Looking after neighbours suitcase

[ShakyBake]

Neighbour of ours, friendly known her for about 7 years is off on holiday next week.
We were talking about it over the wall yesterday and informed me she will be taking 3 cases and would it be ok if I keep the suitcases (packed) in my living room until the morning she gets picked up. I said yes of course and didn't ask why. My husband doesn't understand why we need to keep them here. I said don't be silly we are neighbours and it's the right thing to do. That's not unreasonable is it?

So if she is leaving with her cases from the OP's house then presumably she is giving the taxi driver the OP's address.

I'd feel a bit weird about this, particularly as it's the taxi driver she seems to be worried might be a bit dodgy.

If she hasn't already booked the cab why can't the OP just pop round to the neighbour a few minutes before the cab arrives and wave her off from there 'Bye Margaret, it's been lovely having you, let me know when you've got home safely'. Wait until the cab is out of sight to pop back home.

I suppose the only problem with this might be that Margaret is anxious about her front door being properly locked and/or leaving the OP with a key.

Can you wait outside Margaret's already locked front door with her and cases? And then fiddle about with her bins until the cab is out of sight and you can go back home? Better than living with 3 cases in your living room and a thoroughly pissed off husband.

tell her in passing you’re looking forward to your brother visiting night before she leaves, with his newly retired drug sniffer dog 😉🫣…

Definitely this 😅 all very dodgy!

What a good idea! I often worry about heading off on holiday with suitcases and have been known to wave goodbye to the cats and talk to the taxi driver about how on earth my vast (imaginary) family of strong men all armed to the teeth. Wouldn't work with Uber mind you - they have my home address...

So if the taxi is collecting from yours why does she need to pretend to be going home?

Where is the taxi taking her that will seem like she is returning home I wonder.

She could have murdered the milkman and stuffed him in 3 cases 🤣

Hahahaha how the hell did you come up with this? I love your imagination 😂

Posters on Mumsnet tend to do sod all, or the bare minimum, to help their neighbours. I’m on your side OP.

So help your neighbour at all costs regardless of how it impacts dh?

I'm not saying its totally unreasonable to help the neighbours, it is unreasonable to disregard dh feelings when it affects him and unilaterally decide thats what you are doing as a couple.

There is absolutely no reason for op to have taken the cases days before the holiday... neighbour could have brought them round 10 minutes before and been waved off as per her plan. That would have been a good compromise but op just went ahead without thinking considering dh.

I don't get it. Why can't she just stand at the end of your drive with her suitcases at taxi time? Am I missing something?

I can't believe anyone would accept this request without asking why! 🙄

Can't believe anyone is taking the OPs post seriously it has to be a joke

This is often true; but I think we're just struggling to understand how this actually helps her. It just seems like a random task to be assigned that has no benefit to anybody at all (other than maybe giving the neighbour a bit less clutter in her own living room in the run-up to her holiday).

Also book the taxi under the surname of Fury and complain that your brother never seems to leave the house, as it takes so much of his time constantly polishing all of his Lonsdale belts

Hmmm weird, whats in the case?dead bodies, drugs, or is she planning a secret escape from her life and never returning..tv drama ideas ...but why????

That’s ridiculous. It’s not helping, it’s indulging batshit.

Even with the update, it still makes no sense. If this is truly the neighbours problem, which they are trying to fix by dumping their cases in a neighbours lounge room, arriving 10mins before the taxi and leaving from neighbours house, there would be other options. Why wouldn’t the neighbour just take the cases over to OP’s front door 20mins before taxi, then go over 10mins before and enact the plan from there? Or take them a few houses up, or across the road, in advance and stand at the end of that drive and wait. Exactly the same thing could be achieved without dumping 3 suitcases inside someone else’s house.

The whole thing is like a plot with massive holes. How did the neighbour know that OP/DH will even be home at the date/time they are going to depart in the taxi? It’s still all shades of weird.

Why couldnt she be returning from her own house?

Hahahahahahahaaaa and feeding the ten vicious rottweilers

If you'd read the OP's posts you'd know what she was up to - slightly paranoid about the taxi driver realising she's going to be away for weeks, she wants to leave from OP's house and pretend she is returning home, not leaving her own home,where the taxi driver can then reasonably assume she will be gone for weeks.

And do have a wee think about the whole 'security questions you're asked at the airport' thing.

They aren't asking you those questions to catch out your bag storing neighbour! They are asking them to catch out idiots who either leave bags with a holiday boyfriend who then stuffs it with cocaine and comes in on another flight to meet you, or the really dim ones who think saying 'oh no my boyfriend packed it' would get them out of a drugs trafficking charge.

Having someone else pack or mind your bags does NOT get you, the bag owner and carrier, off a trafficking charge, as sadly many silly young people in Thai jails have found out.

Being the innocent minder of a bag, even if that bag later turned out to be full of drugs, is vanishingly unlikely to get you worse than a conversation with CID... unless of course you are actually a drug dealer or meth cook..

If Batty Old Lady gets stopped at security and asked those questions (and being asked them LEAVING the UK is unlikely... coming in from say, Thailand, mm, bit more likely)... its her getting interviewed and her bags getting x-rayed and rifled through, not the OP and her living room!

And do have a wee think about the whole 'security questions you're asked at the airport' thing.
They aren't asking you those questions to catch out your bag storing neighbour! They are asking them to catch out idiots who either leave bags with a holiday boyfriend who then stuffs it with cocaine and comes in on another flight to meet you, or the really dim ones who think saying 'oh no my boyfriend packed it' would get them out of a drugs trafficking charge.

For what it's worth the reason for the questions often asked at check-in, or bag drop, so obviously pre-departure: "did you pack this bag yourself" and sometimes "any possibility anyone might have interfered with the contents" etc is usually to do with explosives and explosive devices.......not drugs...

That's understandable if it's happened to her in the past. My parents are still paranoid years and years after a burglary about leaving cardboard packaging out with the bins. They'd bought a new TV and put the packaging out, then the following week the TV was stolen!

It’s weird you agree to it. Offering to be up and help her to the car - fair enough… but keeping her luggage.its weird.

🤣🤣

Ex partner (many, many years ago!) was asked by his neighbour / landlord / friend (NLF) to keep a suitcase for him just for a few days (and I think there was a comment about the police may be coming round). I said I thought it was really off and that ex should definitely find out what's in it, before agreeing to hold onto it (running through everything from potentially perverting the course of justice to being complicit in something nefarious... As a side note, it was ex's dream to be a police officer 🙄). Ex said he trusted NLF with his life, it wouldn't be anything bad and he wouldn't be so disrespectful as to ask - there was no question about it, he was looking after the suitcase.

Anywaaay... Fast forward a few years and NLF is sentenced to 25 years in prison for SA boys.

Fast forward a couple more years and ex also receives a custodial sentence for having a relationship with an underage girl.

I didn't learn any of this until some years later and, as soon as I was made aware, I got in touch with the police and told them everything I knew. I never found out what was in the suitcase and I think I'm probably better off for it.

Unsurprisingly, I'd have questions about keeping someone else's suitcase, without knowing the reason why. A woman attempting to escape an abusive relationship, for example, should definitely be helped but I'd need a discreet nod to that before I'd agree.

This thread would have gone in a totally different direction if you had lead with this tragic tale 2 days ago 😳.