Help! Lost passports and travelling on Saturday!

[winterrabbit]

We are supposed to be going on holiday on Saturday but have lost our passports. I have literally spent the last 24 hours turning the house upside down and they are not here. I can only conclude that i chucked them out by mistake or someone nicked them (we have had a nanny and a couple of workmen in the house but noone I think would steal them). Tried to book a fast track appointment to replace them and it says no appointment available and from what i am reading we are not going to be able to get one for weeks at best. We can't cancel the flights and DS is going to miss the football tour we were going to. The flights was extortionate as well. I honestly feel like jumping off a cliff.

They will be there. You will have had them when you booked as you need the numbers so

Look also in handluggage , holiday nags etc

We found ours in the scanner…

My friend couldn't find her passport when we arrived to collect her to drive to the airport. Spent a frantic 15 minutes turning the house upside down to no avail. Then she had the light bulb moment. She checked in her safe and there it was! You don't have a safe or safe place for hiding things in?

Could they be under the drawer? Pull the whole thing out and double check.

It’s hard to find things when your looking. Good luck.

Did you need them to do online checking for the flight?

What were you wearing when ex dropped the kids back in April. Coat, dressing gown, trousers.
What were the kids wearing?
What bag did they bring?

I know not in the spirit of this thread but who the fuck looks for their passport just as they are leaving the house lol. I need this level of coolness! (going away in 3 weeks and have passports located and tripled checked dates of expiry, no doubt will fail pcr as too organised)

I agree that you should pull the drawers out of sets of drawers to see if they have fallen down the back. Also fully check every draw as for example, if you put them in the top drawer they could have fallen down the back and into a lower drawer.

Fully pull out, lift, move furniture such as drawers, desk with a back, filing cabinet etc as if you placed them on the top they could have slid off the back and underneath.

I agree if you have a filing cabinet with slings you need to lift out the lot - everything - every sling at once and then one by one put them back - emptying and replacing each as you put it back, checking in folders and envelopes.

If you have any piles/bags /boxes of papers awaiting filing check them.

Have you needed your passport for ID, new job, Covid pass. At one time a Covid test used to say bring photo ID?

Have you used them for ID for voting? Or for vaccinations? Did you take them to an appointment at the bank or building society?
I think you should stop searching and think about the luggage you were using, the clothes you wore, the bags you carried last time you were away. Check your suitcases and backpacks again. Where was your last holiday? What were you wearing on the journey home?

For all three to be missing, I'm going with the ID theory as well. Have you enrolled at a new Doctor's or somewhere you needed limited proof of ID?

Check on the top of your fridge freezer.

Have you checked your car? This happened to us a few months after we moved house. Ransacked the place before remembering that we needed ID to register with the new GP and they were in the glovebox!

Found our passports two years later. We had been buying selling a house so had to produce passports at the bank, solicitor and estate agents. They were in an envelope with house stuff totally forgotten

I knew someone who once had to queue for emergency passport, got it in time and then realised their 'lost' passport was acting as a bookmark in the book they were reading at the time and had in their bag in the emergency passport queue.

In case it helps…several months after paying to replace it, DH found his original passport in an inside coat pocket 🤷🏽‍♀️

Thanks so much all. There are so really lovely and helpful comments here and I feel a bit better that other people have done similar. I'm afraid that I have done pretty much all the suggestions here including the back of drawers, the usual places, high shelves, all coat pockets, handbags, tried to retrace my steps etc and ask DSs and DH, all to no avail. ExDH says he gave the passports to DS2 who says he handed them to me. He doesn't recall what I did with them. DH and our cleaner have a vague memory of seeing one passport on the mantlepiece above the fireplace but noone can remember when although they think within the last few weeks. Noone can recall seeing DSs passports and I cannot for the life of me think what I did with them once they were handed to me, assuming this happened! If DSs were coming home then it's entirely likely that I would have put them somewhere convenient like the shelves in the lounge or the radiator in the hall whilst I said hello to them but I have checked all those places and nothing. So, either they were lost/stolen at that point or I took them up to my office where I usually keep them but I can't recall doing that or seeing them here but that is what I would usually do. Or, another scenario is that DS@ didn't given them to me but there were in his rucksack which was left in the hall for a few days. I remember going through it a few days later and taking stuff out as he needed it for football so maybe they got lost then. I have also been through their luggage several times and ski clothes, including all pockets, and nothing. It's a complete mystery but a very sad one. I think my only hope is to get an appointment. Why are there no urgent appointments available?? Urgent isn't waiting a week, let alone 3!

Too bad OP, I’d be gutted

I know this isn't very reassuring given the time pressure - but I find that if I'm frantically searching for something I've lost.. the best thing I can do is stop searching. I almost always happen upon it days later by accident when I've stopped looking.

Can you ask everyone in the house to be in hyper-aware mode for the next few days while you continue to systematically search. One of them might happen upon them.

Could the single passport on the mantlepiece be yours? And the boys ones have been absent mindedly placed somewhere when you got them back from their father?

Also, I am pretty sure I have not taken my passport out of the house for ID or other purposes. I can't think of any times in recent weeks when I have needed ID other than at Waitrose click and collect when I just need my debit card.

Behind a radiator?

We've needed to use passports a few times recently to verify who we are. One was for the Covid pass on the NHS app, have you done that? Could have put them with medical paperwork as NHS number also needed...

op you said you sometimes put them on the radiator.
maybe they fell at the back of it.

Sharming, that's usually what I do but in this case I just don't see how they will be found unless my ex has them after all. I really think I have looked everywhere.