Years back, a friend of mine thought for a long time that she was losing her marbles, as, for example, food she knew she'd bought just seemed to disappear, along side money she occasionally left on the shelf, her computer monitor and mouse was sometimes in an odd position to how she'd leave it when she left for work, her Venetian blinds in one room at the front of the house would sometimes be completely down (even though she used to pull them up halfway, but she just thought the blinds must've slipped down), the back patio door was unlocked a couple of times (which she could've sworn she'd locked before going to work), and there was just a general sense of her house not feeling right on occasions when she'd been at work all day and came home.
(Her young kids all denied taking money etc, and there was no one else living with them)
Then one day she came home after work and froze as her Venetian blinds were put back up to halfway, but the slats were turned the opposite way to how she'd always turn them.
My friend knew that her kids wouldn't have altered the blinds and she rang me insisting that someone had been in her house, but as there was no sign of a break in, it had to be someone with a key.
Tbh I couldn't imagine anyone doing that, but my friend decided to 'set the scene, ' and so before she dropped her kids to school and carried on to work the next time, she put pop, biscuits etc out on the side (but noted how many biscuits were there and how much pop, she positioned the computer mouse a certain way, and took pics of how she'd left the room (this was all in the kitchen/dining room area) .
Sure enough when she got home that day everything she'd laid as a 'trap' had either moved, been eaten or drank out of! There were only 3 people with a key incase she was ever locked out, her parents and her cousin. My friend knew that her parents wouldn't go into her house without her knowledge, as if they needed to pop in they'd tell her. So that left only one person.
My friend set the scene again for the next couple of days, just to be certain, and sure enough, it was obvious someone was letting themselves into her house. After a few days of this, she went off to work and her parents waited and watched the house outside from a distance. They saw her cousin letting himself into my friends house, and let themselves in after half an hour.
The so called cousin was happily sitting at the computer, eating food, and charging his phones up. His face drained when he saw her parents.
It turned out he'd been letting himself into her house to use her facilities, steal money, etc etc, when he knew the kids were at school and my friend was at work.
He's also been doing this on a regular basis for over 3 years he admitted to when he was caught!
A neighbour had also witnessed him one day going into the house when she knew my friend was away on holiday, but after knocking on the door to ask who he was, he told the neighbour he was looking after the house for his cousin. Her neighbour thought nothing of it and didn't think to mention to my friend about him going into her house.
The lowlife used the excuse when her parents challenged him that he'd 'thought he'd seen someone in the house as he was walking by, so went to investigate'!
The lying bastard!