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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be amused rather than freaked out? (Woo!!)

383 replies

Elphame · 30/08/2023 15:10

Ok to get the mundane stuff out of the way

No one but DP and me have been in the house since Friday

We’ve lived here 20 years and are the only ones with keys. All spares are where they should be

We have 2 burglars alarms which we set when we go out. They have not been activated.

We have cctv camera front and rear covering all entrances to the house and garden. The only comings and goings recorded are DP and me.

We have 2 dogs

DP never plays practical jokes.

Now the mystery. My lovely heirloom grandfather clock stopped sometime since Monday night. I can’t say exactly when but I noticed this afternoon and asked DP to wind it.

5 minutes later he came into the kitchen looking rather pale and told me that the clock has stopped as the winding chains are missing. Both of them. They are some 8ft long with heavy weights on the ends and to remove them requires some dismantling of the clock as well as knowing how they are fixed.

They are not on the floor of the clock case. They have quite simply vanished.

We’ve gone from WTAF to freaked out, annoyed and now somewhat amused. Clearly something doesn’t like my clock!

I am totalling unable to come up with a rational explanation for this. There just isn’t one that either of us can come up with

OP posts:
Thread gallery
9
sashh · 31/08/2023 05:19

Willmafrockfit · 30/08/2023 18:46

does it sometimes strike 13?

And do you then go to the garden that doesn't exist?

OP

I can think of one explanation, and that is that one of you sleep walks. I had no idea I did until I had a housemate.

I had a few wierd things happen, eg waking up on a morning and finding an appointment card on my pillow for an appointment that day.

I think what happened was I must have dreamed about the appointment nad got up to find the card but without totally waking up.

Planesmistakenforstars · 31/08/2023 05:22

What exactly is the mystery? If they are not in the clock and no one else has been in the house, then your DH has moved them. It doesn't matter that you don't think he has and he tells you he hasn't. Just book the service and you'll either get them replaced or (more likely) they will "mysteriously" show up and you'll find out that your DH does in fact play practical jokes.

Datdamndamp · 31/08/2023 05:43

Interesting. I've read that poltergeist phenomenon last about six weeks typically. I had this in a house years ago over that sort of time scale and it was frustrating and discombobulating. Things would come back after awhile. A knife turned up in the house too that hadn't been there before after I told it off for taking stuff and asked why couldn't it be useful and bring me a new knife. A completely crap, unspooky kitchen knife, identical to the one I had but with a red handle.

Keep us updated. Hopefully they appear and good luck with it. The light thing isn't funny.

Your house sounds fabulous btw, I am imagining you in an amazing stately pile.

MotherMole · 31/08/2023 05:51

@sparepantsandtoothbrush
Brilliant 😂😂😂

IseeNarcPeople · 31/08/2023 06:26

One of our childhood cats used to come back with other people's watches (the wind up ticking kind) I mean, I don't think any cat could be arsed to haul chains but I'm just putting my story here for any of you who grew up thinking a poltergeist stole their watch. 🐈

Spyral · 31/08/2023 06:27

It'll be pets or pest (eg, mice or something) related.

This clock is relatively new to everyone in the house, including the animals, so curiosity could have gotten too much for the cat one of them.

Fluffyfluffkins · 31/08/2023 06:36

Hobbes8 · 30/08/2023 22:27

Did the old man die? If so the grandfather clock would have stopped short, never to go again. That’s just a fact.

😂😂😂

romdowa · 31/08/2023 07:18

Are your cameras from ring? My postman seems to never ever trigger mine, maybe it's a flaw in all of them and it was the postman who took them 🤣

DobbyTheHouseElk · 31/08/2023 07:25

Have you looked up towards the top of the clock mechanism.

RedHelenB · 31/08/2023 07:36

Daffodil18 · 30/08/2023 23:02

You definitely have a ghost in your house. That is too strange and there is no logical explanation. As you’ve only had it 2 months maybe the ghost doesn’t like it.

Definitely. There can be no other logical explanation.
Csn someone explain why you have to ask the ghosts for them back, are they too stupid to realise they've caused you distress and upset by taking your things when you're searching high and lie for them?

RedHelenB · 31/08/2023 07:42

Butteredtoast55 · 30/08/2023 21:45

Checking the time it stopped is an excellent idea.

Surely you can move the click hands manually though by opening the glass case? Doesn't necessarily tell you anything.

StressyMessyJess · 31/08/2023 07:43

My partner and I (childishly) had some of those foil wrapped medium/small easter eggs at and decided to do a Egg hunt in the house. 10 each. He hid upstairs, me down. I found my 10 but eventually he gave up after only finding 9. I checked all the places I had hidden them but thought I must have miscounted.
2 weeks later we were watching a film and notice the egg right in the middle of the living room floor. No pets. Very odd!

Also very often automatic doors/airport scanners etc don't recognise/sense me.
🙁

PurpleFlower1983 · 31/08/2023 07:49

Definitely a ghost who hates your taste in furnishings…

dawngreen · 31/08/2023 07:49

1/ Some one you know took them for repairs etc.
2/ They broke and the dogs or cat ran off with them.
3/ You have a nutter who broke in and took them.

WowIlikereallyhateyou · 31/08/2023 07:54

Garihairy · 30/08/2023 17:20

Is your house detached? If not do you have an attic or a cellar? ...

This brings up memories of “that” Luther episode! Eek!

Serendipitoushedgehog · 31/08/2023 08:15

What if a magpie flew in and took them
🙂

Vanillazebra · 31/08/2023 08:35

Do you have a shared loft space? That someone could climb over from next door and access your house?

inamarina · 31/08/2023 08:38

Judashascomeintosomemoney · 30/08/2023 22:55

You put glass and chrome light fittings in a Georgian house? I’d have thrown them downstairs too tbh.

Aaahhhhh, that was my first thought too!

Ridemeginger · 31/08/2023 08:42

I too am more shocked by the glass and chrome light fittings in a Georgian setting than anything else! If the grandfather clock is also from the wrong era of decor, and your draught excluder material was a bit tacky, therein may lie the issue. You are being haunted by an interior decorator.

IClaudine · 31/08/2023 08:48

You are being haunted by an interior decorator

🤣

theemmadilemma · 31/08/2023 09:00

WTF. My Mum still has one of my Grandfathers old clocks, so I know exactly what you mean about the weights etc. No way do you just slip them out and run off.

primoseyellow · 31/08/2023 09:02

@LunaNorth what film is that, I want to watch !

KimberleyClark · 31/08/2023 09:02

I'd just done the second one and went downstairs into the hallway when there was a loud bag. My new lampshade flew down the stairs and exploded into a million glass shards all over the floor just missing me. Initially I thought I'd just made a mistake in fitting it but no. The bulb holder was still screwed tightly closed, the bulb was in place but the metal bit that I'd just screwed into the holder was on the floor. Again completely impossible.

Have you mentioned this incident on here before? It’s very familiar.

Elphame · 31/08/2023 09:08

Loving some of these!

If the chains do turn up wrapped in crabsticks I will know who to blame!

DP though loves that clock, every week as he winds it he has been making a minute adjustment to the pendulum length to get it to keep perfect time. I just let him get on with it.

He finally achieved it a few weeks ago. There is no way he’d risk sabotaging his own efforts.

OP posts:
TheInterceptor · 31/08/2023 09:10

'And the clock
Stopped
Never to go again
When the old man died'