Found a phone in my garden - isolated property - shit scared

[ScarredBunny]

Name changed for this - Sorry if this seem trivial, I know people are dealing with far bigger things at the moment.

I found a phone lying on the ground, about 5 yards from my house.

We live in an isolated property about a mile away from the first road. We have not have any visitors , maintenance people for many weeks (obviously). Delivery drivers, yes, but they would not have any reason to go to this part of the garden/couldn't access it during daytime without us seeing something.
At first I assumed it belonged to one of us, but no!
Phoned the police, have a ref./case number, etc. but they're busy and will get back to us when they can.
The police said to take the phone indoors and wait for their call/visit.

I am worried that the next visit is going to be from whomever the phone belongs to.
The phone is dead as a dodo but I assume it still can be found?

What should do?

@ScarredBunny of the phome is dead and cannot be charged then find my iphone will not work. It needs to be able to ping a tower to work

@ScarredBunny

So what did the Police say then?

My sister found an old phone and put it to charge waiting for the owner to get in touch.

At 2 am a mum called looking for her daughter, as she was unable to find her. Turned out the girl had been attacked and her boyfriend beaten unconscious, the perpetrator just throw the phone out of his car when he was fleeing the scene.

Shagging phone (sorry secret phone )normally £10 pay as you go not apple phones worth hundred's

It amazes me how many posters have a tone of finding it ridiculous that the op is scared? She lives remotely, the phones in her garden, the phone was not able to have been thrown there - therefore, someone has been in her garden and she does not know who, it’s quite clear where the concern lies and why the concern is there, she did not just simply “find a phone” randomly.

As for the other poster not understanding why burglaries aren’t on the op but car crime is - probably because everybody is at home?! I despair.

Hopefully it belongs to my friend and that's why he hasn't messaged me lately 🤔.

I don’t think iPhones are that expensive.

Ds has one. It is a 2nd phone on my account and is around £12 per month for his calls, texts and internet.

I know it's not the point of the post but where on earth do you live that the police would come round to collect a lost phone? That's so bizarre. It wouldn't even occur to me to ring the police for that.

@Namechangex10000 exactly, I'd be really freaked out!

I wouldn't try to charge it while it's wet but my kids once found an apple phone in a rocky, fast flowing river where it had obviously been for some time judging from the smashed up state of it. After leaving it a couple of days in our drying room we charged it and got it to boot. Couldn't get past the login screen as it was locked but it was a working phone. The police may well be able to get info off yours.

I am regularly amazed by the number of Mumsnetters who live miles from anywhere. The OP lives a whole MILE from an actual road ? Where do you all live, and why?!

/misses point of thread

Oh and forgot to add - OP tell me you can drive . These Mumsnetters can never drive either, and have toddlers.

I would check and possibly increase my home security. I'd say there's a decent chance it was accidentally dropped by a burglar casing your house. That would explain the dog barking too. Dogs deter most burglars but not all.

Unlikely someone would break in specifically to recover the phone, but more likely someone would break in to steal whatever they can.

I recently plugged in an old iPhone (my own) and it took a long time to turn on, but did eventually. Obviously this is sort of good news as means the phone may not have been used for a while making an innocent reason more likely.

I paid about £600 for my iPhone and it’s a few years old, so I guess it depends on what you call cheap.

You can call Apple support, read the IEM number off the back of the phone and they can look up the Apple account and iCloud email associated with the phone. They can’t tell you who it is, but they can email the owner to let them know you found their phone.
They’re probably a local who was out walking around for lockdown exercise and has lost their phone.

We lived in the middle of nowhere until recently and had a night camera we would leave outside to pick up animal activity. It was big, much bigger than an I phone. My husband didnt secure it one night and it disappeared. Found months later in the middle of the adjoining field (not used by humans) so obviously picked up by an animal and dropped. Just another option as random things do happen.
I get it, it's very scary when things like this happen and I suspect a lot of remote properties will be possible targets at the moment due to the circumstances.

OP do you have a footpath near you ?

If you live remotely do you have an oil tank? Could someone have been casing out that.

Police just turned up i'll be back

For a lost phone? Or some other reason op?

I still disagree about a crow. When I said shape, I did mean the smoothness etc, but also they are really heavy. I have a plus sized iphone, it weighs a lot. To carry it and fly, it would need to be grippable far back in the beak, and equally weighted both sides. I really don’t believe a crow could fly a mile or so with an iphone plus !

I can't believe the number of people who want to believe this is a crow, seagull, fox or drone etc. Ffs, unfortunately the only plausible explanation is that a careless intruder has been in the OP's garden so the police are absolutely right to take it seriously, I'm glad to hear they have visited.

I'm sorry OP, but I guess at least you've had a warning I guess. I live somewhere similar to you and get freaked out about the security of the house, but my husband won't invest in additional security. If this happened to me I'd make upping the security a deal breaker in our marriage.

I’m surprised the police came round over this

Is OP coming back?

People up thread saying you need power to emit a signal, I lost my Samsung for well over a week and O2 helped me trace it.