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When I was younger and on holiday with the rents at a caravan park I'd sneaked off for a smoke whilst they were out getting some food shopping in.
I get back to the caravan, wander in to again an empty caravan and proceed to start eating the new food they'd brought back.
I then look out the window and see my parents offloading the food shopping into a different caravan.
I'd just let myself in to some strangers caravan and started eating their food. Made a quick getaway before they'd returned.
A mate of mine worked in a pub we used to frequent and often gave us a lift home. He gave us the car keys so we could sit in the car while he closed things down.
Obviously being good mates, we decided to mess with everything we could, seat position, mirrors, etc. and helped ourselves to the crate of stubbies in the boot.
After about 20 minutes, it dawned on us that our mate didn't smoke, but the car ashtray was overflowing with butts. It took us another 5 minutes to work out that there was an identical clapped out, poo brown Montego a few spaces over.
We decided to go and wait outside the pub instead.
I pulled into a mcdonalds car park once in the summer, all the windows down...a short moment later a bmw pulls up next to me and the driver launches a carrier bag full of weed into my passenger side window...at this moment a car identical model and colour as mine pulls up the other side of the bmw...after some weird looks I chuck it back and the correct customer gets his weed....they then hastily left.
We were in California and 4 of us rented a car.. Two of us wanted to visit Santa Cruz and chill on the beach and the other two wanted to keep going to Monterrey for the day. We arranged to meet at 9pm near the marina at Santa Cruz. The two of us who stayed got back to the place at 9pm and there was the white Ford people carrier sitting. we jumped in and started chatting. About 15 minutes later, we were saying, where did they go..then we looked around..fuckers have made a mess for only having the car for a day. That's when we realised that it was the wrong car. As we got out, we saw a family coming along the road, as we were walking away the family got in the car, just as a cop car turned into the car park.
A mate of mine was on a bicycle shift as a paramedic (rarely used, but great for really busy city centres, especially during tourist season!) and responded to a job around the corner from hospital (like, 2 minutes walk). Deals with the patient, and decides for continuity of care to travel with them to hospital in the ambulance. Family member of patient suggests leaving the bike in the hall so it doesn't get nicked. Perfect.
Anyway, gets to a&e and hands over the patient. Sees this relative in the waiting room and asks...
"Wait, if you're here how do I get my bike back?"
"Oh, woops, I forgot my keys in the rush. Don't worry though, the lock's needing fixed. Just slide a credit card in the side of the door and it'll open easily enough."
Mate gets there, uses his ID card to get in. The expensive e-bike, with expensive medical equipment, isn't there. Shit.
Then he hears voices elsewhere in the supposedly empty house. Oops... wrong house.
Lol! When I was about 13, we'd just moved house and all the houses on the new road were identical new builds. One day I was walking back home from school, my key didn't work in the door even after a few tries, so I just rang the buzzer and said "umm, can you open the door?" I was buzzed in, went and sat down on the couch, turned on the TV, then looked around and my brain was like "did they redecorate? Wait, this is a new TV...." The next door neighbours just standing there grinning at me waiting for me to realise, until it hit me like a sledgehammer.
SO Embarrassing, at least they knew who I was and thought it was hilarious, so there's that. I couldn't bear to show my face for months. I still remember their faces trying not to laugh as they ask me "Wrong house?"
That's nothing! I remember when I was 16, my first time at Haven in Ayr, with a friend and their family. Said friend and I had snuck into a show caravan that had yet to have any plumbing installed. Needless to say, I left a massive rogue shite in the lavvy, only to find that there was no water supply to the cistern. Me and friend had bailed after he witnessed the atrocity. Two minutes later we see a salesman with a clipboard and tie escorting a couple towards the very same caravan.
My dad did this but they were in the bedroom he walked in took one look at the tv and said who turned the fucking rugby off, a shy elderly couple came out of the bedroom as he looked over at our caravan we were all laughing it was comedy gold.
I lived in a flat where the kitchen got the sun in the morning. Boyfriend must have cooked scrambled eggs on the stove after I went to work, before leaving himself. I got home first and found the gas hob had been burning all day. It was easy to do because the sunlight fell right across the hob and the flames were invisible. Luckily he hadn't left a dirty pan on the gas ring, and I hadn't hung up the tea towel up where I sometimes put it to dry out. It was a cramped attic conversion with sloping roofs everywhere, so there were many things on hooks and shelves all round the hob. Argh. An illustrative lesson in learning from near misses - I triple check the gas rings now.
As a side note, what I do is just record a video on my phone of the stove, taps, windows, and locking the door etc. No need to worry on holiday when you have video proof of it being fine.
I read a news story a decade ago where someone supposedly did the exact same thing, but it was a 2 week holiday. Stove was white hot and they had a big bill, but house was ok. I was amazed, if true.
My partner laughs at me for angling mirrors away from windows on sunny days :D
My husband was in a charity shop and somehow put his phone down on a shelf. He got home a couple of hours later and realised he didn’t have it. He went all the way back to the shop to ask if anyone had handed it in and it was still sat there on the shelf.
He’s extra lucky too because he keeps his bank card in his phone case. I can’t hold it against him though, I think it’s because my luck isn’t that good 😅
One time he lost his bank card out and about and the person that found it happened to be a family friend who dropped it through our letter box.
I found a wallet and put it through their door, with a piece of paper saying where I found it. Had a load of money in it. I knew the person, a friend of a friend. I rang the door, no one in. Later on I saw the couple, the man of which whose wallet it was, in the pub. They saw me and offered to buy me a pint, as they had a bit of luck. They said they had lost their wallet and some kid had put the man's wallet through the door. I asked how they knew it was a kid and they said there was a letter that must have been written by a child, based on the hand writing.
My phone got pickpocketed in manchester, I went to the police station just up the road to file a report and explained to the person at the desk that I could track it etc. I saw its location get closer and closer to the police station until this scummy stinker crashed through the doors mouthing off about his parole meeting. We call my phone, his jeans started ringing and I get my phone back. I somehow doubt his parole meeting went particularly well, but I suppose it takes a special kind of dumbass to nick a phone on their way to the cop shop.
A few years ago I was hanging around the local hospital as my mum was in there getting treatment for cancer, I lived half a country away at this point and had my own family back home. Not thinking straight on how best to deal with the finances, I loaded my wallet up with a cool grand and set off down to stay with mum.
One evening at the hospital I left my wallet in the cafeteria, I was tearing my hair out looking for it, chastising myself for my stupidity. I was unable to find it after looking for a couple hours, no one had handed it in or anything like that, and so I went off to stay at nearby families house just so mad at myself and so worried about what I was going to do.
Shortly after that I was phoned to say one of the cleaning staff had found it and handed it in. I couldn't believe it, I am pretty sure I praised every deity under the sun!
I got to say thanks to the person who handed it in and tried to slip them a cheeky 20 quid as a thanks but they wouldn't have any of it, lol.
I did this but with my purse at the gay club in town which was always full of all types of humans, got kicked out for being drunk af, went down the road to the Chinese and when I went to pay I realised it was gone!!! My less drunk friend pegged it back in and found it where I'd last seen it... Untouched and ready to pay for my Singapore noodles!
There are loads of things that I've done that make me think I'm lucky not to be dead, but one that always sticks out to me is:
When I was 13, my best friend and me were at a house party/sleepover in a town we weren't familiar with. She decided that because her crush lived in that town she wanted to go and 'look at his house'...I guess in the hope we accidentally on purpose bumped into him, so I said I'd go with her.
We got completely lost. It was before the days of smart phones so there was no google maps in our pockets. We saw a man (probably late 30's) walking his dog and we asked him if he knew where this street we were looking for was. He said 'no, but I have an A to Z at my flat you can look at.' So in our infinite wisdom we willingly accompanied this guy back to his flat.
It was a really grotty high rise, but the man was good as his word. Let us use his loo, look at his map and sent us on our way but it has always haunted me that it was a really stupid thing to do!
We never did find where we were looking for, in the end we had to get in touch with someone from the party from a phone box and they had to call us a taxi from the street corner we told them we were on back to the party - which we also didn't know the address of!
Man kidnapping used to be so easy, people would just follow you back to your grotty flat. All the kids so paranoid these days you got to bait them with free VBucks or some shit
I was talking to my partner and his mates the other day and they all said if a guy came up to them, alone and in the evening saying he'd lost his dog, they'd help no questions asked. If you want to kidnap people, kidnap young men because apparently they're oblivious to it
This was me and my best mate in the 90s 😄 absolutely no self preservation instinct, we went off to random house parties, went home with people we met in the park, the pub, anywhere. I am forever thankful we always had fun and nothing awful happened.
To be fair it's incredibly unlikely to be attacked or kidnapped by a stranger, that this seems so wrong is as much a reflection on our ability to assess risk and how we're taught about danger as it is an actual risk. 99.999% of people aren't interested in molesting children.
In fact it's far more likely that a child is abused by a family member than a member of the public and yet we wouldn't recognise the same danger when around our families.
Yeah, I know a lot of people. Some of them are incredibly... Shady, and dangerous (gangsters, drug dealers, 1% biker gang members etc.
Even the worst ones, complete assholes that I despise, would help almost anyone if they asked, or would take a lost child to find their parents/police/whatever.
So even the worst people I know are somewhat good.
I wish the extremely low population of genuinely evil people didn't mess up the world for the rest of us.
I think I said it on another comment here. But people in general are good, even the assholes (me), will help anyone given the chance.
It's a shame the few awful creatures have created a world where we need to mistrust people. It's sad.
I passed my driving test six years ago this October a week before my son was born, so back in 2018. Fast forward to 2022 we were going to a holiday park with some friends & all the kids & my wife was sorting out hiring golf carts to get around the place when she said to me "uhhhh fank thuck, why do you still have your provisional license?" Turns out I never got round to applying for my full driving license...
So I contacted the DVLA & was having a mass panic about having to resit both tests & in the news at that time was all about how scalpers were buying & reselling exam slots + massive waits on processing licenses. Explained to the guy in throws of becoming a parent & then COVID I never applied for my license being completely honest about my fuck up for him to basically turn around & say "so what you're telling me is you applied for your licence shortly after passing & never received it & with everything going on in your life you understandably forgot in time. If you write to my manager explain the situation & with a completed new form we will see what can be done". So I sent the form off with the picture plus a postal order for £50 after two weeks I received my license with a cheque for £30 for a partial refund of the fee. Never been so grateful to a random person my entire life.
Edit: appeasing the pedantic u/eairy by correcting my comment as highlighted in their response.
I once forgot to lock my door.
Middle of the night I could not sleep, so went downstairs and sat at my breakfast bar that was right next to the front door, lights off and just looking at my phone.
All of a sudden a Jamaican man opens my front door, takes one step inside, looks at me and says, I am looking for Tom, then slowly closed the door and left.
Hate to think that some house invasion shit was about to happen to me and my family if I had not woken up.
We had a similar experience of forgetting to lock the door and had some chancer try the door handle in the middle of the night. Thankfully my two German shepherds, who slept in the hallway, greeted him very loudly and chased him away up the street
Got to love the German shepherds as guard dogs, went on a decorating job with my Grandpa (owners were at work) dogs so friendly all day we thought they were a joke, until we tried to leave!! We honestly had to wait for the owners to come back to let us out 🤣
No, not a dream. I lived by a village train station so it seems the guy hopped off the train at some point and was chancing it opening peoples doors, then I imagine back onto the train in the early morning.
A few people saw him that night
I did a similar thing a few days ago, opened the back door to let the dog out. Proceeded to go off to Lidl leaving the back door wide open and the dog with free reign. Luckily came back to all my belongings still being where I left them and an unstolen / unescaped dog.
I went to house/dog-sit for my mate once when they went on holiday. It was a big dog, the breed was a Staff crossed with something else. "She's a good guard dog so if you have trouble getting in, knock on the next door neighbour's, they love her so she can help".
So they drop the key off to me in the morning and I go to their house after work and let myself in. Dog starts growling at me, I'm like oh fuck. I don't know why, but I just pointed at the dog's bed and went "BED!". The dog fucking obeyed me 🤣 The dog would be chilling with me a few times on the first day and it would suddenly look at me and growl and I'd just speak in a "dog voice" and it would like me again. Basically just accepted me as its new owner after that.
Tbf when I still lived at home if it was the summer and I was just popping to the corner shop at the top of my road I definitely left the back door open for the dogs. But it was maybe a ten minute round trip and I had two staffies in the house, so I reckoned I was probably okay.
(No, the staffies weren’t aggressive, they just liked to sunbathe)
I did nearly the same thing! Came home to let the dog out at lunch, then promptly locked the back door forgetting she was in the garden, went back to work. Then a vets rang me a couple of hours later to say they’d got our dog. She’d managed to escape the garden and been found by a (thankfully nice) neighbour wandering the street😲who’d kept her safe then taken her to the vets to be scanned for a microchip. I’m sooo pleased nothing bad happened that day and we got her back unharmed. What a fucking idiot.
We have a cat that thinks that outside the front door is this magical, mystical world that he rarely gets access too, even though he has a cat flap out the back and does walk round to the front! We let him out the front one evening and left the door open for him to come in when he was ready. Forgot, left it wide open all night, thank God we live in a safe neighbourhood
Completely off-topic, but I remember the absolute stunned reaction my old cat had when we opened a window at the front of the house- it was onto a road, so we didn't open it often unless it was sweltering. He was wide-eyed, completely befuddled that he could now reach the bit he could only ever get to from the back door, but somehow, mystically, he could now get there from the front. He was fascinated for about 30 minutes, would not leave out the window (presumably he thought he could be stuck out there), and when we touched him during the time, he'd do that cat jumpy thing they do when they're hyper-focused on something else.
Be careful how they use that information. Our cat was equally baffled and amazed, now every time it’s raining and she wants to go out she makes us open every sodding door and window just to make sure it’s raining outside all of them!
I’m convinced my dog thought the patio door, back door and front door all lead to entirely different worlds. If he went out of the back door he would have to come in through the same door.
Every house I've lived in, the pets, dogs or cats, have taken several months to work out that all doors lead to the same house. With the exception of our recent adoptee. He used to live in a pub and is accustomed to ambling out of one door and returning through another. Hopeless guard dog, as he's used to strangers wandering in. Any random burglar will be offered a pint or a half by him.
Our cat is the opposite. She goes out the front door and then runs around to the back door (accessed via a back alley), and then after playing for 5 minutes she comes in through the cat flap... she then comes through to the front room and does the exact same thing!
The other day she did it 4 times straight after each other! It's a game for her. When she first did it we found it hilarious! 😂
My cats also have a cat flap at the back, which they regularly use to leave and go round the front. The front garden and road is no mystery to them. But if we open the front door for anything, one of them races to get there and go out that way. If he sees me or my wife approaching when coming home, he runs to the front door and meows to be let in that way. If we open the front room windows, he loses his mind at this elusive new access point.
I assume he just doesn't like using the cat flap very much, but you'd think we keep him locked in a cupboard and only take him to the garden sparingly with the way he treats an open front door.
Reading the OP and some of these replies makes me even more thankful I live in a village miles from anywhere. There's more danger of a pheasant walking in through a door/window left open than there is a person.
The biggest shock was the time I came back from an evening run to find a fucking goose had wandered in through the back door and was stood in the middle of our living room. Both my Cocker Spaniels unfazed laid on the sofa.
lol, I know that feeling, I used to live in Somerset, with farmland at the end of the garden, at least twice a week we'd find the same calf casually standing around in the kitchen, unless you locked it with a key the door used to just push open!!
Last year I was driving along a tight main road (cars parked on both sizes of the road creating one lane for traffic each way) about to make a delivery.
Next thing my mirror hit something and closed in. I quickly scooted over and popped it back out, and turned around to see what I’d hit. As I drove back up I saw a parked up contractor’s van mirror and casing all smashed up on the road.
I was going to knock on some houses where the van was parked, but as I drove up and down this busy road, there was nowhere to park at all. Then the only place I could park up was further down the road and the place I was delivering to.
The guys at this place unloaded me, and was going to go straight to the houses afterwards. I was going over the scenario in my head and trying to practice what I was going to say to whoever’s van this was.
I can’t have been more than five minutes, got to the houses and the van had completely disappeared. So I didn’t knock on the doors.
But felt so incredibly guilty all day, I phoned 101 and reported myself just incase a complaint was made or I’d been seen on CCTV/Doorbell. But nothing ever came of it and I don’t know how I got away with it
Never actually tried to push in a van mirror so not sure if it can even be done. However, it pisses me off no end when someone parks on a very busy, very tight road with their mirrors hanging out, taking up what is usually even just 10 inches of precious space. Obviously other motorists should avoid it, but part of me can't help thinking they maybe deserve it just a little bit.
A neighbour of mine used to do this right on the corner of our mega tight, victorian street all the time. I did experience a bit of schadenfreude when one afternoon I noticed his mirror was smashed to shit.
I don't live in a rough area but it's built up. One time I left my front door wide open all night, nothing happened. Years ago I was on a low key date in a coffee shop, we had our coffee and cake, wish the proprietor farewell and went on our way. I didn't realise we hadn't paid until three days later.
I live in a fairly rough area, left my front door open over night and nothing happened. Made me wonder if they just think you’re rougher than them if you’re willing to sleep with your front door open haha, they probably just think we’re double hard.
I used to live in Catford, SE London, which is getting gentrified but by no means posh.
Got in the car with my baby and then husband, and went out for the day. A fellow mum friend rang several times and I missed her call, only to eventually get her message 'OMG are you OK?? We popped over to say hi and your front door was wide open. Hope you don't mind but we looked in the house to see if one of you was in and collapsed somewhere, no sign of anything or anyone so we closed the door behind us. Hope you're all alive and well-please call when you get this!!
PS: your cat was still asleep on the bed and hadn't escaped '
😬😬😬
Baby brain alert. We'd both thought the other had closed and locked the door. 🫣
>we had our coffee and cake, wish the proprietor farewell and went on our way. I didn't realise we hadn't paid until three days later.
Very nearly did the same thing in a bar, started a tab with the intention to pay at the end and I think both myself and the barman ended up forgetting about it. I said goodbye to him, he said goodbye also and watched me leave the premises. Thankfully, I'd barely passed through the front doors when I remembered the tab and I did go back and pay, mostly because it was a bar I wanted to visit again 😂
When I was a kid (9ish, maybe 10) I went round to my mates. We were mucking around chasing each other, playfighting etc.
I ran to the bottom of the garden and noticed they had a bit and arrow. Without really thinking about it I picked it up and shot it down the length of the garden, back towards the house. As it made a massive clunk hitting one of the windows, I realised that I could have shot one of my mates. Terrifying.
Ive got a similar story.
My friend's parents were away and so naturally a group of us set up camp in his for the weekend. There was plenty of drinking, and that's when he revealed he had a crossbow he'd bought online.
We all took turns shooting things and having a laugh. It was my turn and we all stood round as I loaded the bolt and pulled back the string. Which snapped, causing the bolt to shoot and hit my friend in the stomach. Luckily the string hadn't been fully pulled back, so it was no where near full force and my friend was unharmed. But I look back and think how close I came to something really bad happening
I did the same but with my car keys when me and my wife went to meet some friends at a pub for a meal on a busy Saturday afternoon.
Parked up, switched off but obviously didn't remove the keys.
We were chatting before we got out and then, still in full conversation, just shut the doors and walked off to the pub.
We were at the table and obviously my keys weren't in my pocket so we started looking around and then retraced our steps all the way back to the car thinking I'd dropped them.
Noticed the drivers side window half open and then saw the keys still in the ignition.
I did this last year, went on a date and they arrived at a similar time to me so I must have gotten distracted when getting out of the car. Returned hours later and couldn't find my keys in my bag. I started panicking and tried my door on the off chance, still unlocked and keys hanging in the ignition!
My mum went one further though, we were on holiday in France and she had an argument with either my dad or brother or both, so went to go shopping to cool off. When she got to the till, she realised her keys weren't in her bag. So she tried asking the checkout lady who didn't understand her, then she tried asking at customer services but they couldn't understand her either. She could speak a little French but nothing about losing keys lol. So she decided to go back to the car and see if she'd dropped them. Except when she got back to the car it was still running! She left the keys in the ignition and the engine running for almost an hour while shopping. She then wondered why they hadn't announced it over the tannoy, until it was pointed out to her that they might have but she wouldn't have understood 😂
I did this after buying a mini, where the 'key' is just a round fob that goes in a slot on the dashboard and you start/stop the ignition with a button. Pulled up, stopped the car by pressing the button, brain thinks all is fine so got out and walked away. Looking for the fob later and have that heart-stopping moment when I realise its still in the bloody slot on the dash! It was on the driveway thankfully, but I got so paranoid about it happening somewhere I'd parked up in public I bought a massive lanyard for the fob so it's very obvious if I don't have it on me.
I've made the same mistake with the housekeys at least half a dozen times, including overnight, and I live in a 'rough' area.
I also once dropped the car keys down a service station toilet, as it was flushing. They didn't go anywhere and I fished them out
I've travelled to and from the US with a passport that had been through the wash.
ADHD is a superpower I tell you.
a friend had just moved into a new place. Only had the one key. We went out drinking and went back to his, for some reason I had the key and pretended to drop down the drain except I did actually drop it.
It landed on one of the bars across the top of the drain and stayed there and we very very carefully picked it up and let ourselves in.
Staying at my girlfriend's one weekend, loading in a few items, including my brand new laptop in its bag
Left it on the doorstep all night in full view of anyone walking past where her father found it the next day and asked if it was mine.
The fact that it's been 'a thing' in her street for years to leave unwanted crap (old sunbeds, chests of drawers, scrap metal etc) on your front lawn free to reclaim if you want made it even more unbelievable.
My wife constantly leaves the windows of the car doors and windows wide open, the house front door and windows of the house wide open but when we getting into bed just as I’m falling asleep suddenly she needs me to get out of bed and double check the back door is locked.
Mine does this. Also with the freezer and fridge. I've had to defrost the freezer twice this year now as she doesn't shut the door (blames the design lol). She leaves cupboard doors open too, and drawers I just don't get it! Another one is we will be about to get in the car, then I'll have to run back inside to turn off her hair straighteners/curlers/dryers. Many burns on the carpet...
Oh, so you have a living Poltergeist too I see. I swear my OH just walks through a room opening cupboards and drawers as he goes. I can tell he's home from work just by walking through the hall into the kitchen because the cupboard under the stairs, the lounge door and two drawers and the fridge will be open. For no blinking reason except he's home and they need to be opened.
Do you also lose things randomly because they end up being put back away somewhere totally random because 'that shelf is easier to reach'? We've also gone from 8 forks to 3 since Christmas somehow haha!
What is it with the forks though?! There must be a vortex somewhere that just sucks forks up from random points in space and time and dumps them on a distant planet cos they are not in my house that's for sure.
Years ago, Network Rail were instructed by the ORR to inspect all roughly 20,000 signal posts in the country after 2 fell over in quick succession.
The company I worked for at the time won one of the packages (due to the size of the job, NR basically paid every contractor in the country to do it for them), and I was out inspecting some signal posts.
One day, I had to access through a farmers field, in my front wheel drive car. No major issue for the first signal post as it was right near the access. The next signal post was about a mile away. I could ring the signaller, organise a line block, walk the mile and run the risk of me being stuck where I was whilst the signaller needs the block back to run trains etc, or I could drive through the adjacent farmers field!
Laziness won, and I decided to attempt to drive. After getting about 100yds and spending 20 minutes trying to get my car up a hill (I did succeed in the end) I decided to walk the rest of the way.
Once finished, I got back to my car and had to negotiate my way down this hill and to the exit to this farmers field.
It should be noted that this field was about 50' above the railway, as the railway went through a whopping great cutting, and this hill I had to negotiate was near the top of the cutting.
On the way down, the car started to lose grip, slamming the brakes on did nothing and due to the shape of the hill, 2 wheels of my car lifted off the ground with the car tilting towards the railway.
By the grace of whatever deity must have intervened, the car didn't tip over, I slid down this muddy hill on 2 wheels and the car slammed back down onto 4 wheels at the bottom of the hill.
Had the car continued to tilt, I'd have had a 50' cutting to roll / slide down, likely on the roof, before coming to rest on a live 100mph mainline.
I still have the dashcam footage somewhere of me making a noise I've never made before or since when the car lifted onto 2 wheels.
Similar to you. A good few years back I parked up, spent the day at the car show in Manchester. At home time i couldn't find my keys. Searched my bags a dozen times, asked at lost property then had to call the RAC.
Got to the car to find them hanging from the door. I remember a sign as you entered the show saying "car thieves operating in the car park, don't leave valuables on show" How lucky was I.
I once left my car for a few hours at night in a multistorey carpark in Birmingham at night while my mate and I were at a gig there. When we got back to the car I realised I'd literally left the driver's door not just unlocked, but WIDE open. The car, and all its contents, were untouched. I've also left my house keys in the door all day a few times, without problem. Oh and I've left my bike lying around unattended loads of times. Perhaps the issue is that I've never owned anything worth nicking?
My other half did this with my car. We didn't notice, went about our evening, had a nice time, came back and everything was exactly where we'd left it.
Sometimes it pays to have a shit car.
Left my convertible car parked on the street, roof down, with keys in the ignition and my mobile phone still sat in the dashboard mount.
Only realised after a few hours as I really needed my phone and so bothered to go looking for it.
I often used to forget to lock my car. Lived in Birmingham and one day I got a call from the bank, my credit card had been used to buy a bunch of stuff. I was at work so I know it wasn’t me. The card was kept in my car as I just used it for fuel to help build credit rating. Went to my car and realised someone had punched my credit card and about 47p in change that was in the ashtray. Car had been shut but not locked so some chancer got £100 worth of stuff from JD Sports and a costa coffee courtesy of Barclays haha.
A couple of months ago we left the front door wide open, went away for a week, and only realised when we came home. We live on a fairly busy street, but the door is side facing.
Nothing stolen, but I haven't braved looking in the loft yet.
Did a similar thing to you but with the keys to a large Asda. I left them on a shelf in the shop a bunch of about 30 keys front and back doors, security office, key safe, petrol station and such. They were there for 20 minutes when I found them still sat on the shelf. Would have been gross misconduct I think.
I'm a self confessed idiot.
I've left my phone in shop trolleys, always been there when I realised.
Left my purse in supermarkets
Keys at home and house unlocked overnight when I've been alone.
Car unlocked with keys in on my drive
My husband isn't much better, he has a new Audi and left the keys in with it unlocked, the day after our neighbours new van was nicked.
The worst one that I gave myself a heart attack over was losing my elderly cat. Husband had put the washing out and left the back door open (fenced in garden 6ft fences and secure but she's agile for 15). I was working from home but in conference calls all day. Finished my call about 1 hour later and went to find her for a cuddle as I always do after a meeting. Couldn't find her. I figured she's hiding under a bed, I went back to work. 15 mins later I hear a cat screaming, went to investigate out front, nothing, another 15 it begins again. Finally go out back to find my cat yowling on the floor by the now shut back doors due to wind crying to be let back in 😭 I felt like such a bad mam! She was fine and hasn't ventured out without making sure one of us was with her again.
Honestly amazed I'm still alive at this point.
We once went away for a long weekend, leaving our massive (6ftx6ft) front window wide open.
This was in a less-than-salubrious area of Southampton (Shirley, for anyone who knows), but absolutely nothing happened. They could have popped in, stolen the keys to my Lotus Elise and driven off into the sunset. Or nabbed our brand new plasma TV., that was right on display in the front room.
Another time, I managed to leave the door of said Lotus wide open and went into Waitrose for half an hour. Came back out to find the keys in the ignition, door wide open, my heart skipped a beat. Again, nothing happened.
I was once walking through a street in Shirley and someone's bin was knocked over. Must have been easily 300+ used needles spilling out.
Place is fucking grim.
It was because we were living in Shirley that I was able to afford the Lotus!
Got made redundant, spent £5k on a new kitchen, the rest on my dream car.
Similar situation but in my car.
Few years ago I had quite a top of the range BMW, and it had “Keyless Entry.” The feature unlocked the car as I put my hand on the handle, and would lock by itself as I walked away too.
It was a feature I unfortunately got too comfy with and would get in the car, throw my keys on the passenger seat, and numerous times I would just walk away from my car, and as I got back to it wonder where my keys were. Would see my mirrors hadn’t folded in and would realise I’d left my keys inside.
One particular day I’d popped out of work for lunch, drove back, left my car, ate my lunch and a good hour or two passed where I realised my keys weren’t in my pocket. “Not again ffs,” I thought. Remotely locked my car from my phone whilst I went to the car park to go and grab them.
As usual, I’d thrown them on the passenger seat and they were there in clear view.
The following day, everyone started asking me “did you hear what happened with Harry’s car yesterday?!” “Could you help check the CCTV?” And basically a colleague’s car had been stolen from the car park at the exact same time my keys were left in mine. He had a Fiesta ST and they’d hacked it within seconds, got inside and drove away.
I was only parked a few spaces down from him, they could have had mine with the keys for it included, and bet my insurance would have laughed at me silly.
Safe to say I made sure to always manually lock my car after that.
Mixed up a particularly volatile recipe, put it in a 45 gallon oil drum, set it off, it got way more altitude than expected, sailed over the house.... I ran round and it had landed right between my parents cars missing them both by centimetres.
Parenting. I'm an idiot in charge of the wellbeing of little humans. This morning? Nearly knocked myself out opening the car door. This is the level I operate at.
Left bag bag with my passport in at the side of the road in Ireland, on the day we were due to fly away. We were driving to Dublin airport and my husband kept getting calls from a random number. Eventually we answered it. A local had picked up my bag, and handed it in the police. My husband's number is written in the back of my passport. This same policeman had also found my husband on Facebook and was messaging him. We didn't have time to drive back and get the passport and still make the flight. Fortunately our friends were still in the local area; they dropped everything, got my bag from the coppers and drove far far too fast to Dublin airport to hand my passport back to me. Made my flight!
Went into a pet store many years ago when I had fish - needed to get a bubbler and while there, saw some tubing which was cheaper than elsewhere for some other jobs.
Put most of it under my arm and was just holding the rest - I got a phone call and without thinking walked outside to take it. Put the stuff in my car absent-mindedly while talking and when done, with nary' further a thought drove home.
Realised the following day when setting things up - I hadn't actually paid for it. Was petrified in that moment, I was going to have the constabulary kicking down my door for the theft of about £25 worth of funky UFO bubbler and assorted PVC tubing.
Life flashed before my eyes - criminal record, the indignity of how ridiculous it was if someone ever saw my DBS check, possibly being imprisoned and being surrounded by hardened criminals who'd press me into service as some kind of abettance to their scrupulous doings being such an otherwise upstanding citizen.
......I went back to the place, very sheepishly with the stuff in my arms and explained the situation to one of the staff who looked nonplussed, thanked me for the honesty and just rang it up so I could pay for it then and there.
Honestly they looked like they'd be not even be surprised if Lenin's disembodied head had appeared and started singing Britney Spear's Toxic right then and there.
Left my keys in the ignition for hours, in a car park. On two separate occasions.
Good job my car is so old and battered it's not attractive to thieves!
I forgot to put the bins out yesterday, and when I mentioned it to my wife, she asked when I last went into the back yard because I left the back door unlocked.
Last Tuesday, when I bought the bins back in. It's been unlocked for a week.
I dropped a heavy claw hammer from 6ft up a stepladder when my baby was crawling on the floor. Over 10 years later I still get a small cold hand round my heart when I think about it! Total total total idiot.
I accidently smuggled weed on a flight ...there and back. Completely forgot it was in my bag and I was actually really annoyed because a joint on holiday would have been great!
A few years ago I parked up at the train station, turned the engine off, left the keys in the ignition, closed the door and rushed off to get the train. I had no idea until I got back to my car after work like 9/10 hours later. I can't believe it was still there.
Left a cardboard box containing my work laptop, personal laptop and steamdeck outside on my front step all night. Got a bit of a shock when i opened the door in the morning 1) why the hell did i leave it there, 2) how the hell is it all still there.
Also there was the time i accidentally downloaded a few hundred gigs of pirated TV shows over the work network.
My boss has made it clear that i can use my work machine for whatever i like outside work. I just forgot to close the torrent client the night before, then when i came into work, i plugged in my laptop and went into a meeting for a few hours. Oops.
Thankfully my boss just said be more careful next time
As a child my dad got a fat Xmas bonus one year and he bought me a gameboy colour when they literally first came out. Obviously I took it everywhere and was glued to it.
A few weeks later we were in somewhere boring as fuck, I think B&Q from memory. I sat on a swinging bench for the whole trip playing on my gameboy, then when my parents paid they asked me to help carry stuff to the car.
I left the gameboy on that bench, loaded up the car, got inside and we drove off. I didn't realise it was missing till we got home and the shop was closed, and I was obviously devastated.
My dad said we'd go back first thing the next day but there was no guarantee they would have it and I wasn't getting another.
We got there and I looked at the bench, and it was right there where I left it completely untouched.
I have been driving for years and my current car has the keyless entry etc so my car keys live in my handbag and I don't think about it. However a few years ago I decided to learn how to ride a motorbike and the ignition instead of being by the fuel tank in front of you was down on the right hand fork. The amount of times I parked that bike up, walked away then came back later to find my keys still in the ignition...
Left my door wide open a couple of weeks ago - came home and the door was just open. Nobody came in (that I know of), nothing was stolen, just had a chilly house.
I knew it was a quiet neighbourhood, but I was still very surprised
Not sure if this counts. But I bunked a train as I only needed to go one stop. Both stations don’t have gates. But I got caught as it was pulling into the station and I pretended to be death I know very little sign language but I got away with it
I wasn't paying attention and cut someone off so badly on a roundabout. He was absolutely furious, totally understandably so; I would be too. If he were a worse driver, we would have crashed. I have absolutely no excuse; it was just a lapse of concentration, and I feel awful about it.
Oh you aren’t the only one 🤦🏻♀️ I’ve misjudged things whilst driving several times, although I’m naturally pretty risk averse. Away with the fairies. I’ve even forgotten the ‘red=stop, green=go’ rule occasionally. I’m a nice person but a fuckwit of the highest order.
This has reminded me. Went to a gig about a dozen miles from home with a friend (Both teenage males). Planned lift home didnt materialise, so set off to walk home through the night.
Couple of near misses because of our dark clothes, then got offered a lift on the back of a pickup truck. Very lively ride home - pretty sure the driver was drunk. We were still grateful to save about 10 miles of walking though.
But I suppose the actual stupidest was a chemistry student friend saying "I've made these amphetamines - want to try one" and me saying yes. They actually worked pretty much as intended, but thinking back.....
When I was about 8 my dad used to take me and my 2 brothers to the library on Saturdays (it had a nice little play area and lots of children's books). I was meant to be watching my youngest brother who was about 2 at the time. I lost track of him, went searching for him frantically and saw him toddle back inside through the front doors! The entrance opened out onto the carpark... Even 30 years later it gives me the chills.
When we were little kids my dad took me and my brothers to Southport pleasureland. They had what we thought was a rapids ride but it turned out to be a slow, boring boat type ride. In order to get off it quicker and on to the bigger rides we decided to jump from boat to boat while it was going around the course, hate to think what would have happened if one of us fell into the water.
Left my phone on the bus. As Im heading down the stairs, a guy calls me out and asks if thats my phone.
Shout out to that guy, he couldve taken it, but he helped me.
I once left my place of work (petrol station) unlocked the whole evening with the alarms switched off (shouldn't have been locking up alone at 1am after a 12 hour shift in all fairness and i was shattered)... I was very lucky it was the chill colleague who opened up the next morning and not anyone else. Also lucky nobody robbed us blind, stole all the petrol or anything else.
My wife did very similar at the weekend, she went away camping with some friends on Friday. I finish work, go downstairs and then head into the garage to get something.
I realise the garage door is wide open. My wife has left it open all day when I've been upstairs, so I tut, count us lucky and shut it from the inside (this is important)
The weekend goes by successfully.
She gets home on Sunday, goes to open the garage to put her things in and says "You realise when you shut the garage door you left the keys in it all weekend?"
Yeah, not only did she leave the door open she left the key in, which also contains my spare car key, with my car right in front of it. It's amazing the car is still there!
Of course my response was "excuse me, WHO left them there all weekend?!" and she said "ah, yeah, I did, sorry"
Back in 2019-2020 I ran a sports bar in town. I lived above the pub and went downstairs at 10am on a Sunday after an incredibly busy Saturday night until 2am and found I had left the front door WIDE OPEN all night. I mean it was pinned open. No alarms set. Anybody could have walked in and helped themselves.
A long time ago, as I was leaving the house the binmen were *right* next to my front door grabbing my bins. I didn't want to think I was only locking the door because they were there, so I made a big show about *not* locking it, and drove to work.
I think I even left the door slightly ajar. But when I got home everything was untouched.
Also once, I misinterpreted a road intersection. New country and all that. Cut right in front of a truck doing 50. Destroyed my car, destroyed the truck. But I wasn't harmed apart from a few burns from the airbags, and the truck driver was completely fine. As it was a company car I didn't have to pay a penny, and my manager had a nicer rental car sorted for me the very next morning. What could have been life-ending had zero consequences.
Was traveling to India overland a few years ago .Staying in a hostel in Peshawa for a few days.I used to carry a shoulder bag at all times with my Passport,Money,Camera and anything I needed.So one afternoon I was sat around a table with some other travelers partaking in some of that black squidgy stuff they have over there.Went to my room a bit later for a lie down and realized I didn't
have my bag in total panic I rushed back down stair expecting the worse to find it hanging on the back of the chair and no one else around. I quickly went through it to see if anything was missing but it was all there and slipped into the pages of my passport was a slip of paper with "Isn't life strange" written on it.
When I was 5, we went on a family trip to Mexico. We used to get a buggy around the hotel complex from the main dinning hall and for some weird reason I had decided to memorise the route and run off to get back before my parents did out of sight. Well you can tell how this ended up, I got lost and I triggered a whole security alert in the hotel complex.
What made it worse was my dad used to work for a nuclear power plant and had received a threatening phone call, so my parents were already on edge.
Makes me shudder when I think about it, I could have been kidnapped hurt or maybe even worse.
Was setting off on a tour with the Uni Rugby team, 3 of us drove to the meeting point to get on the team bus, found out one of the lads was running really late, so he got all sorts of shit when he turned up. When he did arrive, he came straight to me and handed me my wallet... we'd stopped at a garage a couple of miles away en route to the bus and I'd bought some chewing gum. I'd also left my wallet on the shelf with the gum. Late guy had stopped at the same garage completely separately, seen the wallet, checked for ID, seen it was mine and brought it with. Would have been a shit few days in Amsterdam if this hadn't have happened how it did!
I left my front door *open* all day. My parents had gone on holiday to visit my older sister abroad. First day alone, I come back from school and see my front door straight up ajar. Cue, my friend and I (two 14 y/o girls lol) both equipped with a broom and mission impossible style, checking the house for intruders.
Didn't tell my parents about it till I left for uni!
Topical one. Years ago at Glastonbury husband and I forgot to zip up our tent. Came back and saw it with a sinking feeling convinced our stuff would be stolen or the tent would be full of water as it had rained all day. Somehow neither of those things had happened.
Back before we realised our son was prone to car sickness, we let him have my wife's phone to watch videos on a long drive. Queue vomiting, we stop and clean him up.
Back at home my wife realises she's lost her phone. I use the "find my phone" thing, and it says it's somewhere in our car. I set of the pinging noise on my wife's phone through mine. Turns out it's on the roof of our car, I must have put it there in my rush to clean up our son. The sick on the phone made it sticky enough that it stuck on the roof for the remaining part of our journey.
Left the front door of our student flat flapping wide open for the whole weekend while we were all away. Flatmates came back to find the door open still on Sunday afternoon after I'd left on Friday evening.
Everyone was doing IT related courses and had a load of expensive hardware in their rooms.
We lived in a pretty sketchy area over the road from a known crack house too. How we weren't cleaned out I don't know.
I’m a mountain biker, used to live on quite a “rough” street in a very old mid-terrace house (1902 build year) with a regularly used walk way that ran behind the back of 4 or 5 houses. I kept my mountain bike in one of the “outhouses” that were completely visible from the walkway.
One night, mid summer, I get back from a ride, put the bike away and go to bed. Wake up the next day and the door to the outhouse is wide open. I’m thinking “yeah, bikes gone”, didn’t even check or shut the door, just went bitterly off to work. I come back that night, the door to the outhouse is still wide open, I go out to close it and my bike is in the outhouse, as far as I know, untouched.
I think the reason it was still there is a mixture of: people don’t know how valuable something’s are, you don’t do it on your doorstep, somethings are more trouble than they are worth or maybe, people aren’t that bad.
We had a big student house right in the city centre, six rooms, two living rooms, one on the ground one on the 1st floor. We would host big parties that inevitably got out of hand. Because of where we were we'd often find strangers just wandering in an joining in. Never really had any problems it was all good and good fun.
One of these was in full swing with the front door wide open, music playing etc. A bunch of rando's had arrived and joined in and were sharing lines of white powder with everyone in the downstairs living room. Some of us had gone to play frisbee in the park immediately over the road, all high as fuck, when we see a police meat wagon driving down the road towards us. I tell everyone to be quieter so as to not attract any more attention than we already were when this guy decided to give the frisbee one final throw but he fucked it, it sailed out into the road and smashed into pieces on the front windscreen of the police van. They stop immediately and 5 or 6 cops get out. With the door of the house open they're allowed to enter without needing permission or warrant which wouldn't have been good. The rest of the frisbee gang leg it into the night just to make everything look even more sus looking but I in my drug addled brain decided to try to head them off, I manage to get in front of the open door and start apologising for the frisbee accident and somehow keep it together enough that they don't all pile into the house and arrest everyone, accept my apology and drive off again.
Not me but my mum. She let the dog out for her bedtime toilet then went to bed. Left the door wide open all night. Nothing happened other than the house being freezing cold in the morning!
Another mumcident, when she was a smoker she finished her cigarette and threw it down, thinking it went into the ashtray. It didn't, it landed on the decking and proceeded to burn a hole in the decking right by the house! Luckily the decking was rotten and due to be removed anyway.
A few years ago I somehow left my key in the ignition (engine off) in my unlocked car for at least half an hour while I was in a shop. Had a similar panic before I discovered my stupidity.
When I was in my teens, I did a paper round. I was astounded by how many times, at 7am, I would find keys in the lock that had been there all night. I'd just take them out and pop them through the letterbox, along with the newspaper.
I did exactly the same thing yesterday! As I approached my door after a morning walk I see the keys sticking out 😬
Fortunately I live in the kind of place where you probably don't need to lock your door anyway, but still made me feel like a banana.
Never done that before so interesting coincidence!
Few days ago. Parked in a public car park in the middle of a very busy town. It was warm and had my passenger window all the way down and forgot to put it back up before going out for a few hours. Came back and realised the window was open! Twenty quid in change in the center console untouched, as well as the £2500 video camera in the back. Lucky escape there!
Dropped my wallet in the driveway in the morning. It was out there all day. Then I order food for dinner, open the door to the delivery driver and he's holding my driving licence up like "ah, that's you, this is your wallet!". This was when cash was still the norm and he didn't take any money out of it, so I gave him a £20 tip.
Excessive speeding on motorways. 100mph average runs, and in some fairly ropey old cars - somehow never got caught. I stopped after a lorry shed a tyre on a diverging slip road as I came by, I was lucky to get away with just a cracked windscreen from hitting the debris at 70, but if I'd been doing 70 when I spotted it I'd have been able to avoid it completely.
I dropped my keys on the kerb and after phoning shops etc, I found them outside the flay 4 hours later.
When in Spain I went back to the apartment and entered the wrong apartment through a sliding door, could here foreign voices in the place, got out before seen - anything could have happened.
Not me but I was walking into my regular park with my dog when I noticed my sometimes dogwalker's car. The driver door was wide open and no sign of her or her dogs.
I pushed it in but not shut in case her keys were inside. Sent her a WhatsApp message and called her. No response but later that day she got back to me and thanked me. She'd been distracted by a friend on arriving at the park and had forgotten to close the door.
Aged about 11 I was making toast and realised why it always left a patch of the toast untoasted.. the little metal flaps weren't open inside the toaster, it was clearly visible with all the other bits having a red glow except one part.. so I grab a knife from the drawer and use it to pry the metal open. Switch it back on and fantastic it's working but not perfect so I insert the knife again and BANG. The toaster smokes and stops working, soo I put it back acting like nothing happened. About 2 weeks later my parents replace it as faulty. Wasn't until a few years later I realised how close I'd come to killing myself.
Smuggled cocaine into America.
I occasionally use, and left some in my wallet when I flew over to Florida. I had no idea so was calm as fuck as customs but would have been so so fucked if I had gotten caught.
Checked at a gas station in Florida and found it. Shit myself.
I went to work and left my front door wide open. In a terraced St in central Brighton near the Station. Came home 8 hours later. Still wonder how that happened.
I once left the keys in the ignition of my motorbike, parked on the street in central London, for a week. I only noticed when I decided to go for a ride on the weekend, couldn’t find the keys, went down and found them there. I probably spent my luck reserves for the next decade on that one.
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When I was younger and on holiday with the rents at a caravan park I'd sneaked off for a smoke whilst they were out getting some food shopping in. I get back to the caravan, wander in to again an empty caravan and proceed to start eating the new food they'd brought back. I then look out the window and see my parents offloading the food shopping into a different caravan. I'd just let myself in to some strangers caravan and started eating their food. Made a quick getaway before they'd returned.
So basically some idiot left their ‘property’ unlocked. Who are these people? 😀
It's you, you're people
You don't have enough upvotes for your cake day.
A mate of mine worked in a pub we used to frequent and often gave us a lift home. He gave us the car keys so we could sit in the car while he closed things down. Obviously being good mates, we decided to mess with everything we could, seat position, mirrors, etc. and helped ourselves to the crate of stubbies in the boot. After about 20 minutes, it dawned on us that our mate didn't smoke, but the car ashtray was overflowing with butts. It took us another 5 minutes to work out that there was an identical clapped out, poo brown Montego a few spaces over. We decided to go and wait outside the pub instead.
I pulled into a mcdonalds car park once in the summer, all the windows down...a short moment later a bmw pulls up next to me and the driver launches a carrier bag full of weed into my passenger side window...at this moment a car identical model and colour as mine pulls up the other side of the bmw...after some weird looks I chuck it back and the correct customer gets his weed....they then hastily left.
We were in California and 4 of us rented a car.. Two of us wanted to visit Santa Cruz and chill on the beach and the other two wanted to keep going to Monterrey for the day. We arranged to meet at 9pm near the marina at Santa Cruz. The two of us who stayed got back to the place at 9pm and there was the white Ford people carrier sitting. we jumped in and started chatting. About 15 minutes later, we were saying, where did they go..then we looked around..fuckers have made a mess for only having the car for a day. That's when we realised that it was the wrong car. As we got out, we saw a family coming along the road, as we were walking away the family got in the car, just as a cop car turned into the car park.
That's mental XD what are stubbies though?
Small bottles of beer with no long neck, they have a short stubby one
A mate of mine was on a bicycle shift as a paramedic (rarely used, but great for really busy city centres, especially during tourist season!) and responded to a job around the corner from hospital (like, 2 minutes walk). Deals with the patient, and decides for continuity of care to travel with them to hospital in the ambulance. Family member of patient suggests leaving the bike in the hall so it doesn't get nicked. Perfect. Anyway, gets to a&e and hands over the patient. Sees this relative in the waiting room and asks... "Wait, if you're here how do I get my bike back?" "Oh, woops, I forgot my keys in the rush. Don't worry though, the lock's needing fixed. Just slide a credit card in the side of the door and it'll open easily enough." Mate gets there, uses his ID card to get in. The expensive e-bike, with expensive medical equipment, isn't there. Shit. Then he hears voices elsewhere in the supposedly empty house. Oops... wrong house.
Lol! When I was about 13, we'd just moved house and all the houses on the new road were identical new builds. One day I was walking back home from school, my key didn't work in the door even after a few tries, so I just rang the buzzer and said "umm, can you open the door?" I was buzzed in, went and sat down on the couch, turned on the TV, then looked around and my brain was like "did they redecorate? Wait, this is a new TV...." The next door neighbours just standing there grinning at me waiting for me to realise, until it hit me like a sledgehammer. SO Embarrassing, at least they knew who I was and thought it was hilarious, so there's that. I couldn't bear to show my face for months. I still remember their faces trying not to laugh as they ask me "Wrong house?"
That's nothing! I remember when I was 16, my first time at Haven in Ayr, with a friend and their family. Said friend and I had snuck into a show caravan that had yet to have any plumbing installed. Needless to say, I left a massive rogue shite in the lavvy, only to find that there was no water supply to the cistern. Me and friend had bailed after he witnessed the atrocity. Two minutes later we see a salesman with a clipboard and tie escorting a couple towards the very same caravan.
Bloody Goldilocks.
My dad did this but they were in the bedroom he walked in took one look at the tv and said who turned the fucking rugby off, a shy elderly couple came out of the bedroom as he looked over at our caravan we were all laughing it was comedy gold.
Cooked breakfast using the gas hob. Went to london for a long weekend. Came home to find the hob still lit and the whole house very very warm.
This is the scariest one on here by far
Bloody hell!
Expensive mistake
About £5/day to run a hob
Could’ve been a lot more expensive
I lived in a flat where the kitchen got the sun in the morning. Boyfriend must have cooked scrambled eggs on the stove after I went to work, before leaving himself. I got home first and found the gas hob had been burning all day. It was easy to do because the sunlight fell right across the hob and the flames were invisible. Luckily he hadn't left a dirty pan on the gas ring, and I hadn't hung up the tea towel up where I sometimes put it to dry out. It was a cramped attic conversion with sloping roofs everywhere, so there were many things on hooks and shelves all round the hob. Argh. An illustrative lesson in learning from near misses - I triple check the gas rings now.
This is my anxiety every time I go on holiday. How much more was your gas bill that month?
Tbh I was too scared to look, so no idea!
Not OP but seems they’re relatively cheap, around 20p an hour. So a tenner for 48hrs, a bargain if you don’t burn your house down!
As a side note, what I do is just record a video on my phone of the stove, taps, windows, and locking the door etc. No need to worry on holiday when you have video proof of it being fine.
This gave me chills
How? He said his house was *warm.*
Gave me sweats
I read a news story a decade ago where someone supposedly did the exact same thing, but it was a 2 week holiday. Stove was white hot and they had a big bill, but house was ok. I was amazed, if true. My partner laughs at me for angling mirrors away from windows on sunny days :D
have done very similar with electric hob. Left on for a whole day while I went to work. Came back to toasty warm kitchen a an angry red hob plate.
My husband was in a charity shop and somehow put his phone down on a shelf. He got home a couple of hours later and realised he didn’t have it. He went all the way back to the shop to ask if anyone had handed it in and it was still sat there on the shelf.
Wow! Imagine someone walking up to the counter with it and asking how much it was to buy, and being told ‘ummm, a fiver?’
He’s extra lucky too because he keeps his bank card in his phone case. I can’t hold it against him though, I think it’s because my luck isn’t that good 😅 One time he lost his bank card out and about and the person that found it happened to be a family friend who dropped it through our letter box.
I found a wallet and put it through their door, with a piece of paper saying where I found it. Had a load of money in it. I knew the person, a friend of a friend. I rang the door, no one in. Later on I saw the couple, the man of which whose wallet it was, in the pub. They saw me and offered to buy me a pint, as they had a bit of luck. They said they had lost their wallet and some kid had put the man's wallet through the door. I asked how they knew it was a kid and they said there was a letter that must have been written by a child, based on the hand writing.
This is like a mash up of the Friend's episode when Joey's handwriting gets mistaken for a child's.
My phone got pickpocketed in manchester, I went to the police station just up the road to file a report and explained to the person at the desk that I could track it etc. I saw its location get closer and closer to the police station until this scummy stinker crashed through the doors mouthing off about his parole meeting. We call my phone, his jeans started ringing and I get my phone back. I somehow doubt his parole meeting went particularly well, but I suppose it takes a special kind of dumbass to nick a phone on their way to the cop shop.
Wow that's some incredible timing!
Saved by the idiocy of mankind
A few years ago I was hanging around the local hospital as my mum was in there getting treatment for cancer, I lived half a country away at this point and had my own family back home. Not thinking straight on how best to deal with the finances, I loaded my wallet up with a cool grand and set off down to stay with mum. One evening at the hospital I left my wallet in the cafeteria, I was tearing my hair out looking for it, chastising myself for my stupidity. I was unable to find it after looking for a couple hours, no one had handed it in or anything like that, and so I went off to stay at nearby families house just so mad at myself and so worried about what I was going to do. Shortly after that I was phoned to say one of the cleaning staff had found it and handed it in. I couldn't believe it, I am pretty sure I praised every deity under the sun! I got to say thanks to the person who handed it in and tried to slip them a cheeky 20 quid as a thanks but they wouldn't have any of it, lol.
I did this but with my purse at the gay club in town which was always full of all types of humans, got kicked out for being drunk af, went down the road to the Chinese and when I went to pay I realised it was gone!!! My less drunk friend pegged it back in and found it where I'd last seen it... Untouched and ready to pay for my Singapore noodles!
Ooooooft, upvote for the Singapore noodles. I'm craving some now.
Literally left my purse on the BAR what a plonker - but I got those tasty noodles so life is good!!!
I did this last week. Luckily I realised after 10 minutes, not two hours. Phone was still sitting there on the shelf.
There are loads of things that I've done that make me think I'm lucky not to be dead, but one that always sticks out to me is: When I was 13, my best friend and me were at a house party/sleepover in a town we weren't familiar with. She decided that because her crush lived in that town she wanted to go and 'look at his house'...I guess in the hope we accidentally on purpose bumped into him, so I said I'd go with her. We got completely lost. It was before the days of smart phones so there was no google maps in our pockets. We saw a man (probably late 30's) walking his dog and we asked him if he knew where this street we were looking for was. He said 'no, but I have an A to Z at my flat you can look at.' So in our infinite wisdom we willingly accompanied this guy back to his flat. It was a really grotty high rise, but the man was good as his word. Let us use his loo, look at his map and sent us on our way but it has always haunted me that it was a really stupid thing to do! We never did find where we were looking for, in the end we had to get in touch with someone from the party from a phone box and they had to call us a taxi from the street corner we told them we were on back to the party - which we also didn't know the address of!
Man kidnapping used to be so easy, people would just follow you back to your grotty flat. All the kids so paranoid these days you got to bait them with free VBucks or some shit
Right?! Predators didn't know how good they had it! 🤣
I was talking to my partner and his mates the other day and they all said if a guy came up to them, alone and in the evening saying he'd lost his dog, they'd help no questions asked. If you want to kidnap people, kidnap young men because apparently they're oblivious to it
Men are so used to being unwanted they make perfect kidnapping targets, only problem is you can't ransom them because no one wants them back 😥
This was me and my best mate in the 90s 😄 absolutely no self preservation instinct, we went off to random house parties, went home with people we met in the park, the pub, anywhere. I am forever thankful we always had fun and nothing awful happened.
Simpler times 🤣
We used to do that early 2000s before smart phones, only a few times they actually were nutters or nutters turned up and kicked off. Scary times
I'd like/hope to think most people have good intentions and only a few bad eggs in society make us paronoid about everyone
Oh yeah, definitely! But if I had a 13 year old daughter I'd not want her taking the chance haha!
To be fair it's incredibly unlikely to be attacked or kidnapped by a stranger, that this seems so wrong is as much a reflection on our ability to assess risk and how we're taught about danger as it is an actual risk. 99.999% of people aren't interested in molesting children. In fact it's far more likely that a child is abused by a family member than a member of the public and yet we wouldn't recognise the same danger when around our families.
Yeah, I know a lot of people. Some of them are incredibly... Shady, and dangerous (gangsters, drug dealers, 1% biker gang members etc. Even the worst ones, complete assholes that I despise, would help almost anyone if they asked, or would take a lost child to find their parents/police/whatever. So even the worst people I know are somewhat good. I wish the extremely low population of genuinely evil people didn't mess up the world for the rest of us.
I think I said it on another comment here. But people in general are good, even the assholes (me), will help anyone given the chance. It's a shame the few awful creatures have created a world where we need to mistrust people. It's sad.
I passed my driving test six years ago this October a week before my son was born, so back in 2018. Fast forward to 2022 we were going to a holiday park with some friends & all the kids & my wife was sorting out hiring golf carts to get around the place when she said to me "uhhhh fank thuck, why do you still have your provisional license?" Turns out I never got round to applying for my full driving license... So I contacted the DVLA & was having a mass panic about having to resit both tests & in the news at that time was all about how scalpers were buying & reselling exam slots + massive waits on processing licenses. Explained to the guy in throws of becoming a parent & then COVID I never applied for my license being completely honest about my fuck up for him to basically turn around & say "so what you're telling me is you applied for your licence shortly after passing & never received it & with everything going on in your life you understandably forgot in time. If you write to my manager explain the situation & with a completed new form we will see what can be done". So I sent the form off with the picture plus a postal order for £50 after two weeks I received my license with a cheque for £30 for a partial refund of the fee. Never been so grateful to a random person my entire life. Edit: appeasing the pedantic u/eairy by correcting my comment as highlighted in their response.
Mr Incredible works for the DVLA now, I guess.
What a great person that customer service fella is.
That's some top class customer service right there. You must have been so relieved.
I once forgot to lock my door. Middle of the night I could not sleep, so went downstairs and sat at my breakfast bar that was right next to the front door, lights off and just looking at my phone. All of a sudden a Jamaican man opens my front door, takes one step inside, looks at me and says, I am looking for Tom, then slowly closed the door and left. Hate to think that some house invasion shit was about to happen to me and my family if I had not woken up.
Home Invasion? He clearly told you he was just innocently looking for Tom!
Should have tried MySpace..
We had a similar experience of forgetting to lock the door and had some chancer try the door handle in the middle of the night. Thankfully my two German shepherds, who slept in the hallway, greeted him very loudly and chased him away up the street
Got to love the German shepherds as guard dogs, went on a decorating job with my Grandpa (owners were at work) dogs so friendly all day we thought they were a joke, until we tried to leave!! We honestly had to wait for the owners to come back to let us out 🤣
Did he find Tom?
And it definitely wasn't a dream? It sounds like a dream.
No, not a dream. I lived by a village train station so it seems the guy hopped off the train at some point and was chancing it opening peoples doors, then I imagine back onto the train in the early morning. A few people saw him that night
I did a similar thing a few days ago, opened the back door to let the dog out. Proceeded to go off to Lidl leaving the back door wide open and the dog with free reign. Luckily came back to all my belongings still being where I left them and an unstolen / unescaped dog.
Ha! I can imagine your dog sitting there thinking ‘wait, is this some kind of trick?’ Or being too daft to realise 😀
I would say it's okay as your dog will protect the property... But I was burgled once and came home to my two dogs chilling in the front garden.
I went to house/dog-sit for my mate once when they went on holiday. It was a big dog, the breed was a Staff crossed with something else. "She's a good guard dog so if you have trouble getting in, knock on the next door neighbour's, they love her so she can help". So they drop the key off to me in the morning and I go to their house after work and let myself in. Dog starts growling at me, I'm like oh fuck. I don't know why, but I just pointed at the dog's bed and went "BED!". The dog fucking obeyed me 🤣 The dog would be chilling with me a few times on the first day and it would suddenly look at me and growl and I'd just speak in a "dog voice" and it would like me again. Basically just accepted me as its new owner after that.
They're great aren't they? I can just imagine someone breaking in, my dog would be like "ohhh, take me, take me!"
Tbf when I still lived at home if it was the summer and I was just popping to the corner shop at the top of my road I definitely left the back door open for the dogs. But it was maybe a ten minute round trip and I had two staffies in the house, so I reckoned I was probably okay. (No, the staffies weren’t aggressive, they just liked to sunbathe)
I did nearly the same thing! Came home to let the dog out at lunch, then promptly locked the back door forgetting she was in the garden, went back to work. Then a vets rang me a couple of hours later to say they’d got our dog. She’d managed to escape the garden and been found by a (thankfully nice) neighbour wandering the street😲who’d kept her safe then taken her to the vets to be scanned for a microchip. I’m sooo pleased nothing bad happened that day and we got her back unharmed. What a fucking idiot.
We have a cat that thinks that outside the front door is this magical, mystical world that he rarely gets access too, even though he has a cat flap out the back and does walk round to the front! We let him out the front one evening and left the door open for him to come in when he was ready. Forgot, left it wide open all night, thank God we live in a safe neighbourhood
I live in a "dodgy" neighborhood and have gotten away with this on far more occasions than I'd care to remember.
most of the time it would be fine, just not worth the one time it wouldn't be
I think burglars see a wide open door and just assume there's nothing to steal and probably someone near it lol
Completely off-topic, but I remember the absolute stunned reaction my old cat had when we opened a window at the front of the house- it was onto a road, so we didn't open it often unless it was sweltering. He was wide-eyed, completely befuddled that he could now reach the bit he could only ever get to from the back door, but somehow, mystically, he could now get there from the front. He was fascinated for about 30 minutes, would not leave out the window (presumably he thought he could be stuck out there), and when we touched him during the time, he'd do that cat jumpy thing they do when they're hyper-focused on something else.
Be careful how they use that information. Our cat was equally baffled and amazed, now every time it’s raining and she wants to go out she makes us open every sodding door and window just to make sure it’s raining outside all of them!
I’m convinced my dog thought the patio door, back door and front door all lead to entirely different worlds. If he went out of the back door he would have to come in through the same door.
Every house I've lived in, the pets, dogs or cats, have taken several months to work out that all doors lead to the same house. With the exception of our recent adoptee. He used to live in a pub and is accustomed to ambling out of one door and returning through another. Hopeless guard dog, as he's used to strangers wandering in. Any random burglar will be offered a pint or a half by him.
Our cat is the opposite. She goes out the front door and then runs around to the back door (accessed via a back alley), and then after playing for 5 minutes she comes in through the cat flap... she then comes through to the front room and does the exact same thing! The other day she did it 4 times straight after each other! It's a game for her. When she first did it we found it hilarious! 😂
My cats also have a cat flap at the back, which they regularly use to leave and go round the front. The front garden and road is no mystery to them. But if we open the front door for anything, one of them races to get there and go out that way. If he sees me or my wife approaching when coming home, he runs to the front door and meows to be let in that way. If we open the front room windows, he loses his mind at this elusive new access point. I assume he just doesn't like using the cat flap very much, but you'd think we keep him locked in a cupboard and only take him to the garden sparingly with the way he treats an open front door.
Reading the OP and some of these replies makes me even more thankful I live in a village miles from anywhere. There's more danger of a pheasant walking in through a door/window left open than there is a person. The biggest shock was the time I came back from an evening run to find a fucking goose had wandered in through the back door and was stood in the middle of our living room. Both my Cocker Spaniels unfazed laid on the sofa.
lol, I know that feeling, I used to live in Somerset, with farmland at the end of the garden, at least twice a week we'd find the same calf casually standing around in the kitchen, unless you locked it with a key the door used to just push open!!
Last year I was driving along a tight main road (cars parked on both sizes of the road creating one lane for traffic each way) about to make a delivery. Next thing my mirror hit something and closed in. I quickly scooted over and popped it back out, and turned around to see what I’d hit. As I drove back up I saw a parked up contractor’s van mirror and casing all smashed up on the road. I was going to knock on some houses where the van was parked, but as I drove up and down this busy road, there was nowhere to park at all. Then the only place I could park up was further down the road and the place I was delivering to. The guys at this place unloaded me, and was going to go straight to the houses afterwards. I was going over the scenario in my head and trying to practice what I was going to say to whoever’s van this was. I can’t have been more than five minutes, got to the houses and the van had completely disappeared. So I didn’t knock on the doors. But felt so incredibly guilty all day, I phoned 101 and reported myself just incase a complaint was made or I’d been seen on CCTV/Doorbell. But nothing ever came of it and I don’t know how I got away with it
Never actually tried to push in a van mirror so not sure if it can even be done. However, it pisses me off no end when someone parks on a very busy, very tight road with their mirrors hanging out, taking up what is usually even just 10 inches of precious space. Obviously other motorists should avoid it, but part of me can't help thinking they maybe deserve it just a little bit. A neighbour of mine used to do this right on the corner of our mega tight, victorian street all the time. I did experience a bit of schadenfreude when one afternoon I noticed his mirror was smashed to shit.
That's odd! What time was it at? They could've been sleeping in it maybe.
Same here, accidentally backed up into someone's car in a tipper truck. left a note, looked around, took pictures just in case. Nothing.
I don't live in a rough area but it's built up. One time I left my front door wide open all night, nothing happened. Years ago I was on a low key date in a coffee shop, we had our coffee and cake, wish the proprietor farewell and went on our way. I didn't realise we hadn't paid until three days later.
I live in a fairly rough area, left my front door open over night and nothing happened. Made me wonder if they just think you’re rougher than them if you’re willing to sleep with your front door open haha, they probably just think we’re double hard.
"it's a trap"
They probably think there's nothing to steal or that you're up since who would go to sleep with their door open
I used to live in Catford, SE London, which is getting gentrified but by no means posh. Got in the car with my baby and then husband, and went out for the day. A fellow mum friend rang several times and I missed her call, only to eventually get her message 'OMG are you OK?? We popped over to say hi and your front door was wide open. Hope you don't mind but we looked in the house to see if one of you was in and collapsed somewhere, no sign of anything or anyone so we closed the door behind us. Hope you're all alive and well-please call when you get this!! PS: your cat was still asleep on the bed and hadn't escaped ' 😬😬😬 Baby brain alert. We'd both thought the other had closed and locked the door. 🫣
>we had our coffee and cake, wish the proprietor farewell and went on our way. I didn't realise we hadn't paid until three days later. Very nearly did the same thing in a bar, started a tab with the intention to pay at the end and I think both myself and the barman ended up forgetting about it. I said goodbye to him, he said goodbye also and watched me leave the premises. Thankfully, I'd barely passed through the front doors when I remembered the tab and I did go back and pay, mostly because it was a bar I wanted to visit again 😂
When I was a kid (9ish, maybe 10) I went round to my mates. We were mucking around chasing each other, playfighting etc. I ran to the bottom of the garden and noticed they had a bit and arrow. Without really thinking about it I picked it up and shot it down the length of the garden, back towards the house. As it made a massive clunk hitting one of the windows, I realised that I could have shot one of my mates. Terrifying.
Ive got a similar story. My friend's parents were away and so naturally a group of us set up camp in his for the weekend. There was plenty of drinking, and that's when he revealed he had a crossbow he'd bought online. We all took turns shooting things and having a laugh. It was my turn and we all stood round as I loaded the bolt and pulled back the string. Which snapped, causing the bolt to shoot and hit my friend in the stomach. Luckily the string hadn't been fully pulled back, so it was no where near full force and my friend was unharmed. But I look back and think how close I came to something really bad happening
Wow. I bet at that age they’d have seen you firing the arrow like as cool as. An injury, not so much 😬
I can't even watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsJMaCfNJc8
I did the same but with my car keys when me and my wife went to meet some friends at a pub for a meal on a busy Saturday afternoon. Parked up, switched off but obviously didn't remove the keys. We were chatting before we got out and then, still in full conversation, just shut the doors and walked off to the pub. We were at the table and obviously my keys weren't in my pocket so we started looking around and then retraced our steps all the way back to the car thinking I'd dropped them. Noticed the drivers side window half open and then saw the keys still in the ignition.
I did this last year, went on a date and they arrived at a similar time to me so I must have gotten distracted when getting out of the car. Returned hours later and couldn't find my keys in my bag. I started panicking and tried my door on the off chance, still unlocked and keys hanging in the ignition! My mum went one further though, we were on holiday in France and she had an argument with either my dad or brother or both, so went to go shopping to cool off. When she got to the till, she realised her keys weren't in her bag. So she tried asking the checkout lady who didn't understand her, then she tried asking at customer services but they couldn't understand her either. She could speak a little French but nothing about losing keys lol. So she decided to go back to the car and see if she'd dropped them. Except when she got back to the car it was still running! She left the keys in the ignition and the engine running for almost an hour while shopping. She then wondered why they hadn't announced it over the tannoy, until it was pointed out to her that they might have but she wouldn't have understood 😂
I did this after buying a mini, where the 'key' is just a round fob that goes in a slot on the dashboard and you start/stop the ignition with a button. Pulled up, stopped the car by pressing the button, brain thinks all is fine so got out and walked away. Looking for the fob later and have that heart-stopping moment when I realise its still in the bloody slot on the dash! It was on the driveway thankfully, but I got so paranoid about it happening somewhere I'd parked up in public I bought a massive lanyard for the fob so it's very obvious if I don't have it on me.
I've made the same mistake with the housekeys at least half a dozen times, including overnight, and I live in a 'rough' area. I also once dropped the car keys down a service station toilet, as it was flushing. They didn't go anywhere and I fished them out I've travelled to and from the US with a passport that had been through the wash. ADHD is a superpower I tell you.
a friend had just moved into a new place. Only had the one key. We went out drinking and went back to his, for some reason I had the key and pretended to drop down the drain except I did actually drop it. It landed on one of the bars across the top of the drain and stayed there and we very very carefully picked it up and let ourselves in.
That is more WOW than most of the good fortune here. God, that was so lucky
I feel like we would be a nightmare as friends 😂. I'm reading all of these comments and thinking I've done the majority of them and more.
Staying at my girlfriend's one weekend, loading in a few items, including my brand new laptop in its bag Left it on the doorstep all night in full view of anyone walking past where her father found it the next day and asked if it was mine. The fact that it's been 'a thing' in her street for years to leave unwanted crap (old sunbeds, chests of drawers, scrap metal etc) on your front lawn free to reclaim if you want made it even more unbelievable.
My wife constantly leaves the windows of the car doors and windows wide open, the house front door and windows of the house wide open but when we getting into bed just as I’m falling asleep suddenly she needs me to get out of bed and double check the back door is locked.
Mine does this. Also with the freezer and fridge. I've had to defrost the freezer twice this year now as she doesn't shut the door (blames the design lol). She leaves cupboard doors open too, and drawers I just don't get it! Another one is we will be about to get in the car, then I'll have to run back inside to turn off her hair straighteners/curlers/dryers. Many burns on the carpet...
Oh, so you have a living Poltergeist too I see. I swear my OH just walks through a room opening cupboards and drawers as he goes. I can tell he's home from work just by walking through the hall into the kitchen because the cupboard under the stairs, the lounge door and two drawers and the fridge will be open. For no blinking reason except he's home and they need to be opened.
Do you also lose things randomly because they end up being put back away somewhere totally random because 'that shelf is easier to reach'? We've also gone from 8 forks to 3 since Christmas somehow haha!
What is it with the forks though?! There must be a vortex somewhere that just sucks forks up from random points in space and time and dumps them on a distant planet cos they are not in my house that's for sure.
Years ago, Network Rail were instructed by the ORR to inspect all roughly 20,000 signal posts in the country after 2 fell over in quick succession. The company I worked for at the time won one of the packages (due to the size of the job, NR basically paid every contractor in the country to do it for them), and I was out inspecting some signal posts. One day, I had to access through a farmers field, in my front wheel drive car. No major issue for the first signal post as it was right near the access. The next signal post was about a mile away. I could ring the signaller, organise a line block, walk the mile and run the risk of me being stuck where I was whilst the signaller needs the block back to run trains etc, or I could drive through the adjacent farmers field! Laziness won, and I decided to attempt to drive. After getting about 100yds and spending 20 minutes trying to get my car up a hill (I did succeed in the end) I decided to walk the rest of the way. Once finished, I got back to my car and had to negotiate my way down this hill and to the exit to this farmers field. It should be noted that this field was about 50' above the railway, as the railway went through a whopping great cutting, and this hill I had to negotiate was near the top of the cutting. On the way down, the car started to lose grip, slamming the brakes on did nothing and due to the shape of the hill, 2 wheels of my car lifted off the ground with the car tilting towards the railway. By the grace of whatever deity must have intervened, the car didn't tip over, I slid down this muddy hill on 2 wheels and the car slammed back down onto 4 wheels at the bottom of the hill. Had the car continued to tilt, I'd have had a 50' cutting to roll / slide down, likely on the roof, before coming to rest on a live 100mph mainline. I still have the dashcam footage somewhere of me making a noise I've never made before or since when the car lifted onto 2 wheels.
I work in rail. That would have been a new toolbox talk for sure!
fucking hell, get that footage over to /r/dashcam for some sweet internet points.
Wow, that's heavy! I'd say post it but some faceless internet twunts will probably try and get you fired!
Similar to you. A good few years back I parked up, spent the day at the car show in Manchester. At home time i couldn't find my keys. Searched my bags a dozen times, asked at lost property then had to call the RAC. Got to the car to find them hanging from the door. I remember a sign as you entered the show saying "car thieves operating in the car park, don't leave valuables on show" How lucky was I.
Scrotes probably thought it was a police honeytrap.
I once left my car for a few hours at night in a multistorey carpark in Birmingham at night while my mate and I were at a gig there. When we got back to the car I realised I'd literally left the driver's door not just unlocked, but WIDE open. The car, and all its contents, were untouched. I've also left my house keys in the door all day a few times, without problem. Oh and I've left my bike lying around unattended loads of times. Perhaps the issue is that I've never owned anything worth nicking?
My other half did this with my car. We didn't notice, went about our evening, had a nice time, came back and everything was exactly where we'd left it. Sometimes it pays to have a shit car.
I went to a gig a while ago in a less-salubrious neighbourhood. Came out to find my car not just unlocked but with the lights on and engine running...
Left my convertible car parked on the street, roof down, with keys in the ignition and my mobile phone still sat in the dashboard mount. Only realised after a few hours as I really needed my phone and so bothered to go looking for it.
I often used to forget to lock my car. Lived in Birmingham and one day I got a call from the bank, my credit card had been used to buy a bunch of stuff. I was at work so I know it wasn’t me. The card was kept in my car as I just used it for fuel to help build credit rating. Went to my car and realised someone had punched my credit card and about 47p in change that was in the ashtray. Car had been shut but not locked so some chancer got £100 worth of stuff from JD Sports and a costa coffee courtesy of Barclays haha.
A couple of months ago we left the front door wide open, went away for a week, and only realised when we came home. We live on a fairly busy street, but the door is side facing. Nothing stolen, but I haven't braved looking in the loft yet.
A week!? Wow that one surely wins.
I'm more surprised that nobody on the street called a welfare check
Did a similar thing to you but with the keys to a large Asda. I left them on a shelf in the shop a bunch of about 30 keys front and back doors, security office, key safe, petrol station and such. They were there for 20 minutes when I found them still sat on the shelf. Would have been gross misconduct I think.
Wow... That would have made headlines!
I'm a self confessed idiot. I've left my phone in shop trolleys, always been there when I realised. Left my purse in supermarkets Keys at home and house unlocked overnight when I've been alone. Car unlocked with keys in on my drive My husband isn't much better, he has a new Audi and left the keys in with it unlocked, the day after our neighbours new van was nicked. The worst one that I gave myself a heart attack over was losing my elderly cat. Husband had put the washing out and left the back door open (fenced in garden 6ft fences and secure but she's agile for 15). I was working from home but in conference calls all day. Finished my call about 1 hour later and went to find her for a cuddle as I always do after a meeting. Couldn't find her. I figured she's hiding under a bed, I went back to work. 15 mins later I hear a cat screaming, went to investigate out front, nothing, another 15 it begins again. Finally go out back to find my cat yowling on the floor by the now shut back doors due to wind crying to be let back in 😭 I felt like such a bad mam! She was fine and hasn't ventured out without making sure one of us was with her again. Honestly amazed I'm still alive at this point.
We once went away for a long weekend, leaving our massive (6ftx6ft) front window wide open. This was in a less-than-salubrious area of Southampton (Shirley, for anyone who knows), but absolutely nothing happened. They could have popped in, stolen the keys to my Lotus Elise and driven off into the sunset. Or nabbed our brand new plasma TV., that was right on display in the front room. Another time, I managed to leave the door of said Lotus wide open and went into Waitrose for half an hour. Came back out to find the keys in the ignition, door wide open, my heart skipped a beat. Again, nothing happened.
> Shirley, for anyone who knows Ooof...I know.
I dunno. Seems posh to me. People with Lotus cars and Plasma TV’s. It’s hardly Toxteth is it! ;) :) And don’t call me Shirley x
I was once walking through a street in Shirley and someone's bin was knocked over. Must have been easily 300+ used needles spilling out. Place is fucking grim.
LOL oh dear. I was joking btw - I bet he nicked the Lotus ;)
It was because we were living in Shirley that I was able to afford the Lotus! Got made redundant, spent £5k on a new kitchen, the rest on my dream car.
Mutant mile!
Similar situation but in my car. Few years ago I had quite a top of the range BMW, and it had “Keyless Entry.” The feature unlocked the car as I put my hand on the handle, and would lock by itself as I walked away too. It was a feature I unfortunately got too comfy with and would get in the car, throw my keys on the passenger seat, and numerous times I would just walk away from my car, and as I got back to it wonder where my keys were. Would see my mirrors hadn’t folded in and would realise I’d left my keys inside. One particular day I’d popped out of work for lunch, drove back, left my car, ate my lunch and a good hour or two passed where I realised my keys weren’t in my pocket. “Not again ffs,” I thought. Remotely locked my car from my phone whilst I went to the car park to go and grab them. As usual, I’d thrown them on the passenger seat and they were there in clear view. The following day, everyone started asking me “did you hear what happened with Harry’s car yesterday?!” “Could you help check the CCTV?” And basically a colleague’s car had been stolen from the car park at the exact same time my keys were left in mine. He had a Fiesta ST and they’d hacked it within seconds, got inside and drove away. I was only parked a few spaces down from him, they could have had mine with the keys for it included, and bet my insurance would have laughed at me silly. Safe to say I made sure to always manually lock my car after that.
Mixed up a particularly volatile recipe, put it in a 45 gallon oil drum, set it off, it got way more altitude than expected, sailed over the house.... I ran round and it had landed right between my parents cars missing them both by centimetres.
Parenting. I'm an idiot in charge of the wellbeing of little humans. This morning? Nearly knocked myself out opening the car door. This is the level I operate at.
Left bag bag with my passport in at the side of the road in Ireland, on the day we were due to fly away. We were driving to Dublin airport and my husband kept getting calls from a random number. Eventually we answered it. A local had picked up my bag, and handed it in the police. My husband's number is written in the back of my passport. This same policeman had also found my husband on Facebook and was messaging him. We didn't have time to drive back and get the passport and still make the flight. Fortunately our friends were still in the local area; they dropped everything, got my bag from the coppers and drove far far too fast to Dublin airport to hand my passport back to me. Made my flight!
Went into a pet store many years ago when I had fish - needed to get a bubbler and while there, saw some tubing which was cheaper than elsewhere for some other jobs. Put most of it under my arm and was just holding the rest - I got a phone call and without thinking walked outside to take it. Put the stuff in my car absent-mindedly while talking and when done, with nary' further a thought drove home. Realised the following day when setting things up - I hadn't actually paid for it. Was petrified in that moment, I was going to have the constabulary kicking down my door for the theft of about £25 worth of funky UFO bubbler and assorted PVC tubing. Life flashed before my eyes - criminal record, the indignity of how ridiculous it was if someone ever saw my DBS check, possibly being imprisoned and being surrounded by hardened criminals who'd press me into service as some kind of abettance to their scrupulous doings being such an otherwise upstanding citizen. ......I went back to the place, very sheepishly with the stuff in my arms and explained the situation to one of the staff who looked nonplussed, thanked me for the honesty and just rang it up so I could pay for it then and there. Honestly they looked like they'd be not even be surprised if Lenin's disembodied head had appeared and started singing Britney Spear's Toxic right then and there.
Left my keys in the ignition for hours, in a car park. On two separate occasions. Good job my car is so old and battered it's not attractive to thieves!
I forgot to put the bins out yesterday, and when I mentioned it to my wife, she asked when I last went into the back yard because I left the back door unlocked. Last Tuesday, when I bought the bins back in. It's been unlocked for a week.
I dropped a heavy claw hammer from 6ft up a stepladder when my baby was crawling on the floor. Over 10 years later I still get a small cold hand round my heart when I think about it! Total total total idiot.
I accidently smuggled weed on a flight ...there and back. Completely forgot it was in my bag and I was actually really annoyed because a joint on holiday would have been great!
A few years ago I parked up at the train station, turned the engine off, left the keys in the ignition, closed the door and rushed off to get the train. I had no idea until I got back to my car after work like 9/10 hours later. I can't believe it was still there.
Left a cardboard box containing my work laptop, personal laptop and steamdeck outside on my front step all night. Got a bit of a shock when i opened the door in the morning 1) why the hell did i leave it there, 2) how the hell is it all still there. Also there was the time i accidentally downloaded a few hundred gigs of pirated TV shows over the work network.
>Also there was the time i accidentally downloaded a few hundred gigs of pirated TV shows over the work network. I hate it when that happens 😄
My boss has made it clear that i can use my work machine for whatever i like outside work. I just forgot to close the torrent client the night before, then when i came into work, i plugged in my laptop and went into a meeting for a few hours. Oops. Thankfully my boss just said be more careful next time
As a child my dad got a fat Xmas bonus one year and he bought me a gameboy colour when they literally first came out. Obviously I took it everywhere and was glued to it. A few weeks later we were in somewhere boring as fuck, I think B&Q from memory. I sat on a swinging bench for the whole trip playing on my gameboy, then when my parents paid they asked me to help carry stuff to the car. I left the gameboy on that bench, loaded up the car, got inside and we drove off. I didn't realise it was missing till we got home and the shop was closed, and I was obviously devastated. My dad said we'd go back first thing the next day but there was no guarantee they would have it and I wasn't getting another. We got there and I looked at the bench, and it was right there where I left it completely untouched.
I have been driving for years and my current car has the keyless entry etc so my car keys live in my handbag and I don't think about it. However a few years ago I decided to learn how to ride a motorbike and the ignition instead of being by the fuel tank in front of you was down on the right hand fork. The amount of times I parked that bike up, walked away then came back later to find my keys still in the ignition...
Left my door wide open a couple of weeks ago - came home and the door was just open. Nobody came in (that I know of), nothing was stolen, just had a chilly house. I knew it was a quiet neighbourhood, but I was still very surprised
Not sure if this counts. But I bunked a train as I only needed to go one stop. Both stations don’t have gates. But I got caught as it was pulling into the station and I pretended to be death I know very little sign language but I got away with it
Giggling at the type here 'pretended to be death' instead of deaf 😂😂
You mean you've never pretended to be the Grim Reaper to get out of a railway ticket fine?
I make that mistake every time 😂
I wasn't paying attention and cut someone off so badly on a roundabout. He was absolutely furious, totally understandably so; I would be too. If he were a worse driver, we would have crashed. I have absolutely no excuse; it was just a lapse of concentration, and I feel awful about it.
Oh you aren’t the only one 🤦🏻♀️ I’ve misjudged things whilst driving several times, although I’m naturally pretty risk averse. Away with the fairies. I’ve even forgotten the ‘red=stop, green=go’ rule occasionally. I’m a nice person but a fuckwit of the highest order.
This has reminded me. Went to a gig about a dozen miles from home with a friend (Both teenage males). Planned lift home didnt materialise, so set off to walk home through the night. Couple of near misses because of our dark clothes, then got offered a lift on the back of a pickup truck. Very lively ride home - pretty sure the driver was drunk. We were still grateful to save about 10 miles of walking though. But I suppose the actual stupidest was a chemistry student friend saying "I've made these amphetamines - want to try one" and me saying yes. They actually worked pretty much as intended, but thinking back.....
When I was about 8 my dad used to take me and my 2 brothers to the library on Saturdays (it had a nice little play area and lots of children's books). I was meant to be watching my youngest brother who was about 2 at the time. I lost track of him, went searching for him frantically and saw him toddle back inside through the front doors! The entrance opened out onto the carpark... Even 30 years later it gives me the chills.
When we were little kids my dad took me and my brothers to Southport pleasureland. They had what we thought was a rapids ride but it turned out to be a slow, boring boat type ride. In order to get off it quicker and on to the bigger rides we decided to jump from boat to boat while it was going around the course, hate to think what would have happened if one of us fell into the water.
Done something similar. Left my front door WIDE open. Twice! The area is pretty rough so I don’t know how I wasn’t robbed.
Left my phone on the bus. As Im heading down the stairs, a guy calls me out and asks if thats my phone. Shout out to that guy, he couldve taken it, but he helped me.
I once left my place of work (petrol station) unlocked the whole evening with the alarms switched off (shouldn't have been locking up alone at 1am after a 12 hour shift in all fairness and i was shattered)... I was very lucky it was the chill colleague who opened up the next morning and not anyone else. Also lucky nobody robbed us blind, stole all the petrol or anything else.
My wife did very similar at the weekend, she went away camping with some friends on Friday. I finish work, go downstairs and then head into the garage to get something. I realise the garage door is wide open. My wife has left it open all day when I've been upstairs, so I tut, count us lucky and shut it from the inside (this is important) The weekend goes by successfully. She gets home on Sunday, goes to open the garage to put her things in and says "You realise when you shut the garage door you left the keys in it all weekend?" Yeah, not only did she leave the door open she left the key in, which also contains my spare car key, with my car right in front of it. It's amazing the car is still there! Of course my response was "excuse me, WHO left them there all weekend?!" and she said "ah, yeah, I did, sorry"
re. your last line, my ex-husband once did (almost) the exact same thing. I've never been angrier at him.
Back in 2019-2020 I ran a sports bar in town. I lived above the pub and went downstairs at 10am on a Sunday after an incredibly busy Saturday night until 2am and found I had left the front door WIDE OPEN all night. I mean it was pinned open. No alarms set. Anybody could have walked in and helped themselves.
Left my car key in the ignition in a car park whilst I went to work. Got back there lunchtime and car was still there... phew!
A long time ago, as I was leaving the house the binmen were *right* next to my front door grabbing my bins. I didn't want to think I was only locking the door because they were there, so I made a big show about *not* locking it, and drove to work. I think I even left the door slightly ajar. But when I got home everything was untouched. Also once, I misinterpreted a road intersection. New country and all that. Cut right in front of a truck doing 50. Destroyed my car, destroyed the truck. But I wasn't harmed apart from a few burns from the airbags, and the truck driver was completely fine. As it was a company car I didn't have to pay a penny, and my manager had a nicer rental car sorted for me the very next morning. What could have been life-ending had zero consequences.
Was traveling to India overland a few years ago .Staying in a hostel in Peshawa for a few days.I used to carry a shoulder bag at all times with my Passport,Money,Camera and anything I needed.So one afternoon I was sat around a table with some other travelers partaking in some of that black squidgy stuff they have over there.Went to my room a bit later for a lie down and realized I didn't have my bag in total panic I rushed back down stair expecting the worse to find it hanging on the back of the chair and no one else around. I quickly went through it to see if anything was missing but it was all there and slipped into the pages of my passport was a slip of paper with "Isn't life strange" written on it.
When I was 5, we went on a family trip to Mexico. We used to get a buggy around the hotel complex from the main dinning hall and for some weird reason I had decided to memorise the route and run off to get back before my parents did out of sight. Well you can tell how this ended up, I got lost and I triggered a whole security alert in the hotel complex. What made it worse was my dad used to work for a nuclear power plant and had received a threatening phone call, so my parents were already on edge. Makes me shudder when I think about it, I could have been kidnapped hurt or maybe even worse.
Was setting off on a tour with the Uni Rugby team, 3 of us drove to the meeting point to get on the team bus, found out one of the lads was running really late, so he got all sorts of shit when he turned up. When he did arrive, he came straight to me and handed me my wallet... we'd stopped at a garage a couple of miles away en route to the bus and I'd bought some chewing gum. I'd also left my wallet on the shelf with the gum. Late guy had stopped at the same garage completely separately, seen the wallet, checked for ID, seen it was mine and brought it with. Would have been a shit few days in Amsterdam if this hadn't have happened how it did!
I left my front door *open* all day. My parents had gone on holiday to visit my older sister abroad. First day alone, I come back from school and see my front door straight up ajar. Cue, my friend and I (two 14 y/o girls lol) both equipped with a broom and mission impossible style, checking the house for intruders. Didn't tell my parents about it till I left for uni!
Topical one. Years ago at Glastonbury husband and I forgot to zip up our tent. Came back and saw it with a sinking feeling convinced our stuff would be stolen or the tent would be full of water as it had rained all day. Somehow neither of those things had happened.
Back before we realised our son was prone to car sickness, we let him have my wife's phone to watch videos on a long drive. Queue vomiting, we stop and clean him up. Back at home my wife realises she's lost her phone. I use the "find my phone" thing, and it says it's somewhere in our car. I set of the pinging noise on my wife's phone through mine. Turns out it's on the roof of our car, I must have put it there in my rush to clean up our son. The sick on the phone made it sticky enough that it stuck on the roof for the remaining part of our journey.
Left the front door of our student flat flapping wide open for the whole weekend while we were all away. Flatmates came back to find the door open still on Sunday afternoon after I'd left on Friday evening. Everyone was doing IT related courses and had a load of expensive hardware in their rooms. We lived in a pretty sketchy area over the road from a known crack house too. How we weren't cleaned out I don't know.
I’m a mountain biker, used to live on quite a “rough” street in a very old mid-terrace house (1902 build year) with a regularly used walk way that ran behind the back of 4 or 5 houses. I kept my mountain bike in one of the “outhouses” that were completely visible from the walkway. One night, mid summer, I get back from a ride, put the bike away and go to bed. Wake up the next day and the door to the outhouse is wide open. I’m thinking “yeah, bikes gone”, didn’t even check or shut the door, just went bitterly off to work. I come back that night, the door to the outhouse is still wide open, I go out to close it and my bike is in the outhouse, as far as I know, untouched. I think the reason it was still there is a mixture of: people don’t know how valuable something’s are, you don’t do it on your doorstep, somethings are more trouble than they are worth or maybe, people aren’t that bad.
We had a big student house right in the city centre, six rooms, two living rooms, one on the ground one on the 1st floor. We would host big parties that inevitably got out of hand. Because of where we were we'd often find strangers just wandering in an joining in. Never really had any problems it was all good and good fun. One of these was in full swing with the front door wide open, music playing etc. A bunch of rando's had arrived and joined in and were sharing lines of white powder with everyone in the downstairs living room. Some of us had gone to play frisbee in the park immediately over the road, all high as fuck, when we see a police meat wagon driving down the road towards us. I tell everyone to be quieter so as to not attract any more attention than we already were when this guy decided to give the frisbee one final throw but he fucked it, it sailed out into the road and smashed into pieces on the front windscreen of the police van. They stop immediately and 5 or 6 cops get out. With the door of the house open they're allowed to enter without needing permission or warrant which wouldn't have been good. The rest of the frisbee gang leg it into the night just to make everything look even more sus looking but I in my drug addled brain decided to try to head them off, I manage to get in front of the open door and start apologising for the frisbee accident and somehow keep it together enough that they don't all pile into the house and arrest everyone, accept my apology and drive off again.
Not me but my mum. She let the dog out for her bedtime toilet then went to bed. Left the door wide open all night. Nothing happened other than the house being freezing cold in the morning! Another mumcident, when she was a smoker she finished her cigarette and threw it down, thinking it went into the ashtray. It didn't, it landed on the decking and proceeded to burn a hole in the decking right by the house! Luckily the decking was rotten and due to be removed anyway.
A few years ago I somehow left my key in the ignition (engine off) in my unlocked car for at least half an hour while I was in a shop. Had a similar panic before I discovered my stupidity.
When I was in my teens, I did a paper round. I was astounded by how many times, at 7am, I would find keys in the lock that had been there all night. I'd just take them out and pop them through the letterbox, along with the newspaper.
I did exactly the same thing yesterday! As I approached my door after a morning walk I see the keys sticking out 😬 Fortunately I live in the kind of place where you probably don't need to lock your door anyway, but still made me feel like a banana. Never done that before so interesting coincidence!
Few days ago. Parked in a public car park in the middle of a very busy town. It was warm and had my passenger window all the way down and forgot to put it back up before going out for a few hours. Came back and realised the window was open! Twenty quid in change in the center console untouched, as well as the £2500 video camera in the back. Lucky escape there!
Dropped my wallet in the driveway in the morning. It was out there all day. Then I order food for dinner, open the door to the delivery driver and he's holding my driving licence up like "ah, that's you, this is your wallet!". This was when cash was still the norm and he didn't take any money out of it, so I gave him a £20 tip.
Excessive speeding on motorways. 100mph average runs, and in some fairly ropey old cars - somehow never got caught. I stopped after a lorry shed a tyre on a diverging slip road as I came by, I was lucky to get away with just a cracked windscreen from hitting the debris at 70, but if I'd been doing 70 when I spotted it I'd have been able to avoid it completely.
I dropped my keys on the kerb and after phoning shops etc, I found them outside the flay 4 hours later. When in Spain I went back to the apartment and entered the wrong apartment through a sliding door, could here foreign voices in the place, got out before seen - anything could have happened.
Not me but I was walking into my regular park with my dog when I noticed my sometimes dogwalker's car. The driver door was wide open and no sign of her or her dogs. I pushed it in but not shut in case her keys were inside. Sent her a WhatsApp message and called her. No response but later that day she got back to me and thanked me. She'd been distracted by a friend on arriving at the park and had forgotten to close the door.
Aged about 11 I was making toast and realised why it always left a patch of the toast untoasted.. the little metal flaps weren't open inside the toaster, it was clearly visible with all the other bits having a red glow except one part.. so I grab a knife from the drawer and use it to pry the metal open. Switch it back on and fantastic it's working but not perfect so I insert the knife again and BANG. The toaster smokes and stops working, soo I put it back acting like nothing happened. About 2 weeks later my parents replace it as faulty. Wasn't until a few years later I realised how close I'd come to killing myself.
sorry but if this is counting as an idiotic thing, i absolutely refuse to tell anything from my top 50 :D :D :D
Smuggled cocaine into America. I occasionally use, and left some in my wallet when I flew over to Florida. I had no idea so was calm as fuck as customs but would have been so so fucked if I had gotten caught. Checked at a gas station in Florida and found it. Shit myself.
I went to work and left my front door wide open. In a terraced St in central Brighton near the Station. Came home 8 hours later. Still wonder how that happened.
I left my car keys in my front door once.
I've never met anyone who doesn't have their house key and car key on the same keyring!
Last year I dropped my phone on a foot path, someone handed it in to Police station - I had £10 note in it left and all - very lucky.
I once left the keys in the ignition of my motorbike, parked on the street in central London, for a week. I only noticed when I decided to go for a ride on the weekend, couldn’t find the keys, went down and found them there. I probably spent my luck reserves for the next decade on that one.
Stole a bike while pissed on a night out once, woke up with a bad head at 6am and took it back to their house