This house eats things!

I seem to have the opposite problem. Stuff I'm convinced I gave away in the last declutter session are still in the cupboard.

I prayed to St Antony before Christmas when I couldn't find my earring and decided to not worry about it and leave it up to the blessed saint - turned up a few days ago in the jewellery box that I had already searched many times.

Also lost the Avon catalogue - found it in the freezer.

The answer in our house is "Buy another one" then the first one will turn up. Works very well. I spent ages turning the potting shed upside down for replacement blades for the GTech strimmer. Got really annoyed, marched into the house, ordered more and paid for them, went back to the potting shed and spotted the missing ones immediately. Didn't cost me much but annoying that I now have far more little green blades then I will ever use.

Alishka my brother and I had a budgie each when we were kids - an elderly couple who couldn’t care for them anymore gave them to my mum. I loved them! They didn’t talk but they were such cheery little creatures. I’d love another one, one day. ? ?

I think the Borrowers have a veg garden because all the tomato seed packets that I bought in December have disappeared.

When my three were children we had a ghost that liked chunky chocolate. I used to keep it in the fridge and break the cubes off. One day I saw tooth imprints and a chunk missing.
I said, whose been eating my chocolate? It wasn't me said one, not me, not me said the other two. Well it must have been that ghost then. It appeared many times when they were growing up.

vickya I agree. I think there are parallel universes where things mysteriously appear. The people there must be puzzled about the pens, socks, jewellery, scissors, balls of wool, keys etc etc that appear for no reason. If they get angry enough to throw them back the objects might reappear. I think there is a portal in the back of the washing machine and one somewhere down the side of the settee. Quite a few drawers have them too.
By the way ginny my vegetable knives reappear a year or so later when I put the compost from the bin onto the garden and they are always beautifully preserved.

I loved that budgie and his KICK IM,KICK IM
I had a budgie, great talker who'd solemnly declare that "my mummy is a beautiful princess" - and he thought of that all by himself. Honest!

We call them cosmic jokers, over the years this old farmhouse has swallowed everything from dog leads to a bag of Christmas gifts I placed on the hall chair ready to put in the car. Later they turned up on the pantry floor. Car keys placed on the hall stand turn up in the kitchen. I have frightened many a friend by stamping my foot and yelling GIVE IT BACK I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS.

DH put our landline phone and cable “somewhere safe” while we had some building work done in the living room. He swears it’s “in a drawer” but obviously not in the house as I’ve turned it upside down. Hmmmmm.... the Borrowers must be having a great time calling all their relatives. The plus point is that we don’t get half so many cold/scam calls on our mobiles!

Who ate all the shortbread?
DH swears it wasn't him!!

I’ve just remembered that at Christmas I couldn’t find some fused glass ornaments that I had made at a workshop. Looked everywhere but they still haven’t turned up. They would be as big as the ‘Borrowers’ so quite impressive in their house.

Apparently my fridge ate ' my ' pork pie last night.

Only 2 of us live here and if I never ate it and hubby says he never ate it it definitely was the fridge. ??

Yes GreenGran78 I had the same thought that perhaps a family member "borrowed" it although I kept it put away fairly safely which was the thing that drove me quite mad.

My sentiments exactly which was why I didn't outwardly accuse and point the finger. The finding of the envelope was at least good although it being in the middle of the bedroom floor was strange to say the least.

... reappear in ... (not reappearing)!

Our house is bad, but my shopping bag is worse.

I think it has bulimia - it eats up no end of things that I have put in it. I regularly tip everything out of it in my attempts to find the latest missing thing, but to no avail. Some time later, the item will mysteriously reappearing the bag!

We have a ghost/ borrowers in our house too. All sorts hoes missing. I stand in the living room and say for heavens sake give back x and the next day it’s back- thankfully. I was concerned though when a kitchen knife went missing.
My ginger boy has been known to steal items of clothing from neighbours and food too. A whole cooked chicken once quite a large one. He did share it with my other cats, but I have no idea who he stole it off!

3nanny6 maybe a family member had ‘borrowed’ it, for some emergency, then repaid it later. Not a nice thought, but a plausible one.

About 6 months ago I was saving some money for a gold chain I wanted I did not keep it in the bank as I just wanted to put a small amount away in this envelope until I had enough. I always put it away in the same place which was quite safe. I did not put any away for about three weeks and when I went for the envelope it was gone. You can imagine my horror and I did not want to accuse any one in the house, I certainly asked if anyone had seen it and all answers came back with a NO.
I let myself get over the disappointment of the loss and knew I should have kept the money in the bank. Almost two months went by and one morning I went into my bedroom as I wanted to change the duvet cover. I noticed on the bedroom floor an envelope and picked it up assuming it was rubbish which had fallen from somewhere, I looked at the envelope which had £200 written on front and realised it was my missing money. To this day I still don't know where that money had been and how it got to be in the middle of the bedroom floor I carefully thanked the ghost which I know lives in my house and the following week went and bought my gold chain.

I can think of all sorts of things The Borrowers could make from cocktail sticks. I loved the books when I was young. I truly believe they exist....smiles

You will find what your looking for Phoenix when your looking for something else.
Happens in my house all the time and it drives me crazy.

I've lost an apron, it's navy blue with white stripes with 'beige's kitchen' printed on the bib. I think I remember taking it off and putting it in its usual place but it's nowhere to be seen. How can you lose an apron, for heaven's sake?
OTOH I lost the back of an earring and found it on the bathroom floor so that was lucky as it's miniscule and I only spotted it as it shone in the light.

I have mentioned this before but one Christmas ( many years ago) we got a raw turkey brought to back door by one of our cats. It was dirty & chewed & we never found out which of our neighbours went without their Christmas dinner!

On the subject of thieving cats, my in-laws once owned a burglar cat of the highest order. He came home with Sunday joints, Cornish pasties and so on. His piece de resistance, though, was a live budgie. . He brought it into the house and let it go, whereupon said bird jumped onto the cat’s shoulders and shrieked ‘KICK ‘IM, KICK ‘IM’!

Mil rescued the budgie and managed to find out where it lived, with a neighbour a few doors down, and returned it. A few days later the neighbour contacted her to say the budgie had died from a heart attack.

Every house or flat I have ever lived in had Borrowers.

In Denmark we call them nisser and serve rice pudding for them on Christmas Eve to prevent them becoming too outrageous. When they are too annoying we state very loudly that there will be no Christmas pudding if they don't return the missing items. That works too!

Elsie: they really were cat burglars, weren't they?

One evening we left the dinner table to see something important on the news. Our one cat jumped soundlessly up onto the table, helped himself to a slice of bacon left on the omelette we had made for dinner, hopped down, gave the bacon to his sister, then repeated the manoevre to fetch a piece of bacon for himself. We never heard a thing!