Someone’s been in my bedroom

[Hakunamatoto]

This isn’t really an AIBU but I didn’t know where to put it. Sorry.

Just back from a long weekend away tonight. Kids are on holiday with my ex-DH so the house was empty. Neighbour had a key to feed the cat.

Someone’s been in my bedroom. The bed has clearly been sat on, and there are things out of place in my bedside drawer, my knicker drawer and my desk.

I’m absolutely mortified and feel violated. There are things in my drawers that are extremely private. I don’t know what to do. Nothing is missing that I can see (there was a £50 in cash in the drawer by my bed so that would’ve been easily visible). The only other person with a key to my house is my mum (and ex-DU but he is abroad with DCs). Neighbour is more of a friend than just a neighbour. I’m trying to think of an innocent explanation or rationalising it as just cheeky nosiness. But the thought of someone rifling through my private things is horrible.

Maybe try, ‘thanks so much for feeding the cat, Beryl. Do I have your husband to thank as well for helping out?’

Just adding to the people living in lofts stories…..

I don’t remember where I read it, either on here or another group but a woman who was a secondary school teacher posted that she was in her room marking one afternoon after school when a man suddenly dropped down from the ceiling. She asked him something along the lines of ‘what the fuck’ and he ran off. She told the caretaker, headteacher etc but no sign of him. They realised that he was living in the suspended ceiling of the school. They took a few days to track down where he was and get him out, during which time they had to close the school!
She linked to a news report on it. I don’t remember where is was now, somewhere in Essex I think.

edit.

found it. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4616802.stm

The point is not the cat being nervous of her, the point is to find out whether or not her husband fed the cat without asking directly.

Not sure if it's still on, but Netflix had a horror movie called I See You. Which was about a young couple phrogging in a family's loft and also in their unused spare bedroom. If any of drawers were open I could've pinpointed the culprit straight away. Black white and furry and liked to drag items of clothing only partially out of the drawers. He also liked to open the drawer up under my bed and move everything around to make a comfortable spot for snoozing in. Not sure great during the night when he would then wake up and demand food and I would crack my ankle on the side of the drawer. Nor when he'd climb inside when I was at home and pull it shut as he climbed under the bed and I'd be left wondering where he was when I got back home. Although a quick rustle of a crisp packet and I could soon pinpoint the little miaows coming from under my bed

I think she's going to have to be a bit more direct.

You're welcome to think what you like, it's up to the OP what she does.

My moneys on the neighbours husband 🤮

This could work well if said casually.

Made me think of Parasite.

One of our cats has learned to open bedside table drawers. Only those - larger ones are too heavy for her. But she does it quite regularly, often when we are out and she’s bored.

You mention the children being very young, do you think she has taken a child or even both with her once when she came to feed kitty
is it possible neighbour went into bedroom and saw cat there, sat on bed whilst stroking the cat
and the children were ' naughty ' and opened a drawer / more than one drawer and were being nosy children and of course neighbour stopped them but didn't know that items had been moved.

Hopefully the snooping was just done by a female neighbour.

Does anyone remember The UK Queen's Canadian Pilot who was convicted of various awful crimes including the theft of women's underwear?

Col. Russell Williams

He took pics of himself rammed into small underwear that he had broken into houses for and stolen plus far worse crimes- A horrible beast of a man.

The fact he had a position of responsibility and ''trust'' in Canada made it worse in a way.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1321764/Pilot-Colonel-Russell-Williams-broke-girls-bedrooms-steal-underwear.html

Oh lordy @oakleaffy some men are just vile 😱

I was going to suggest this as well @Hakunamatoto

That is one of my fears!

Phrogging sounds like a lewd sex act!

If you are not going to ask about it from the neighbour who had access then I would either get cameras or lock the door for next time.

The most likely scenario!

This happened to a friend of mine. She suspected a neighbour (male) who was feeding her dog whilst she was away. She set a little trap and placed some bits of paper on her drawers so that if they were opened the paper would be displaced and sure enough when she came back from her trip the paper had moved. He'd been in her underwear drawer!

She confronted him and asked him whether he was aware that she had cameras in her house (she didn't - just calling his bluff) and when she said this his face just dropped. He said he wasn't snooping, it was a one-off, please don't tell my wife etc etc. Dirty pig. She warned a couple of the other neighbours who she knew he also house-sat for. She's since moved!

He'd have been in the laundry basket as well I bet. Dirty pig!

Scary stuff...or total and utter, hairy bollocks depending on how you look at it.

My DM was an inveterate snooper. She would always 'justify' it in a way to give herself the moral high ground.

You would not believe the number of letters which 'fell' out of envelopes and had to be read in case they were important, cupboards which had to be checked for mice etc etc. Always presented as her doing the snoopee a favour.

Knowing this, DH created an ingenious hidden catch to go on a particular bedside cupboard. The 'key' was a simple piece of dowling. You had to know how the catch worked to be able to open the cupboard.

If we were going away, anything private went in that cupboard.

It was never mentioned by DM but I can bet it drove her wild, knowing there was a cupboard which she couldn't open.

When the most likely scenario is that the person you gave a key and invited into your home while you away was snooping around in your bedroom, is it helpful to bring up ghosts, people squatting in your attic and serial rapists/murderers?

You should always leave someone with a key, because when your boiler tells you via push notification the pressure's gone and it's leaking and you're in a foreign country, you're screwed otherwise. If our neighbour hadn't had a key we would have had to replace the whole ceiling (and probably parts of the walls).

Are the neighbour's kids teenagers,OP? My boyfriend and I (both 16 at the time) used to avail ourselves of his nan's bungalow keys when she was away and have secret underage sex sessions in her bed 😱
Obv as an adult I'm appalled at our behaviour, but 30 years ago the invasion of privacy and bad hygiene didn't occur to us....wejust seized the opportunity and went for it.