Strange happenings in the street

[CanadaMoose91]

I live on a fairly small Close with only 14 houses, so traffic is minimal. Only the residents park here and it's a very family friendly area in the Midlands.

For the past few nights around 10:30-2:00, I have been hearing cars and relatively quiet closing of doors in the street. DH and I have noticed a large white van (no windows) coming only at night, and we really though nothing of it until tonight.

At around 10:35 tonight, a car pulled up beside the van and a man got out with a flashlight on his phone. I know I sound like a busybody, but it was odd, so I watched from the window - the man walked to the van, unlocked it, sat in it with the door open for a few minutes and then got out, locked the door, went back to the car, and did the same thing with both the driver and passenger seat of the car. He did this multiple times between the car and the van, for nearly 25 minutes, then went into my neighbour's house (he is not my neighbour, though she did open her door to him without speaking). Throughout all of this, he was shining his flashligh around and looking at upper-level windows of all the houses around.

Should I be concerned about myself? Should I be concerned about my neighbour? Should I be ringing police? Or AIBU and need to go to sleep?

When he was sitting in the car & van, was he just sat still in the seats? Not moving stuff around or anything.
It's the torch shining at all the houses that makes it a bit dodge

It sounds a bit like me when I lose something TBH Not that I do it across two vehicles.

I'm just reconsidering some of our eccentric household shenanigans from a neighbour's late night POV. We must look deeply weird sometimes

Agreed, LorLorr, shining the torch round the houses makes it weird.

It's like he changed seats in the car and with the van so he could check out different sides and parts of the road.

No just a plain white van it's was a bit you don't expect it in a residential area. The police said it's common! I found that more shocking.

They're quite obviously spies and are scouting the area for bugs and Russians other operatives.

It's back tonight. I'll be resuming my post and letting you all know if anyone is around the area again.

Very odd. Have any of the other neighbours mentioned it? Or have you mentioned it to them?

Take your own torch. Flash it randomly

Drugs definitely. Maybe setting up a little factory in her house. Single mum needs the money and a quiet residential steeet, its massively cliché but it happens everywhere these days. The torch light and looking up could have been to see where they can cut into the electrics i.e from lamp posts etc.

Why do you need to sit in three or four different vehicle seats to do that?

Shameless placemarking

Step brother was house sitting and is still there....obv a white van for work So it's only there when he finishes work and gone in morning....the flashlights thing as a once off is prob something lost as prev mentioned

Does the light flash in Morse code sequence?

Single mum needs the money

Yep, because single mums = drugs, obviously.

Are you the actual daily mail, or just their donkey?

You have to wait for it to snow, and if there's no snow on their roof, then it's definitely drugs. Apparently.

With the step brother staying and van getting there late I'd say shift work but the in and out and light up to windows make me think otherwise. I'd probably ring 101 as I'd be concerned they were seeing which houses were occupied and which ones weren't, or it was drugs and they were checking to see if anyone was looking out.

Are you sure it's the same man getting out of the van each time? You neighbour is quite possibly running a brothel and the van is full of punters.

Place marking!

@PelvicFloor no no@ I meant the cliché would be that, like in films but I didn't mean it as an assumption to anyone specific. I could have worded that better!

Burglary is usually an opportunistic crime. Houses may be cases sometimes but the general idea is to be in and out quickly, grab portable and very easy to fence items and out. The money is usually gone on drugs the same day.

If the man messing about with the van is the step brother or something it's prob just weird neighbours. Presumably you know her as you've been tact get? Just ask her about the van tomorrow. I would've definitely chatted to other neighbour's and asked them if they'd noticed anything odd.

It's probably like 'you Must have left the keys in the van.. Being a torch.. Buys torch looks for keys in both places, does his paperwork,.. Loves how bright torch is, shines it about to see how far it lights up..

Or.. Sees bat flying, tries to catch it in the beam...

or is signalling batman for tea?

Sounds strange!!!!

The van has been parked directly outside my house tonight, but no people in sight. DH thinks I'm insane for both keeping watch and keeping MN informed.