AIBU to confront workmen about stealing my engagement ring?

[Marooney]

TLDR- workmen are only people who could have taken my engagement ring, do I confront them?

Need some urgent advice please-

We’ve had 2 workmen here for several days repairing the patio. They don’t need access to the house and come in and out the side passage which leads directly to the garden from outside. One of the men has done several jobs with/for DP over the years, let’s call him Bob, the other guy is an assistant DP doesn’t know.

On Monday night DP left my new engagement ring in its box on a table near the front door as he was going to take it to have a small adjustment done, however on Tuesday morning he forgot and on Wednesday noticed it wasn’t there. He assumed I’d taken it but I hadn’t and there’s no one else in the house, no cleaner or visitors, no one. We live in a rural area and I haven’t always been locking the front door when I pop out on errands as the builders are around - I never thought they themselves might be a risk- and it’s a cul-de-sac so no one passes by except one middle aged neighbour who we’re friendly with, walking her dog. Our Ring doorbell has not recorded any stranger entering our front gate.

We don’t know what to do. Obviously we can’t accuse with no proof, but it seems clear that one of them has taken it. My only idea so far is to have a word with Bob, ask him a bit about the other guy and how long he’s known him etc then say a ring has gone missing and we’d rather sort it out now than look through days of Ring camera footage (we have cameras but unfortunately not in that area, but he doesn’t need to know that). That way at least we’d be implying to Bob that we don’t think it’s him. Incidentally, DP hasn’t categorically said that it couldn’t be Bob.

Any suggestions gratefully received!

Def bad your ring bell hasn’t picked you going and coming

tho how likely is a stranger /thief likely to come into home /house and grab/steal a ring and not be seen by Bob or friend

At this point it's unknowable, OP. You have no evidence for builder and you didn't see the box left out on the ledge, and had no idea it was there. Despite what you think, you can't 'know' any further information other than where YOU last saw it.

To that end, look into insurance, keep an eye out for it, and chalk it up to a shit thing to happen. I hope you find the ring.

I don’t want help finding it! I don’t for a second imagine anyone on here can do that and I wouldn’t ask that of mumsnetters. Timelines of retracing steps would be completely irrelevant to strangers online. My OP was asking about how to bring it up with Bob.

Perhaps she and Bob are very recently engaged 😳

No her boyfriend was employed by DP but he had to sack him for incompetence. Maybe this is an elaborate revenge theft orchestrated by the secretary, not sure how she’d have got Bob onside though..

Yes very frustrating, I wonder if it’s due to bad WiFi connection as the doorbell is several meters from the house.

It’s quite likely anyone entering the house could be there unseen for at least several minutes as the garden is the other side of the house. The unlikely part is that an opportunistic thief would be passing as we live in a rural cul-de-sac!

I think Spiller will persuade Arietty to put it back when he arrives on his boat. I’m just hoping the property has a stream running through the garden though. You might find the ring on the table without the box though because Homily has made Arietty a beautiful dress with the silk lining.

Have you checked (you probably have) if the box/ring are still in the original safe keeping place? As in where ever you kept it before dh took it out and placed on the table.

I believe the ring is still in the house.

I know I suggested you could have scooped it up from the ledge and caught it up with some post/laundry/other stuff - but could DH. So I know he left without it but could there have been a scenario (at 5:30am) where he picked it up, but then thought "oh I need a wee/to pick up that thing from another room" and transported it to another part of the house?

I am so sure it's in your house.

Couldn’t agree more! I was bemused at first, now mainly just amused

Yes we really have looked everywhere we can think of despite many posters insisting I’m blindly accusing people without bothering to search first 😆

We have considered that possibility and looked in every room either of us has been in since Tuesday including a very thorough combing of his bathroom drawers

Thanks. Technically you are right but then what’s the point of believing anything anyone says? At some point in your everyday interactions you just have to take things people say at face value, especially when it’s someone you know well and know how they act and think. Consequently I do ‘know’ he left it there at least, and no idea what happened after that!

I think you're getting mixed up between what you can know and what you can believe. They are two different things. Of course you can believe something to be true – but it doesn't mean it IS true, unless you have the direct knowledge that it is.

You have the indirect knowledge that he left it on the ledge, because he told you he did. You believe that's true. You don't KNOW that's true. He is the only one that can know he left it on the ledge. And even then, memory is an imperfect thing.

Anyway, that's all getting a bit existential now, but the point is that if you start going by what you know to be true, rather than what you believe to be true, then you have a better chance of solving mysteries like these because then you don't rule out any possibility of where it could be.

It's not saying 'hey, you're lying', it's saying 'memory is imperfect – let's not discount any possibility'.

As I said, I hope you find it. Or I hope that you have some luck with the insurance.

For some reason I keep visualising the joke with a stick man with no arms...'This is Bob. He has no arms. Knock knock...Who is it?...it can't be Bob'.
(Sorry)
I hope you find your ring or buy another one as nice 💐

Aha... he's not brushing an insect away, he's waving, to his mistress, who is about to sneak into your house and take the ring... I can just make out the reflection in her eyes...

I’ve just been into my mum’s garden OP and a much-beloved garden gnome’s head has been sliced clean off. There is also a broken pot with pieces lying in the opposite direction which looks as if it should be impossible.

The garden is secluded with no access.

So we now have our own budget-version of a mystery here. Not as exciting as a missing engagement ring but that’s Gloucestershire for you.

These are surely weird times indeed… 👀

A fight between 2 magpies. I'm not even joking, they're vicious!

It's a very odd response to be amused that you have now lost your engagement ring. It's supposed to be a sentimental object, also one of financial worth, usually. Most people would be very upset, not blithely amused at silly posters trying to display rational options - particularly when you keep banging on about your DP's excellent efficiency and semi-photographic memory, while giving example after example of him being a bit of a dill.

Football? Any walls/fences that are jumpable?

Something similar happened to me. I told the people I suspected that I was going to call the police to come and do fingerprinting and the perpetrator would be arrested. I let the perpetrator group come back in the house for coffee for an hour, and my engagement ring appeared down the back of my sofa after they’d left. I had pulled the whole house apart looking for it including sofas. I had kept it in bathroom cabinet thinking it was safe, obviously it wasn’t.
Maybe do a similar scenario, although it’s now the weekend and time is of the essence.

No and no! It’s really odd.

DM has a little courtyard that backs onto my lawn at an angle. Very sheltered- no way for footballs to get to it.

Garden ornament is on the floor of the courtyard, a couple of inches from the fence, minus its head.

On a small concrete post/pillar above it, maybe a metre high, there was a garden pot. This is now smashed on one side - but not the side facing the broken garden ornament - the side facing my lawn. The broken pieces had fallen into my garden (which is a couple of feet higher than DM’s courtyard).

Maybe the pot smashed on the same night as the garden ornament in some kind of weird coincidence? But I’m confused as hell as to how the fragments ended up in my garden and how in the opposite direction, the garden ornament’s head was knocked clean off.

We had a huge storm here a couple of nights ago that was truly apocalyptic- I was even wondering if the lightning had taken its head off 😂😂

Here’s a photo of the decapitated ornament. It’s very weird. (Sorry for the derail OP - I was just commiserating with you about weird and unexplained goings-on, albeit mine was much less cosy!)

Well, in Wiltshire on , Wednesday I think, there were thunderstorms that were rather violent. There were also giant hailstones raining down. So it's quite possible that a freak storm caused the damage. In Melksham the hailstones went right through a conservatory roof.

All these telepathic people saying it’s still in the house. Things do get stolen.