Or am I being a parcel stealing, curtain twitching busybody?

[TwilightSkylightsAndA40WattBulb]

Name change.

A video has been posted on a local facebook group that looks like I have stolen parcels. The person who posted it said "what is the world coming to when the local druggy nicks your child's bedtime story books". I'm scared this will get back to my employer. I work for the civil service so if they dont get the full story, I will be sacked. I will tell my boss when she gets in. She wont find it funny and I'm humiliated. I dont take drugs but I did stumble in the video and I have a cold so was wiping my nose a lot which looks bad.

My husband thinks I was niave and shouldnt have got involved. I have the parcels but will I be liable for them if I put them back where I found them because they will get nicked? I dont really want to speak with the person as they are obviously looking for trouble.

I've already commented on the video and have asked admin the take it down.

Our Evri and Amazon driver has started leaving parcels on our doorsteps which are directly on the street. Obviously they arent there when we get home.

I walked past a neighbour's house yesterday. It is a few houses down but I dont know them. They had parcels leaning against their house (directly on the street/pavement). I thought I was being nice. I wish someone had taken in the ebay parcel I had stolen the other day because the item in that was irreplaceable. So I thoight I was being a good neighbour.

The video shows me look at the parcels as I walk past, then come back a few minutes later, pick them up and walk off with them. What actually happened was that I walk past, come back with a note, post it through the door and then walk away with the parcels. I didnt realise there was a camera or I would have made a big drama of posting the note. You can see the door on the video but because of how Im standing you can see Im doing sonething but not that I posted a letter through. The note was an A4 sheet of pink lined paper ripped from a book and folded in half so they would have seen it.

The note said that their parcels were left on the doorstep so Ive taken them in, my house number and that someone will be in for the rest of the day and today.

I dont know what to do with the parcels. I dont want to speak with this person but if I put them back they'll get stolen.

I'm humiliated. I wont do it again.

My husbabd thinks I was interfearing in sonething that didnt concern me and basically asked for trouble. I thought I was just being nice and doing what I wish other people did.

YABU - you should have left the parcels alone
YANBU - you were trying to be neighbourly

But the recipients know the situation

Yes I know-I was just curious😊

They jumped the gun but you'll know not to do it again as not all good deeds are appreciated.

Give the parcels back to them with an explanation.

You have their parcels so I would take them back leave them at the door and leave a note on the actual door to explain and then leave it at that and don't try and help neighbours again

Don't do it again, you left the note let them collect and hopefully the person who's parcels they are will post on the original post saying you didn't steal them. But don't get involved anymore. My neighbour and I are tucked are in a corner on our estate and will take in each other's parcels occasionally as we both work from home. But otherwise we keep out of any thing else

I think you were trying to do a good deed and whoever has posted the video has completely jumped the gun and been unnecessarily rude in their description of you. I'm not clear how long ago all this has happened, but it feels like it should all be resolved easily once the neighbour is home and you can reunite them with their packages. I wouldn't go putting them back on the doorstep as that just makes you look guilty of theft. Personally I would probably find it a bit odd if a neighbour I didn't know removed packages from my doorstep, but if they did it with good intentions and left a note it wouldn't bother me too much.

This is such a weird post. I wouldn’t be being all apologetic, I’d be furious that I’ve been posted about on a local group and accused of being a thief and a druggie. But then again I wouldn’t have picked up the parcel in the first place.
Whether they respond to your note/FB post and come and collect, or you take the parcel round to them, I’d be demanding an apology for their defamatory comments, when (even though ill-judged) you were just trying to be nice.

This totally.

Much higher if you’re rubbing your snottery tissue hands all over their parcels as well as notes that you’re popping directly through their letter box. Gross.

Did you not leave a note, or say something to their ring doorbell?

You can't just be sacked from the civil service! There is a process!

The risk of dropping them back outside could be that the courier left them when the recipient was due back soon, while you might leave them when they’re out a long time. You then get blamed for any theft and they demand recompense. I think you’re stuck with them until you can hand them over.

Totallly agree. I’d be annoyed at being accused not apologetic and worried.
I’d make one reply on the FB post along the lines of “We’ve had lots of issues with parcels being stolen from the street and I put a bright pink note through your door at the time to say I’d taken them in and another since then when my OH tried to bring them round. I won’t be doing you any more favours, come and get your parcels.”
Forget about the coat, the cold, tripping up etc. it’s all noise, you tried to do a favour for a neighbour and they have been dicks about it.
This is why we don’t have a sense of community any more.

Just post on the Facebook post. Say it was you, explain why you did it and that tou put a note through their letterbox.

People don’t always read things though, do they?

You sound lovely OP. Don’t worry too much about it. You’ve done a kind and thoughtful thing that has been misinterpreted. Chalk it up to experience and hopefully you can laugh a little at it very soon.

PS I am quite sure you don’t look as bedraggled as you think

And this is why I will never EVER take packages in for people - ever. They can sort their own safe space, or arrange to pick it up at one of the parcel points that you get in supermarkets.

I had something slightly similar happen over a decade ago - not in the area I am in now - my previous home. I took in a package (when the courier couldn't get an answer from next door) and I put it in my hallway. The neighbour was new, (a couple in their 30s,) and they had only moved in 3 weeks before.

I took it around to them the next day as they didn't get in til 9pm. I took it to them to save having it cluttering up my hallway. They didn't come for it. The woman answered the door and thanked me for it. Long story short, after a couple of weeks, she reported it as undelivered, and said she hadn't had it. It was an item worth £500, and according to the records it had been delivered to me and I had signed for it, and I had clearly kept it. 🙄

I couldn't prove I hadn't kept it, and no matter how many times I knocked on the door, she wouldn't answer. I NEVER caught her as she always went out of the gate at the other side of her house. I got bugged by the company asking me to return the item or take it to the person it belonged to, and threatened me with the police. I phoned them and told them I had handed it to the neighbour the next day after it came. They ummmed and ahhhed and clearly didn't believe me. They said they would be 'taking further action.'

As luck would have it, we were moving house soon, and a few weeks after I spoke to the company (and about 7 weeks after I had taken the package in) we packed everything up and moved to our new home. Never heard anything about it again. The new occupant of our house didn't have our new address thankfully, and I never heard about it again. It was really stressful for a couple of months though!!!

Once bitten and all that. I never take packages in for people now. It's a pain in the arse anyway, and people take the piss if you keep taking their shit in.

And no, I NEVER expect anyone to take mine in. Indeed I don't WANT them to!

tl;dr As a pp said @TwilightSkylightsAndA40WattBulb I do think you are catastrophizing. I doubt anything will come of it. Put it back where you found it and PM the person it belonged to saying 'sorry I thought I was helping by taking it in. I won't do it again!'

Look it’s really simple. Leave the parcel where you found it. Not a wishy washy note looking for gratitude or a FB post trying to control people’s opinion. She shouldn’t have to waste her life coming to your flu house for her parcel. She shouldn’t have to interact with you at all. Just. Return. It. Don’t knock. Don’t say anything.
No more bullshit.
And if you’re so sick you’re wiping your nose with your hand repeatedly in the few seconds it takes to go down a path you should be more responsible about infecting others and stay home. Out of all of this, that’s what I’d pull you up on if I were your boss.

I would have commented on the video how you don’t take drugs and posted a note saying you took them in so they didn’t get stolen. But if you see anything again you won’t be so neighbourly. And I’d also let them know you will put them back in the street for them.

How much of the OP did you read?

God, we take in parcels all the time.
I would comment on the post, 'wow, thanks for calling me a druggie, I have a cold and fell over.....I put a note through your door explaining where your parcel was as I didnt want it to get stolen, I wont bother next time, if you READ the note I left, you will know exactly where your parcel is'
Fuck them

Oh OP, I feel really sorry for you

It sounds like you were really well meaning and it's a shame it's not worked out well. Try not to over worry about not looking your best on the video, it happens and you didn't know you were being filmed. You've explained so people will know you're not a parcel thief.

Op I think you’re getting an unfairly hard time. You tried to do a good thing and and as the the saying goes ‘no good deed goes unpunished’. I really wouldn’t be telling my boss unless someone said something and you have a totally reasonable explanation.

My view is somewhat coloured by having something similar happen to me. I ordered something from the VIP Next sale (a huge kitchen bin) and as it was in the sale it said it wouldn’t be delivered for about 4 weeks. Two weeks later I am away for a long weekend and as my plane touches down on the runway in France I get a notification that my bin has been delivered. I check my Ring doorbell to see the delivery man leaving a huge 4ft high box in front of my front door although admittedly up my driveway. I message my cat sitter to take it in but she wasn’t due until the following day.

She messages the following day to say there’s no box 🙀. I checked my Ring doorbell and there’s only the man putting the box down but nothing of anyone taking it. However I have set doorbell to only record for 10secs so if movement continues after that time it doesn’t record a new clip until there has been no further movement so it must have been taken very quickly.

Anyway it turns out it was my next door neighbour who saw him leave the bin and immediately took it in. Unfortunately he didn’t think to leave a note (he’s quite elderly) but I knocked on in case and there it was. To be fair he’s done it before with a smaller parcel and I could see him on the Ring Doorbell.

Both times I was really appreciative. Hopefully FB will take the video down.

That's the confusing bit op?

As mentioned on another thread I'm a cynical old baggage, but I wonder if they thought that people would be offering them freebies (especially as they made a point to mention it was children's books).

Sorry, completely off topic, but which novels? I'd love to read some of them! 😁