all very Pacific Heights
Years ago I rented a fairly nice upper floor flat in Belfast with 2 good friends of mine. After a while I began to notice that things would go missing - a packet of biscuits here, a carton of orange juice there, the fiver I left for the phone bill...

I finally decided to confront my mates tactfully. After the whole tiptoeing, softly-softly "now, we're all a bit broke" approach they just stared at me puzzled and said that they'd had stuff go missing too - a packet of sausages, yet more biscuits, half a bottle of whiskey. All a bit baffling.

My twenty-second birthday arrived and we threw a party and knowing it would be noisy we invited the downstairs neighbour, mainly so he couldn't complain about us. He came along, went a little bit psycho and blamed everyone for stealing his camera (why he had a camera with him was a mystery - he didn't know any of us), and then flounced off to his downstairs abode leaving some freaked out guests behind. I finally found his camera where he had stashed it behind a door. I went down to deliver it to him only to find him sitting in semi-darkness surrounded by photos of us coming and going from the house and snaps of our own deserted living room and bedrooms... Backtracking hastily and convinced I, a slightly-built young student lass, was about to be slaughtered nastily by someone even more certifiable than myself, I fled upstairs and relayed my tale of terror.

Our cunning plan was then to leave a bottle of laxative and acid-laced vodka on the dining room table, wait for it to disappear, and then change the locks. After that, no more bother. We did mention the experience to our landlord who laughed and said cheerily "yes girls, that wee lad's a bit strange". No shit.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 12 Apr 2007, 19:28, Reply)