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.

If your front door lock is just a Yale type lock they take seconds to open with lock picks and there’d be no sign it had been unlocked. If its a wooden door get a locksmith to fit a five lever mortise lock.

Do any of your neighbours have ring doorbells or CCTV that might capture your house? Do you have find my phone on your work phone?

This is terrible advice. My DH is a Police Officer. Police advice is to leave stuff where it could be quickly found if an intruder came in.

Imagine the intruder wants to find your purse.

Option 1 - bag containing your purse is in the hall. Intruder takes it and leaves.

Option 2 - bag containing your purse is in the bedroom. Intruder comes further into your home to find your bag, and he ends up in the bedroom looking for it. You wake up and scream. He has to make you shut up. Who knows how that story ends, chances are you get hurt, or worse.

Option 1 is safer. Yes, you lose your bag, but it's only "stuff". Cards can be cancelled and replaced.

Anyway Op, highly recommend camera doorbells. We have a Eufy one. It films every movement that happens, even if the doorbell isn't pressed. Any movement in the area, it starts to record. I'd get that up today!

Exactly this. If someone is going to break into my house I’d far rather they have easy access to my handbag so that they can take it and leave, rather than come further into the house/upstairs to find something worth taking 🤷🏻‍♀️

x post @Blondiebeachbabe

I would say unlikely based on what you have said. Depending on where you live, it is possible for someone to opportunitistically walk in and take something in the hall. However you have said several items have gone over the past few weeks. The chance of someone breaking in over and over taking small items is very low. It's more likely you have misplaced them. Sometimes we can conjour memories up in our heads. We have just moved and my DH lost his military ID. He ransacked the house as he had a memory of being at the kitchen table with his ID. We got a redirected letter from the old house a week ago saying the ID had been left in a hire car, hired before the move. The ID was never in this house but DH was convinced. There is a small possibility someone you know is taking them, but I would say far more likely you have misplaced them.

And if you don’t leave them lying around, they’ll go searching round your house to find them. Potentially in your bedroom, or your child’s bedroom. I know which I’d prefer.

I can't imagine being so untidy I didn't know if I were burgled, but assuming you are this must be very scary considering you were in the house. I wouldn't be leaving until locks were changed and police had finished forensics. Presumably your house keys were in the bag so they can come back another time and try for more stuff

A trusted neighbour could have a light fingered teen or new partner

I was also told this by a police officer friend. I mentioned that we should probably stop leaving out car keys on the shelf in the hall. He said leave them where they are it's far better for someone to nick your car than come upstairs where your family is sleeping to look for keys/valuables. For most people, their car is probably the most valuable thing they own. There's nothing in my bag apart from random shite.

Burglars don't carry keys. If entry has been gained by using a key that sounds like it's someone the OP knows.

Realistically though noones going to steal pills & documents. It's more likely they've been mislaid

As above, I was told the opposite. If some drugged up burglar is going to come into my house, they can take what they want as long as they leave my family alone. I don't want anyone coming upstairs to look for car keys.

That's freaky. It sounds like whoever is coming in is messing with you rather than trying to steal anything valuable. Which is freakier than an outright burgler.
Would your trusted neighbour have anyone in their house - partner or teen who could be doing this with the key? As they might have access to it?
I'd maybe change the lock and try a different trusted neighbour with the next key.

As someone with hoarding tendencies myself your post honestly sounds like you also could be.

You KNOW its highly unlikely anyone is stealing your flea prescription etc... you are just losing them in what is already self acknowledged to be 'untidy'.

I would say to get help but unfortunately hoarding is a MH condition that no one takes seriously and there is pretty much no help for. Youtube can be great though, I would suggest Cas from Cluttebug as she really nails the 4 different types and implements coping methods to be able to organize and find things based on your own type.

If you lose things often you will most likely be a ladybird (a hider who puts things out of sight to look tidy and forgets whats hidden where) or butterfly (a trail leaver, who leaves things visually where they expect it to be but can't find it if its not in that expected spot).

One of thd few sensible things my ex did. He lived in a cottage, nearest neighbours a mile away. It had a massive driveway & he had 3 cars 🙄 Car keys were left in a bowl on a unit in the porch. For the exact reason he said he'd rather someone broke in, grabbed the keys & took the cars & didn't enter the actual house

Unfortunately he wasn't always so sensible

older locks can also be opened with other Yale keys - like Old Ford’s!

Why would someone go in and take a pill box and some random paperwork? Far more likely you've misplaced it. Have you had anything else unusual happen over the last few weeks?

This thread has encouraged me to fill an old handbag with a bunch of keys of unknown origin (everyone has a drawer containing those don’t they!), car keys for a car I no longer own, expired cards of various types and a couple of £10 notes. I’m going to have fun “curating” this and leaving it downstairs as my burglar decoy. Maybe some old used tissues for authenticity as well.

You haven’t been burgled. You’re just messy and absent-minded (I say this as a messy and absent-minded person myself).

You need to bite the bullet and have a huge tidy/declutter. Go through the house methodically room-by room.

All these things will turn up.

And use the opportunity to create some systems and rethink how you store things.

This sounds terrifying, how did you catch them?

The problem is that we all do things routinely until for some reason we don't.

I once hunted high and low for house keys. Couldn't find them anywhere. Several hours down the line, I found them on the side in the bathroom (where I'd put them before going to the loo when I'd come in).

I wouldn't go around getting any locks changed on the basis of a missing handbag, a flea prescription & a lost receipt.

Sounds like the money could be better spent getting a cleaner in.

That’s a very strange way to live. Have you considered therapy?

I could have written this post - right before I was signed off from work with burnout.