OMG - I hadn't read this but here is the Mexican House Thief comment (wasn't a thread) and now THIS will live in my head forever!!
WeAreEternal · 20/04/2013 14:52
My next door but one neighbour is the ultimate in cheeky people.
in the 4 years that i have known him he regularly asks to borrow things, but he thinks that once permission have been given on one occasion that allows him to take the items whenever he pleases.
This includes him just going into my garage/shed/house and helping himself when he wants something, without asking.
I have asked him not to do this many, many times, but he still does it.
It all came to a head in October.
We own a house in Mexico, it is my favourite place in the world and isn't just a holiday house, to me it is my home. We have our clothes in the wardrobes, our food in the cupboards and family pictures on the walls.
We do however, occasionally allow close friends and family to stay in our house, because we are nice like that.
Two years ago SIL, her DH and their DCs went for a holiday there, they managed to get flights for a couple of hundred pounds and were really excited/proud of their amazing cheap holiday.
After they got back they came round for a barbecue, the neighbour 'popped over to say hi' ( which he always did just as we were sieving up the food) he was very impressed to hear about SILs super cheap amazing holiday and really enjoyed looking at her pictures.
The next morning the neighbour came round and told me that he was really impressed with SILs amazing holiday and had looked at the cost if flights to Mexico when he went home.
He told me that he had found some cheap flights and asked if he and his family could stay in our house.
I tried to be tactful and told him that we don't really like people staying there as its our home and not just a holiday house, and that we only let SIL go as it they don't have much money and if was their first holiday in 8 years.
The neighbour then spent the next couple of weeks begging me, telling me how they are broke and can't afford a holiday this year (they live in a five bed detached house and drive a merc and a BMW and he has a very good job, oh and they had already been abroad twice that year)
Finally I gave in and agreed. They went and had a lovely holiday.
Fast forward to last October.
My best friends mum (who I have known since I was 10 and who I call mum) went out for a holiday with her partner.
They had been there for a few days and came home one evening from a day out to find luggage in the hallway and some random people asleep in the beds.
BFM didn't wake them as she was afraid they were burglars as she snook out of the house and phoned me to ask if I knew what was going on and who they were. I obviously knew nothing so BFM called the local police.
The police arrived and woke up the random strangers and asked who they were and what they are doing in the house, they told the police that they are friends of the owners and had permission to be there. BFM told the police that they were lying as she had spoken to me, she was my family, and we had no idea who they were.
The random strangers and their children were escorted out if the house and taken to the local station. All the while ranting they they had permission to stay there and that it was BFM who they should be taking away.
I helped that one of the pictures on the wall is one of me my best friend and her mum, so it was obvious that they knew us.
The police called me and I confirmed what BFM had said, that she was they one with permission to be there and I had no idea who the random strangers were, and certainly hasn't given permission to anyone else as I only allowed family to stay in my home.
The policeman then told me who the people were.... It was the neighbour and his family!!
It turned out that he had made copies of my house keys and had visited my home for 6 holidays in the last two years!!!!
The best part was that after the police sorted it all out and let them go the neighbour and him family still expected to be able to stay in my house!
BFM had the locks changed and told the neighbour where to go.
But on the last day of her holiday they neighbour turned up to check if they were gone yet, because he wanted to move him family in as soon as she had left!
When the neighbour got home he came to bang on my door and rant about how I had ruined his holiday and how terrified his children were. How thanks to me they had be forced to stay in a horrible hotel and then he tried to present me with a bill for the hotel!
Basically he believed that because I forced him to stay in a hotel I should be responsible for the cost.
I was livid and told him that I gave him permission to stay in my house one time, not to use it as their own personal holiday home, and if anything I should be billing him for staying in my house.
He actually tried to act like he had done me a favour as he saw it that he had been 'looking after' my house while he was staying there.
We haven't spoken since, unless he wants to borrow something.
I now have someone that I pay to keep an eye on the place, just in case someone decided to take a free holiday again.