To think I might have been burgled?

[Kittensat36]

Having a bizarre and upsetting 48 hours. Just need to vent really.

Got up yesterday morning and was preparing to leave for work when I realised that my handbag was not in the hall. It normally sits on an ottoman I have, which is about 10 feet in. I know it was there because I remember taking my phone out of it the other night to send a text

Had to have an emergency day off , expecting to find it any minute - my flat is very untidy, but I expected to find it at some point. I even checked the washing machine in case I had taken it into the bathroom and scooped it up with the washing I was about to do.

But how on earth did it happen if I was burgled? The front door was shut, the back door was locked and the only open window opens onto a secure garden (and you would have cross my bed to get in).

I have to say that my bag is not the only thing that has disappeared over the last couple of weeks. My pill container for my meds disappeared from my living room, I thought that the cats might have bapped it somewhere, but they aren't talking. A batch of paperwork is also on the missing list- a receipt for a large purchase I made recently and a prescription for flea meds. All highly useful (not), but a bit odd as laptops were in the same room and were left untouched.

A ring doorbell/cameras would have been useful and I will have to get some. But I have nothing now. I suppose that if they put something through the letter box, they might have been able to get the door open, but isn't that a bit risky in the middle of the night? Wouldn't it have been easier to get in while I am at work?

Thank goodness for my marvellous upstairs neighbour lending me some cash, or I would be really stuck.

Got to go to work to sort out getting a new workphone and getting my locker broken into to retrieve my work kit. Then sorting a new barrel for my front door lock...

Thanks for reading my rant.

Burglars are more interested in cash or stuff they can sell than cards these days. Would be prudent to cancel them though.

Burglars would take pill boxes if any pills in them, paperwork for identity theft. Lost in an untidy house may be most likely but that does not rule out burglary.

Could you have left it in your car or at work? Or somewhere you went yesterday?
That seems more likely than you having a burglar.

Change your door lock. Could be a previous tentant found an.old key, and used it? When we move into houses, we always change the locks. A ring doorbell or equivalent would be great too.

Could someone related to your ndn keyholder have used their key?

And I did hear of someone who claimed her house had been burgled and her laptop stolen. Her laptop had been handed in at a police station 20 odd miles away, rather battered as she’d driven off leaving it on the roof of her car the previous day.

If your home is 'very untidy' I suspect it's far more likely that the missing items are still in there somewhere.

Change the lock by all means but go through each room methodically.

Twice I've lost my bag over the last year. Once it was hanging on a coat hook in the hall (under 2 coats) and once in the boot of the car (usually goes in passenger foot well, no idea why I put it in the boot that day).

Change the lock and get a Ring camera if it'll bring you peace though.

It’s just good sense. It takes seconds to shove it under some jumpers. Modern thieves want small, easy to carry high value items like purses, car keys and portable electronic items like phones and laptops. If you leave these lying around. They’ll take them.
I hide the car keys and my purse is upstairs with me.

It sounds like someone has access to a key.

Change the locks and fit a chain too. If someone did try to get in when you're home they'd make a noise.

The advice is to leave things like car keys downstairs. If someone comes into your house to take your car the chances are they are doing it to order.
The scenarios go like this: they break in, find your keys, take the car and go. You are upset and flustered then claim on insurance.
or
They break in. Can’t find the keys. Ransack the place, come into your bedroom. Possibly hurt or threaten you for the keys.

I know which option I prefer.

As it is if you have keys that work remotely they often don’t even need to break in. They can get the key details without even opening the door.

Ps on the off-chance your bag is still in the house somewhere, have you asked St Anthony for help?

Dear St Anthony, full of grace
Lead me to its hiding place.

Yup. Burgled 3 times here. Left handbag hanging on banister downstairs and keys in bowl by front door in end. Didn't want them coming up stairs where my kids were looking for cash/keys etc

This is the advice from our local police force after a neighbour woke up with someone holding a boiled kettle over their head threatening to pour it over them if they didn’t give them the car keys.

Our car keys and handbags now stay at the bottom of the stairs at night time, so they’re easily found before we are!

A rubbish troll? Yeah, that's what's in my flat hiding all my stuff.

What is the relevance of the carbon monoxide alarm? Are you thinking she's in a drugged like state and doesn't know people are entering her flat, or she's doing things out of character as effected?

Very strange. Have you blocked bank cards?

Go home and gut the place tonight and no doubt all the lost items will appear.

In the late 90's I was renting a house. I lived on my own and worked. I kept coming home to a warm kettle. One morning as I walked down the hill to the bus, the elderly neighbours cat followed me part way down the hill. When I arrived home that night, the neighbours cat was sat on my living room settee. No windows open, nothing left unlocked, no obvious means of access but that cat was definitely NOT in my house when I left for work as it walked down the hill with me. I rang the estate agent and told them what was going on and they assured me that only they and the Landlord had a key and it wasn't them. I think they thought I had lost the plot.

I made 12 coconut macaroons for my mum and left them on the cooling rack with a tea towel over them. When I came home there were only 10.

I had a long narrow lawned back garden and needed an extension cable to mow it, which I kept under the stairs and the mower in the garage. I came home from work and the extension cable was on the worktop by my kitchen window, where I would put it had I been feeding the cord through the window to mow the lawn. Wet grass was on my mower blades. But I had not done this.

However my elderly dementia ridden neighbour had a newly mowed lawn and believe it or not, he had lived in his house since the 1920's and had never had his electric sockets updated so had no means to connect to modern stuff. In the past he had asked to borrow my mower (and electric supply) so he could sort his garden and on the whole when I mowed my lawn I now did his. He was in his late 90's and his house was like a museum piece and he had no-one.

I went around to talk to him, and he didn't seem to recognise me as his neighbour and in the conversation, I mentioned he had managed to mow his lawn and he said he found reeling the cable out and getting the cable across the fence difficult but had managed it. He had no idea that he was just confessing that he had been in my house and used my stuff without my permission. After some gentle teasing out, it transpired that in the distant past, a tenant had given him a copy key to feed his cat and watch the house when my predecessor was away. He still had that key and was letting himself into my house to check on things. He was very confused and whilst it freaked me a bit, I was grateful if was nothing worse. I retrieved my key and had a word with social services as he needed help.

My experience had a decent outcome, but the point is past tenants/owners may have the key....so changing the locks is the right way to go. Also check for lofts, some houses, especially those with flat conversions, have shared cavity walls which may afford neighbours access to your accommodation without your knowledge.

Sorry but lol at the cats ain’t talking

Is the front door dead locked or just on a catch? The catches are really easy to break into.

Yep this happened to my mother,her car got stolen as a wee rat walked in off the street and swiped her keys.

Ages ago there was a thread on Reddit where, to cut a long story short, a guy posted that someone was coming into his flat at night and leaving written notes. Someone suggested getting a carbon monoxide detector which he did and it showed dangerously high levels. It turned out that at night, in an unventilated room, the guy was experiencing carbon monoxide poisoning which was causing him to write the notes.

I once had a purse go missing off a kitchen table. Nothing else, just a purse, so obviously didn't realise it was missing until I needed it, and then spent the next few days searching the house aimlessly. Never turned up. That house was the last house on a cul de sac, with no cut through, so the only people who could have seen it were those coming down to purposefully look into windows/ try doors, I was daft enough to presume it was safe. Always locked the front door behinde, but less often the back door, as I just thought it was out of the way enough not to be concerned.

But the OP doesn't do that, she hides her handbag, not her belongings, which would be, er..everything.

@BiscuityBoyle and @crackfoxy - glad it wasn’t just me who thought that was the advice.

Completely agree - it sounds counterintuitive but if a burglar is in your house overnight, you don’t want them hunting around for stuff, especially if - like many of us - you have DCs asleep in the house. If they’ve got in, it’s much better for them to be able to grab a handbag and car keys and go than have to spend time prowling round the house looking for things to steal. If they’ve got into your house, you want them out again as quickly as possible. Hiding things in your bedroom potentially puts you in more danger.

Keys should be left where someone can find them. You don’t want thieves looking round your house!! We actually keep ours in Faraday bags now though as there were a few car robberies in our old street where they copied the keys remotely.

As an aside, what is kept in a handbag?! I have my phone with me & Apple Pay, keys next to front door and my cards (which I never use) by the front door too. I have nothing to carry in a bag!