Things just seem to have disappeared…

For our Pearl wedding anniversary, DH gave me a lovely vintage Pearl necklace and a pair of Pearl stud earrings, the latter not vintage or expensive, but just as an extra.

I don’t wear stud earrings much, and although they were very nice, I never really wore them.

It was only when I was sorting through some paperwork and receipts years later that I came across the bill for these presents, ( it wasn’t a secret what he had paid or anything) and I realised I hadn’t seen these earrings for ages. Should have been in my jewellery box, but no.

Never have found them. I know I haven’t lost them when being worn, I checked with DD and DIL that I hadn’t regifted to them or anything, I know they can’t have been stolen.

A complete mystery.

There can be a variety of reasons why things go missing. The ones I've had to date are:

- a former friend had mislaid/seemed to have forgotten all about a book I'd lent her. She couldnt find it - so had to buy me a new copy.

- a measuring jug vanished from a kitchen cupboard in my last house. I'm a stubborn wotname and I knew exactly which place on exactly which shelf in the kitchen it was on. So I went for it one time and it wasnt there! I had to use a different one. I decided "I am NOT going to buy it again. I KNOW I still own it - even though it's not there/anywhere else in my kitchen/anywhere else in my house". I searched thoroughly for it. But - being stubborn - and knowing it was there in its usual place (only it wasnt!) meant I just declared to myself "I know you are there...I am not going to buy you again...I will just keep looking for you every time I intend to use you in the place I know you are in until you come back". Yep...stubborn.....and several months later = there it was again...in its usual place!!!!! It didn't dare vanish again...and that was odd......(mind you - that house could be a bit odd I found)....

I cba to pack up my last house on my own prior to moving here - so I paid the firm an extra £300 (as was) to do my packing for me. When I went to unpack I found 2 large unopened bottles of vodka had vanished en route. I knew for an absolute fact that those bottles were in the upper dining room cupboard on right-hand side of 2nd shelf up just before the removal men were packing. I did wonder why Mr Upstairs Packer seemed to be chatting to me about nowt much and so it didnt take much doing to realise Mr Downstairs Packer had stolen them whilst he was doing that room. I wasn't going to chase the firm concerned about a broken mug done during the move - but I was not going to let my bottles of vodka go. So sent them the bill for the vodka and the mug. They argued - but paid up - as I would have reported them to the Association thing they belonged to (it was a VERY well-known removal firm - you'd recognise the name). I was astonished at people "asking" to be sacked for theft - but there's no accounting for taste....

I'd put a semi-precious set of necklace/earrings on the floor in my sitting room and gone off to work. When I came back they were gone - and the only people who'd been in were my parents!!!!!! (who had a key to the place). Cue for my father having to tell my mother very firmly that I meant it when I said I'd never speak to her again until she handed back her ill-gotten gains to me. Several weeks later she had realised I meant it (I was gobsmacked/horrified to find my own mother had stolen something from me!!! - goodness knows why!) and my father took them off her and gave them back to me. That was decades before dementia kicked in later in her life. So - goodness knows why she did it....

Long ago my mother moved the length of the country and somehow her whisk went missing. The entire contents of a big house were packed, transported and unpacked but the whisk had disappeared and she never let them forget it.
How could a doll’s house go missing? It must have been pinched by the removals men.

Sorry to hear that watermeadow - that you've had thieves for removal men too by the sound of it.

I don't understand why any of them would risk their job by doing something like that - but maybe some of them arent very bright and think they can get away with it? The firm I used tried arguing back to start with by saying "The form says customer has to unpack within x days of getting to new house". My reply to that was "How can one person on their own and in a different part of the country - with lots of possessions with them manage to unpack totally in just a few days. Now about that Association you belong to............." and got my money repaid.

Things do disappear in this house that have definitely not been stolen. It's usually me putting things in the wrong place.
& we do have some cupboards that "eat" things, they have secret ledges that are secret even to me.
Sometimes the dog takes things & they turn up in his toy box.
Some things I find in cases a year later when I'm packing to go away again.
My worst thing is finding something (like my teenage diary) that I haven't seen for 20 years & then the week after I've found it & put it somewhere safe, it's disappeared again.

I still rmember, with sadness the box of 'treasures' that disappeared when in storage.

When my beloved maternal grandmother died, I was allowed to take whatever I wanted from her house. They included a statue of the madonna and child, a tortoise shell dressing table set and several books. I also took her sewing basket.

My father was in the army and when he was posted abroad, everything was packed away and went into store - except the sewing basket, that I kept and used. Three years later, we were back in the UK, everything came out of store, and I waited for my box of treasures, until finaly realised that they had not been delivered back to us. By then it was too late to chase the insurere about the location of one small box.

It is easy to say it is people not things that matter, but it is not the 'thing' itself, but the intensity of the feelings it ingenders when you see it.In my case the sight of my grandmothers dressing table set, brought back the image of the dressing table it sat on, the bedroom, the view from the window and the feelings of love and care being inher house always surrounded me with. Having to remember the object before accessing the memories makes them so more distant.

I too seem to have lost things, I had a tin of very precious things, some letters, photos, which I planned to give to my oldest daughter some time, irreplaceable, and completely disappeared.
All my old college work and exam certificates, same.
A more contemporary thing, I bought a Clinique gift set for a present, went to wrap it up, completely disappeared.

When my Dad was overseas he would send my Mum silk handkerchiefs with beautiful embroidery on them. They were kept in a silk pouch. They have disappeared .
Dad had a shoe last which he would mend our shoes on when we were children. For years we used it as a door stop , no sign of it now .
I know I would not have turned them out or given them away.

Thank you again, Grans for your replies.
I’m sorry to hear about the theft of your precious things, Macadia

Reported

Secondwind I think, if you’re anything like me, that what you have forgotten is the decision you made at one point to move, give away or get rid of the items. It happens to us all, don’t worry about it!

Stilllearning given that lots of things in various homes have disappeared in transit I honestly don't think Secondwind has forgotten is the decision she made to move, give away or get rid of the items.

I would not have "forgotten" a decision to dispose of my mother's beautiful gold silk wedding dress which I was saving for my daughter and which went missing during a move!

I may have forgotten where I put my wedding and engagement ring when my fingers swelled up.

Some things will forever be unexplained I feel.

Some years ago when I moved here a group of friends ganged up and did the moving for me to save me a fortune in removal truck fees, they got all the heavy furniture out and so on and as I was packing I very clearly remember putting all my utensils and bottle openers etc, complete with in-drawer tray, in a box and taping it up.

There was also a 4L. plastic sweet jar that I'd filled with hundreds of coins over time to donate to the PDSA, both the utensils and jar were nowhere to be seen when I unpacked at my new place.

Under NO circumstances would my friends have taken them and it's lucky I still had the keys to the old place before handing them in to the landlord so I went back and searched every room, cupboard, nookie place and they weren't there! I even looked in the old fridge, dishwasher and washing machine I'd left there! None of the friends had them so where exactly did they go?!

I was very angry about the charity money missing as it was for the animals but I went to the local charity shop and paid over £20.00 for a ton of new cutlery/utensils/draw tray and so on, I bought tons of them!

It's a mystery to this day!

Thank you, All.
It really is so mystifying.

I hardly dare write this…
I only wear my towelling dressing gown when I wash my hair, as there’s no one to see me traipsing around in my nightie. I unhooked it from my bedroom door and the darn belt was and still is missing!

I am betting they are still waiting to be unpacked from those boxes of stuff in the loft that you were going to deal with "later when you'd settled in"

We eventually agreed on a rule that any box that had been in lofts through three housemoves (without being unpacked) contained stuff we really didn't need.

Like those very expensive red silk curtains my aunt passed on to me around 1980 .She was moving house and said "They're far too good to leave behind and they don't fit my new house". "They won't fit mine either". "Just keep them in case." I never did have any windows they fitted but I dragged them all over Britain for decades.

Allira

You could try St Anthony, sometimes he helps if at all possible.

Dear St Anthony, full of grace
Lead me to its hiding place.

It often works although we never found a lost key and had to have a lock replaced.

My grandmother had a little statue of St Anthony in her living room and she use to pray to him when she couldn't find things.
He was usually reliable and she always thanked him. However, on one occasion she was unable to find the lost item so she turned the statue round to face the wall for a week.

If anyone on this thread has lost this 'oyster shell' with a pearl I've got it!!
Many years ago when I moved to this house I found it in the bottom of a large cardboard box. The removal firm had done the packing for me, but this pretty little thing didn't belong to me. It must have been left over from a previous move. There must be someone, somewhere who missed it and wonders about it. I love it, but if its rightful owner sees this please let me know.

Magenta8

Allira

You could try St Anthony, sometimes he helps if at all possible.

Dear St Anthony, full of grace
Lead me to its hiding place.

It often works although we never found a lost key and had to have a lock replaced.

My grandmother had a little statue of St Anthony in her living room and she use to pray to him when she couldn't find things.
He was usually reliable and she always thanked him. However, on one occasion she was unable to find the lost item so she turned the statue round to face the wall for a week.

😁

I don't have a statue but I did get rather cross when the key never reappeared!

That's so odd. I moved countries and from living in nannies positions with some of my treasures and they always appeared out of the storage areas when I was due to pack and move again. I have discarded few things now as I changed philosophy on these things...and this even I know we have a crazy neighbour who enters properties just to have a look bit never takes anything

Actually I mislaid some reading glasses recently....will pray with St Anthony right now

If you find our key please let me know!