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!

Thank you for coming back to tell us! What a good result! It's like an Agatha Christie mystery - I wanted Poirot in the library with all those involved (you two, the two workmen, the cleaner and possibly a random vicar walking past with his dog?). I wanted a proper denouement with hissing intakes of breath and pointy fingers! Thank you for your honesty in coming back!💐

Hi OP. Glad you found your ring.
But.... this whole sorry mess is 100% on your DH. If he never forgets aythng and has an excellent visusl memory ofwhat was next to things then he would have asked you what happened to all the items on the little ledge, the scraps of receipts and spoon etc... not just the ring. Because it wasn't just the ring was missing from where he left it. So "honey, I left the ring on that ledge and all the stuff is gone, did you move it?"
So all the posters who explained that it would most likely turn out DH forgot were correct. He forgot or neglected to tell you vital information (that with 100% accurate visual memory he should have noticed) that would have helped you realise it wasn't stolen but moved with other items. Poster after poster told you memory is inaccurate but you insisted, nope, you knew better.

Very happy you found it! Nobody is ‘still angry’ but since you don’t seem to understand why people haven’t let you off easily I’m willing to explain it to you. You dug your heels in so many times throughout this thread saying it’s NOT IN THE HOUSE, you looked everywhere, it’s not possible, the only options are builders or opportunistic thieves (despite being in the middle of nowhere). Not in the house. Period. Everyone who said it will turn up in the house was met with so much defensive attitude, arrogance and made to feel like they were mean and unreasonable. Your DP is basically a genius with photographic memory (despite all the evidence being pointed out that at least in this situation he definitely was a bit tardy). Why people still come to this thread is your attitude towards so many people here. Your stubbornness when people were pointing out that it will turn up in the most random place- you said NO WAY. And here we are. Whereas you knew or not about cleaners visit is irrelevant because as many of us said, it would show up because of some weird coincidence/ unexpected situation it got put somewhere unexpected. But you knew better.

I am also impressed you found it and returned to let everyone know.

We moved when I was a kid and my mother "lost" one of those pencils where you put the lead inside, it was sterling silver and precious to her.

She said for years that the movers had lifted it, until about a decade later when she got an old jacket out of the wardrobe and there it was, tucked under a tissue inside one of the pockets.

Yeah this, I think some people just love to argue to be honest. No matter what the outcome was, some posters would have just been like 'yeah but, no but, yeah but........' 🙄

The ring has been found, that should be the end of it. The constant nitpicking, the poring over the OP's posts to pick out all the 'flaws,' and the attempts to discredit her, trip her up, (and even make out she's made it all up) are tedious.

Thank you for coming back with the update! Glad you found it. I know I would be so upset if my engagement ring went missing. All the best for your wedding

That’s a bit crap of your cleaner that she came into your house without telling you she was coming, went rooting through your cupboards, put random things she’d found in a box and put that in a cupboard?! I think clearly an engagement ring would be something people might be worried about, it’s not like it was bits of fluff or Lego bricks!

She then didn’t ever tell you she’d been round, that she’d actually borrowed it or she’d been moving your stuff.

Not great really. I’d be really pissed off.

Have you told her you’ve been worried sick about your engagement ring and that you’d virtually accused the workmen?!

And then walked off with OPs carpet/rug cleaner that she proceeded to use someone else’s house 😵‍💫.

OMG, this shit gets worse

I'm glad the mystery is solved and no one is a thief – or getting cold feet about getting married
I totally get the concept of people wandering into your house, which you've left open, and borrowing things. I live in a city, but I regularly housesit for friends in a tiny village where there's a similar mentality. The postie opens the front door, comes into the hallway and puts post on the side. Builders pop in and tramp upstairs to fetch tools and materials they need for something else. My friends leave the car keys on the table by the front door so the local mechanic can open the door and grab them if he needs to work on the car when no one is in or answering the door.
So I don't find any of this odd.

Glad you found the ring. I hope this has made you more safety conscious and you’ll actually start locking your door now…

No it’s not on the DH, it’s on the OP jumping to
wrong conclusions and deciding her DH has a fabulous visual memory!

She needs to own it!

Im close to all my family but I can't imagine any of them letting themselves into my house when I'm not home , borrowing something and not messaging or ringing and just locking up the next day to return it 🤔
Let's face it a ring box looks exactly like what it is , you wouldnt just move it without looking inside & what a coincidence she came when you had just popped out .

I do hope it’ll turn up! 🤞

Just recently, while clearing out some drawers filled with the junk and stuff of ages, I was astonished to find a pair of pearl and diamond earrings dh gave me ages ago. For a few years I’d been tormenting myself with thinking they’d been lost through my own stupid carelessness - I thought I even knew exactly how they must have gone in the bin, and been lost for ever.

But lo, there they were, in a tiny box, but not the one they’d come in. What sort of memory lapse I must have had to have completely forgotten where I’d put them, I can’t imagine. And I had never, even when peri or menopausal, been prone to memory lapses!

Well.. there's your thread title, for starters. There's your conviction it could only have been him, that it can't have been lost, or mislaid in the house.

There is this photo of him - your main suspect - that accompanies the post, which you have posted on a large international forum, and which you have had many posters speculating on.

And you have added, "Obviously too big to be the ring but makes me wonder if he’s stolen other things"

So basically you have made him look like a thief to anyone and everyone reading this thread. in whatever part of the world.

I think the vital missing information was that the box was in a narrow space in front of a cabinet with an outwardly opening door. And OP was resistant to providing this sort of detailed information to all the armchair sleuths on here because her AIBU was 'what should I do about this thievery', not 'please help me find my ring'.

We did want to help find it! With the added information, a PP might long since have said 'Maybe it got moved so someone could open the cabinet door. Check if anything's been put into/taken out of the cabinet'.

Not really a comment about this thread as such, but more about the way threads can go if posters get fixated on their own interpretation of things.

Right but that wouldn’t have helped because nothing had been taken out of the cabinet, and as far as I knew no one had been in the house looking for anything! If people here had insisted that someone must have opened the cabinet it would undoubtedly have ended up being me or DP..

I really want to know where you live!

It sounds like such a safe country.

Are you British or have you always lived there?
If not why did you move there?

Sorry this isn’t about the ring, Bob, cleaner or workmen lol.

Just a heads up, as I’m sure it will, but if your thread gets to 40 pages it won’t let people post anymore so you have to create a new thread if you want to continue it.

So glad your ring is found!!! Absolutely thrilled for you.

Think the cleaner should have sent a short text asking to borrow item, just out of courtesy but further, that info would have helped massively with a widened search as she has a habit of moving things/putting things in strange places and could have saved any embarrassment with asking the workmen.
So glad your relationship with the workmen is still intact. Could have gone a different way.
All's well that ends well.

I suppose none of it happened then! But yeah… exactly why none of it would ever have occurred to me

Glad you found it!

Does the cleaner know that you’ve been looking for your ring all this time? Is she mortified at causing the situation (however inadvertently)?

Thank you. I do lock it when I go out if no one else is around - ironically I had considered that having builders there was more or less the same as someone being home, but they ended up not seeing the cleaner, as well as me then suspecting them, so lesson learned there!

I live in Southern Europe, I wouldn’t mind saying where but I’m sure I’ll be attacked for outing Bob’s friend to the nation. I don’t think it’s particularly safer than rural areas in other countries. I’m from London but lived here for 4 years, and before that 8 years in one of the country’s big cities where there is a lot of crime.

So glad you found the ring!!!

My dad's ring was stolen by our builder's girlfriend when I was 5 years old - I witnessed it but didn't really understand what she was doing and it only came out when my parents were searching the house. Dad didn't get it back and my parents have always been sad about losing it. So pleased that your outcome was much better!

Also so pleased that you believed Bob when he said that his friend didn't do it!