My neighbour has stolen my wreath!

My thankfully ex next door neighbour appeared to be very much part of the community (school governor at one point) but was also not averse to taking whatever he fancied. He stole land from me by moving the boundary fence into my garden and moved the plants into his garden ( I got the plants back and most of the land), a mile post from the road side (the council eventually got that back after much nagging them from me but the TB had damaged it to the extent that it could not be put back) and logs from a neighbours field. Those 3 incidents are just the ones I knew about and could and did do something about.

We gave up our allotment twenty years ago after a whole row of onions disappeared and a blackcurrant bush was completely stripped from one day to the next. There had been other losses but relatively minor. The digging was becoming hard work so it seemed time to quit. Years later I became friends with someone whose house backed on to the allotments. She asked me one day why, since I grow my own vegetables, I didn't have an allotment and I told her. "Oh that was my next door neighbor Bob" she said. "He put a gate in his fence at the back and was out there most evenings helping himself to his dinner". I didn't ask why she never told on him but evidently he is long dead now. Perhaps I should get myself an allotment again.

Where do y'all live?

Out and out burglaries are one thing but this thieving from neighbours is very surprising

A few years ago, when our children were little, we came downstairs to find that all four wheels had been stolen off our car overnight! It was sitting on its axels!!

I got a new bed a couple of months ago and I live in flats which have a locked outer door. My daughters put the old bed just outside my door and 5 mins later it had gone. She went back out with the screws and bolts and shouted'whoever took the bed might want the screws etc' and put them on the floor. You guessed it they went too. I wasnt worried as it was going to the tip but one of my 5 neighbours just took it not a word to myself. I daren't leave anything outside now.

I, too, have had a cat stolen. She was an old cat and had a thyroid problem for which she needed tablets daily. One day she broke her leg and due to the thyroid problem it didn't heal. The vet had to amputate it. As soon as she was able to escape she made her way down to an older couple who lived close by. At 9pm he brought her back. This went on for a fortnight. Then he came round to tell me that he had been to the vets and had her details changed to theirs. There was nothing I could do as she clearly wouldn't live with me anymore. Whenever she saw me in the street after that she literally turned her back and hopped away with as much dignity as a 3 legged cat could manage. She lived for another 2 years but she never forgave me. hugs

suzied sounds like out current next door neighbour

I lived in Spain for years and the first Christmas, hung a wreath on my front door. My Spanish neighbour knocked the next day and offered her condolences- I gather that in that region, if not all over Spain, it is a sign of bereavement. (:

Last year my wreath was stoeln from my front door, never found it! I was so cross as I paid a lot for it a few years ago. The nerve!!

We have very nice man in our village who looks out for everybody. Visits the elderly. Sweeps the leaves up. Always gives road workers (we are always having pavments and roads dug up) cups of tea. One day in the summer he was helping someone out and needed to go on their roof. Whilst he was up there someone swiped the ladders!

One night our local teenagers had a ball. They took the potted plants from everyone's doorsteps and swapped them to different houses. The next day I got to know neighbours I'd never spoken to, as we tried to find our plants! It's nothing new. My granddad told me about him and his friends swapping all the garden gates in their street. This was around 1910! Boys will be boys.

Can't believe that you aren't more assertive! If someone took something of mine (and I was sure) I'd take it back. If someone blatantly queue-jumps me I walk back into the queue in front of them. They don't do it again! No point in being kind and fair to other people and not to yourself.

You cannot believe the cheek of some people. I live in a retirement complex and bought 3 rose bushes for me and my two children to remember my husband. the roses were placed firmly onto a border ready for the gardeners to plant out. By the time the gardeners got round to it one bush had disappeared - no sign of it anywhere in the gardens. I'm hoping it might 'reappear' if I mention it in the Newsletter.

Some of this made me laugh at the audacity of some people. Not the purse theft, that was awful and I know the hassle involved.

Our one was a wee sneeky one. We had someone borrow a lawnmower and we later discovered it had been sold on to another acquaintance.
The borrower was able to tell us without a blush or any offer of the cash :-) He didn't seem to see anything wrong with what he had done and we were too polite to say anything more about it.

Pinch it back and spray the back with some identifying red or other paint in case the rotters steal it again.

Our wreath is too horrid for anyone to want to steal it. I wish someone would take it. I can't justify buying another with everything I have spent so far but if it 'disappeared' I would have an excuse.

Jingl , I have a selection of seasonal toppers to amuse/embarrass GCs. Had a spare so sporting a Santa now. I remove it at Leisure Centre these days.

People are so cheeky, but I hope no one takes my little bikini clad "Patsy Pig" from my front wall! It's been there for several years now.

The things people have had stolen are quite serious, very serious in some cases and my story is quite trivial. But I'm still astonished that someone should take a very battered old empty shopping bag from my empty trolley outside the loo in Waitrose! This was ages ago so it wasn't to avoid paying for a bag.

People around here have had hanging baskets stolen in the past

Am I missing a generous gene here?

So far we've had a wheelie bin, a wheelbarrow, and now ladders that have definitely been nicked by next door neighbours - they even admit it/have the goods on display!

Don't you demand your property back or report it stolen?

Is this a country folk thing?

"that my snowman car aerial topper disappeared"

That really serves you right shy!

We lost a set of ladders which we didn't really use but when a neighbour was locked out he came across to borrow them for his son to climb in through the bedroom window. I explained they had disappeared but my next door neighbour had some. I went to ask if he could borrow them and he said "well actually these are yours , I borrowed them some time ago" "We" lent them to the other neighbour and I told next door to keep them , we would borrow them back if we needed to.

Our wheelbarrow disappeared. Elderly neighbour now has two next to her garage. Why? She doesn't even go in the garden. It was sitting near a gap in our hedge and I think blocking her view to our front door from her kitchen window . I had kept planting something there and things kept being dug up and then I spotted her husband digging it up and he explained he liked to see who was coming or going from our house!

Marelli Unscrewing a door knocker!

A fox sounds lovely .... I assume you replaced it with a very plain one

Thieving b*****ds!