to be having a bit of a sense of humour failure over this?

[Ellybellyboo]

Sorry, this might be a bit long winded

I like 'creative' stuff - sewing, drawing, photography, etc - general art-ery fart-ery. The attic of our house had been converted to a huge room when we moved here so I use it as a kind of studio.

A few weeks ago I had a big birthday and DH arranged a surprise birthday party. I had been really clear that I absolutely did not want a party, I'm quite introverted and just didn't want a big hoo-ha.

He arranged one anyway. I was a bit miffed but grinned and bared it, and actually had an OK night.

In the weeks since, I've discovered that some of our friends had been up in my studio and played some oh so hilarious practical jokes. There was absolutely no need for them to go up there, there's no toilet or anything up there and the door at the bottom of the stairs was shut.

Nothing has been broken or damaged, but silly stuff like a cock and balls drawn onto every page of a sketch book, a huge quilt I've been making and had pinned out ready to be quilted has had all the pins removed, all my drawers and storage had been rearranged.

A couple of years ago I saved up and bought myself a DSLR camera. It wasn't cheap so I'm a bit precious about it. Yesterday we went out for a day out so thought I'd take my camera. Turned it on to find about a million photos of bare arses and I'm not very happy about it

It just feels a bit disrespectful, they shouldn't have been upstairs in the first place and I don't like that they've been messing with my stuff. The more time goes on and the more of this shit I find, the less impressed I am. The whole camera thing is the final straw and I'm having a bit of a sense of humour failure

I have made it quite clear that I am much much older than the OP

Despite your advancing years you don't yet seem to have learnt the life lesson that everyone is different - and that many people delight in solitary leisure activities. Open your mind!

The sketch pad... Meh. I'd chuckle. At the first few pages. But if it was every single page I would be texting to ask for a replacement pad.

The camera. That would have pissed me off.

The removing the pins... WTAF?!? Who the fuck does that??? That is a wanker move.
I would likely just not bother to make any contact and stop the friendship.

But then, I have learnt in life that if people don't know me well enough to stop when they reach MY limit not THEIR limit when I'm the butt of the joke then they aren't my friend really anyway.

I would get a lock fitted to that door for any future parties.
I would be livid. I am genuinely pissed off for you. The pin thing has really got to me runs off to check on my own pinned quilt to calm myself down
The rest I could tolerate but the pins is just nasty and malicious.

That's interesting about the glue, so many people swear by it. I only tack together myself. If I pinned together then I would end up breaking machine needles on the pins. What the heck did they do with the pins? Not just left lying around, I hope??

Constance is one of those posters who have to get the last word or be in the right by personally insulting the op.

You're talking utter nonsense Constance and have no right to insult the op but you clearly can't stand being challenged

I'd have gone fucking spare if that happened to me.

YeOldeTrout. I know a few people at my quilting group who swear by spray gluing the layers together. I just couldn't get on with it. I should persevere as it is a much quicker and easier way of doing it, but the layers just felt like they were moving around.

I've just been up to get a cable needle for some knitting I'm doing and discovered they've messed all my knitting needles up as well. They were paired up in a metal bucket but they've taken all the bands off and messed the pairs up.

It's little things, but every few days I find something else

It's like a coordinated set of active insults to the fact you're particular about your crafty stuff, isn't it? Are there other times when you enjoy how childish these people are?

Some of my edge layers went a little wonky because of free-hand quilting, but I'm telling myself that just adds to the "character" of the quilt; ha!!

My latest quilt next needs 2 edges binding & I'll be almost done with it (trying to kick own arse into getting off laptop & going to do that...).

It just gets worse and worse. You have been violated. This is not a prank, this is vandalism. They clearly put a lot of thought into doing this to upset you.

What does your DH think now? I hope that he is re-valuating his relationship with these people. If someone was to do that to my Dh's gaming figures and mess up his D&D paperwork. I don't feel I could ever see them socially.

I feel gutted for you. I think you should let them know how angry they are and shut the door to anything but the most grovelling apology. It is just possible that their drunken bravado hasn't quite worn off but I doubt that since they seem so unrepentant.

They must have been up there ages, cheeky fuckers. Mean mean mean.

Are you sure they haven't done a poo somewhere?!

(not making light of this but still discovering things they've done is not on)

The more you say, the more it sounds like they went up there and tried to think of as many ways to upset you as they could. As I said before, none of this is about making you laugh (with the possible exception of the arse photos).

Unless you've been party to joining in when they've done similar to others in the group, there's no reason for anyone to do this sort of stuff to you, unless they really think it's funny to upset you, this is all done with the aim of getting you to be annoyed or hurt.

The sketchpad would have been enough for me. I love a clean, fresh sketchpad, with all the pages ready to be filled with something creative and imaginative. To have someone be so boorish as to draw a cock and balls on every page, wasting the entire book, is just... foul. It's not even funny. Are cock and balls funny to anyone other than a 7 year old boy? Really?

I'm baffled by ExConstance's response too. Can you explain what there is here to 'be amused' at? I don't get the joke. 'Ha, ha! You had something nice and we messed it up!' Clutching at straws, but if they'd found some quilting pieces and pinned out a cock and balls in easily-unpinned squares... then maybe? But they spoiled a sketchpad, destroyed hours of work and set out to cause the OP hours of boring trouble undoing their mess. I'd drop them like a hot stone.

No, I've never been involved in pranks like this. They generally do this stuff to each other, last time we were at a mutual friends house they were daring each other to eat the friend's dog food.

I realise the paired up knitting needles make me sound a bit sad, but I inherited loads from my grandmother and she's paired them all up when she gave them to me, I just put the elastic band back on when I use a pair. Easier than rooting through hundreds of needles looking for a pair

Sorry, to add, it doesn't sound like the saw the camera and thought "hey, it'd be funny if when she goes to down load the photos, there's one on your arse in the middle of them" then got carried away and took loads of arse photos - or they went up and saw the pad and said "it'd be really funny if she was halfway through using this and found a cock picture on the next page" then drunkenly filled every page.

It doesn't sound like they went in the room and then thought to do something which was meant as a joke and fell flat, or were messing with stuff and accidently ruined it (like if they were messing with the knitting needles and didn't think to put them back in pairs), this sounds like they went in the room delibrately to do as much damage as possible.

It was delibrately trying to find ways to hurt you, not messing with stuff and accidently ruining it or suddenly occuring to them it might be funny to do X or Y, the amount of stuff done was clearly about finding ways to hurt you.

They aren't your friends. They might be your DH's friends, but there's no reason for you to socialise with them.

I don't know about you, but with DCs, I've got limited free time now, and certainly not enough to waste with people I don't think really like me.

Good grief - I can't believe its still ongoing! Now your knitting needles! What utter utter jerks and I am especially annoyed that even though your DH has told them you were upset, their only response is laughter!

I would now be getting DH to email them and say "ok we have now found the knitting needles have been pissed about with. Please can you just come clean and list everything you did upstairs in Elly's private studio whilst we were downstairs at the party. You had no right to go up there let alone mess around with things. You have undone hours and hours of her work and left her feeling violated and insulted. Just to be clear, you have behaved like juvenile twats and, after you have listed what you have done, please don't contact us again"

Or something. God I am so on your behalf!

I don't know about you, but with DCs, I've got limited free time now, and certainly not enough to waste with people I don't think really like me.

Quite! I have kids, a full time job, I want to spend my time doing stuff I enjoy, not undoing all this guff

I have a day off today, I've been busy this morning and fancied a couple of hours with last nights Vera and my knitting.

When DH gets home I'm going to go up there and go up there with a fine tooth comb and see if there's anything else. Despite what ExConstance thinks, I don't live up there and each time I find something else it pisses me off all over again

I give you this line. "It's not a joke unless everyone's laughing." There's nothing funny about what they did. They messed up your stuff for a laugh. It's possible to pull a prank that makes everyone laugh. This wasn't it.

What do you think about CoraPirbright's suggested email, OP? Personally I think it's spot on.

Those 'friends' deserve to be excluded form any social gathering you may choose to have in the future. What they did was completely unacceptable. I hope all mutual friends are aware so that they can lock all their valuable cameras away and limit access to certain areas of their homes, in case similar happens to them. You may find that some were unaware of what had happened and will agree that these people have gone too far, or may share details of other things that they have done. You may also find that they are only socialised with outside of the home by others they've targeted previously.

They really sound unbelievably childish, it sounds like they've got into a way of life whereby they feel compelled to play these "pranks" and can't relate to each other socially on any other level. Surely anyone with half a brain realises it's one thing to play pranks on someone you know operates on the same juvenile level you do, it's something entirely different to play them on someone else by invading her private space, rooting around amongst her possessions and doing your best to spoil her enjoyment of her hobby? The thing with the knitting needles must have taken some time, it's verging on spiteful.

They really sound unbelievably childish, it sounds like they've got into a way of life whereby they feel compelled to play these "pranks" and can't relate to each other socially on any other level. Surely anyone with half a brain realises it's one thing to play pranks on someone you know operates on the same juvenile level you do, it's something entirely different to play them on someone else by invading her private space, rooting around amongst her possessions and doing your best to spoil her enjoyment of her hobby? The thing with the knitting needles must have taken some time, it's verging on spiteful.

Sorry, on my phone and missed Cora's post.

Yes, I think it's a good idea. I've had enough now

Do you know, if someone had come on here and described how they had done all this to their cheating ex, say, most of us I think would have been a little impressed, possibly laughed, but at least some would have said "well I think you went too far with the quilt, and suppose you'd damaged the expensive camera?" That would be an act of revenge for something pretty heinous and it would still have been a bit over the top (and they'd probably wished they hadn't done it in the cold light of the next day).

Are you sure you never ran over their cat or something?

there is a level of spiteful intent that is baffling me in these actions.Do they have something against you or is it possible they are acting by proxy on behalf of your h ?

I am boggling at the posters who think the "friends"' behaviour was funny. I would actually feel sick if someone did something like that to my possessions.

(and I know people who used to prank each other in college but they were funny - like turning all their furniture upside down and leaving a note saying their gravity bill hadn't been paid, or - my particular favourite - filling their bed with toy dinosaurs, sticking a sound FX tape of roaring on, and putting up a sign saying JURASSIC BED. Not just WHUH WHUH WHUH LET'S WRECK HER STUFF AND PISS HER OFF. Waaaaay too close to HEY IF WE CAN MAKE THEM CRY AND GET REALLY UPSET IT'S MAXIMUM LOLZ school of bullying.)

And no, my children will not grow up thinking that kind of thing is acceptable and if they did it I'd go through them for a shortcut. Not least because I don't want them to grow up like my old flatmate's overprivileged prick friends who once broke a bookcase of mine at a party and just sort of brayed at me "what do you expect! It's a party!".

I would be furious! DP friends ripped off all his buttons on his shirt when they were drinking and then drew a huge cock on his head in permanent marker!