder would likely just leave.

Any of your kids friends / frenemies live nearby?

The children could have passed on the lock box code?

Our neighbours have moved out while they are having an extension built. They had some security issues and have got private security coming round. They turn up in a car that says security on it, walk around with two alsatians, shine large flashlight torches around from outside the property, and you generally can’t miss them. I’m sure it’s expensive but it also seems like a good deterrent.

Let's not pretend that some mentally unwell people don't behave in a way that is frightening and or dangerous to others.

I have a family member who refuses to take their medication and they have scared the living daylights out of me multiple times .

High profile does not always equal high pay, kids are expensive, it's Christmas in 10 days, they've recently changed their locks, who knows what other expenditures they have. Don't judge based on your own ill conceived perceptions.

I think the car key and other incidents could be unrelated. I think car key could have been tradesperson who then thought better of taking the car.

The knocking/trying handles. How long have you owned the house? We had someone coming to our house about a year after the house sale thinking the previous occupant still lived there, didn’t know she had died and thought he had rights to the house. I also wonder if someone used/occasionally uses your Granny flat. Did you leave the house unoccupied when you had the fire? Or did you go on holiday over the summer? Have your neighbours reported any odd behaviour - think you need to ask.

@piscofrisco

We were burgled, so we ordered cameras, we have four, an alarm and shutters on the back downstairs.

Most of the burglaries are via the first floor in our local area as security is generally stronger downstairs.

We were burgled a couple of days before Christmas last year when we were out for dinner. At the time, we had a burglar alarm (with monitoring by the police station), CCTV, lights on and cars on the drive. They took a ladder from next door and broke in via our en-suite.

Our first sensor was on the landing so they had unlimited time in our bedroom. They took all our Christmas presents from under the tree and our watches and jewellery. The police attended, with dogs and forensics but couldn't catch them. Lesson learnt, we've put more sensors and window alarms upstairs but it was hideous.

Yes. We had something very similar. Could be this Op.

The keys: went missing and obvs we couldn't work out what had happened. Looked everywhere we could etc. I was on fb the day after to check what time something started in town that day and doing some mindless scrolling and someone had posted on the towns lost and found in town page a picture of my keys and said 'anyone lost these, found them on the number whatever bus?' So I sent him a friend request which he accepted and we arranged for dh to meet him near his (the man's) work and pick them up. It was just luck that I saw his Facebook post really. No contact with the man before or since. I wasn't and don't find that bit alarming. If I found keys I'd try and make some effort to get them back to their owner. It's a kind thing to do. (I mean it was alarming they were on the bus miles away but the man finding them and getting them back wasn't weird to me).

No frenemies we know of.
The relationship with dh's ex wife is not great. But she lives an hour and a bit away and frankly I can't see her driving all that way to try and scare us-that would be way too much effort! Also I don't think she would want to scare DSS's.
Two of the kids are mine from a previous marriage, two are DH's from his previous marriage. No other dads for the pp that asked.
Sorry if I ' lost sympathy'for having worked in mental health. Not sure where I said it must be one of my previous clients because they are mentally ill? However there is a reason why people who work with others that have a forensic mental health issue and often addiction issues don't often live that close to where they work if they can avoid it. It's to minimise the risk of bumping into a client who you might have had to have a difficult conversation/cut services for that morning in your local Tesco of an evening. Who do you think anger gets directed at in those situations? It can, does and has happened (to me albeit thankfully rarely) that work stuff spills out into outside of work encounters.
again I doubt it here, as I don't live where I used to work-but it's where my over active mind went yesterday.

The granny flat sounds posher than it is-it's just a garage the previous owner converted to a little sleeping area, tiny kitchen bit and a little shower room.
And yes we will have to put any extra security on a credit card and pay it off-it's not cheap and it's a week before Christmas!

All this started in summer with long periods of nothing happening. So it's not possible for dh not to work away all that time unfortunately and I won't be able to take the kids out of school to go away when he does next month. Going to try and get some friends to come and stay over the odd night though. I might do a rota for them and they can do a night each if they are willing!

Plan for today:
Buy curtains and a pole for back windows
Security neighbour coming round to price up
Call other ones to get a few quotes organised
Get spare battery thing for doorbell
DSS1 is going to try and train the dogs to be fearsome (not sure how he will achieve this)
And DSS2 actually did say he would watch home alone for tips on how to deal with burglars. (Again not sure how wise that is).

Thanks for those who have shared what happened to them and to those that have advised. Good to know it's not only us that have had random issues like this. It's hard not to feel very unnerved by it all. I've never liked this house much and this isn't helping at all either! But we will muddle on and make it as safe as it can be.

Wow. I had no idea this breed existed and have spent a merry half an hour falling down an internet hole about them. Wonderful. Thank you!

Sorry just trying to answer all the questions and I keep missing some out.
We have been here two years or so, less the 9 months rebuild after the fire.

Your DSSs sound very sweet @piscofrisco. All the very best of luck.

Actually thinking about the bus, it being somewhere you don't go isn't unexpected as one bus will go to all kinds of places and where the keys happened to be found doesn't mean that they were left/dropped in that same place

Asda recording of a deep pitched guard dog sound and as others have said, more cameras and lights and signs up. It must be scary I'm sorry to read this for you

OP has now specified that she works in forensic mental health ie related to criminology - but even before this, surely it isn’t hard to imagine why someone with very serious mental health issues could want to find OP if she had been treating them? Especially if not taking medication or if previously detained (as her post suggests - ‘sometimes in the community’) and now released?

Saying some people with serious mental health issues could act in troubling ways is not the same as saying all people with mental health issues act in troubling ways.

I say this as someone with a chronic mental health condition, who has worked tangentially on matters concerning forensic mental health issues.

How very strange. I hope at some point you get an explanation as to what is going on.

Or- could it be a lovesick teenage boy looking for your DD?
I had this at that age, a young lad was very infatuated… used to follow me home after school, sneak around the house to check to see if my parents were home and then bang on doors to get me to answer. It was terrifying at the time, but stopped when my parents phoned his. Sadly, I no longer have this effect!

Ring doorbells sadly aren’t worth it , ours was jammed and our car stolen within 30 seconds , devices are wildly available to disable WiFi and unlock cars for peanuts.

they are pricey but we invest in a hard wired cctv 6 cameras system , extra security lights along with the door bell for front and back.

extra protection for our keys with antijamming , sadly if they wanted to they could just follow us and grab the keys that way these low life’s will always find away it’s about not being there first choice and making it less appealing