Things people pinch that you find hard to believe..

That's awful.

I looked after a 6 year old girl a good few years ago. On many occasions her mum would bring her in the mornings really apologetic about what she'd found in her daughter's bag.

Things like: a salt pot, a picture frame with a photo of my daughter in, a tampon all opened up, a bar of soap, remote control, bottle of tomato sauce. Strange girl.

Manhole covers, plant (ie mini diggers), statues, park benches...

I know they are sold on but I still find it hard to believe.

Not quite on the same scale but stuff from the fridge at work. I know there's a credit crunch but really did you think the yoghurt in there that I'd written "Lobster's" accross was for general consumption?

In an example of utter stupidity I once worked on a case where a woman had stolen loads of shoes only they were from displays in shoe shops so were all size 6 and all right* shoes. She had even tried stealing the same shoe from different shops to get a pair not realising they all put the right shoe out.

* before soemone corrects me I can't remember if shoe shops put the right or left shoes out - but you get the point!

Loo brushes- yuck! And toilet air fresheners- costs us a fortune.

Where I used to live, the postie once left a parcel outside the door rather than leaving a card thing. It was my order from Lakeland which contained nothing but tupperware boxes. When I got home to it, some kind soul had opened the parcel and taken the contents (in broad daylight as well!).

I also know of a number of people who have had people break into their cars just to steal the disabled parking badge. Rotten, though I can see that they would have a market value.

Awful that Dec has had to wait so long for his oxygen monitor because of others' appalling behaviour.

When I was reeeeally skint, yeeeeears ago, (and too ashamed to tell my parents) I would nick loo roll & soap from the local pub toilet ?

I once brought a christmas wreath from the poundshop, some desperate soul needed it badly and took it off my front door.

My sister had a stone cat stolen from her garden, and her neighbours had their door knocker pinched - someone actually unscrewed it and took it!

Someone once broke into my Dads car and all they took were his polos and 'Have Yourself a 60's Christmas' tape ?

Allthatglitters- how much did they need a door knocker that they could not go out a buy one. the cheek of them.

Sparkley - 'Have Yourself a 60's Christmas' ?

Someone stole a bag of Werthers from my car once. They had tried to steal the car but couldn't get the steering lock off, routed through my Erasure tapes and decided the only thing they fancied was my Werthers ?.

Last year someone stole a 6 foot Santa out of someones garden. There was a huge story in the local press about it and it was returned a few days later. How random.

My Gran has had tons of garden ornaments stolen, so now she chains them all to her fence/walls! It's so freaky, like a weird stone animal prison ?

Someone nicked the handdryer from the loos at work, it was bust and we thought that someone had been to fix it and couldn't so they took it with them.

Was about three weeks before we noticed, they had obviously come prepared as it needed unscrewing and they had tucked the wires up into the box on the wall so it was safe for anyone else.

Hubby had an email from HR stating that things were not to be removed on the Christmas party night, they had included a list that started with bathrobes and finished with a grand piano.The hotel had sent a letter to all bookings listing what had been taken the year before and the amounts of said items.

Going off on a slight tangent, the best burglary story I ever heard was from a guy I know who had his flat totally cleaned out once - they took everything, all the usual stuff plus shoes and clothes, bedding, towels, food, kitchen stuff, literally EVERYTHING ...

... except his collection of Babylon 5 DVDs.

Love it.

Our pound shop window boxes with pansies in them got nicked while we were on holiday. We lived in a basement flat by a taxi rank. Someone drunken taking flowers home for the girls we figured.

We got back, walked past where they were and it wasn't until we were in bed about to fall asleep, 5 hours later, when H went 'where are the window boxes?'.

We all pay a little bit of money to buy nicer soap for the toilets at work. Someone (must have been staff too) nicked them all one evening - 8 third full liquid soaps.

Hardly seemed worth the effort when they could easily have been seen and they are so cheap!

Years ago we were doing up our first place and were absolutly broke but I needed some door stoppers. I didn't want those cheap ugly rubber ones but couldn't afford nice chrome ones but noticed that the 3 loos at work had some really nice ones fixed to the inside of the cubicle door that doubled as a coat hook. I took a screwdriver to work with me the next day and took them. ?

I used to pinch loo roll from the toilets and uni to save money. ?

And karma paid me back last week when my pram got stolen from outside out house. ?

When I was assistant manager at a pub, I was once in the pub alone. There were no customers so I was drawing on blackboards (you know the menus and stuff)

Apparently someone walked in, took the entire cigarette machine and left ?

It took me a couple of hours to work out what the hole was from

?Pleeeease take a photo and show us.

I use Freecycle and arranged for someone to collect a bag of baby clothes and stuff that I had finished with. I was going out so told her I'd leave it on the front which I did. She arrived as I was leaving and the bag had gone.

I know for certain that I put it out just 10 minutes before and it wasn't in her car. Weird. I don't leave stuff outside for collection anymore. I know that I was giving it away and so I don't even know if it could technically be called stealing but thats not the point!

I had my car broken into because I left a fan heater in an Argos bag on the back seat. The heater was stolen, but the reason it was in the car in the first place is because it was broken and I was taking it back to the shop.

The next time my car was broken into was a strange one as all the cars on the right hand side of my road were broken into one night. The front passenger doors were all left open and it was most odd to see. There was nothing in my car worth stealing, or so I thought, until a year later when I realised there had been a brand new pair of trainers in the boot! My attention to detail is amazing isn't it!

ETA - I had a divan bed pinched from the front garden as well as a bag of clothes that I put out for charity. I noticed the clothes a few days later being worn by the neighbours two doors down.

In my time as a student / working in pubs, I have known the following things to be blatantly stolen from pubs (i.e. right underneath everyone's noses): a hat stand, a condom machine from the Gents toilets, three matching vases (each one was about a foot tall), a 6ft framed poster and a kettle.

I have stolen loo rolls from Uni when I was a student and skint, and also randomly 'liberated' a Stella Artois drip tray from a nightclub - which was, in turn, 'liberated' from my house during a house party.

I also know a student who had his house broken into, they stole a bit of stuff and took his car keys and car. Three nights later he was burgled again, they even took his milk, cereal and birthday cake but brought the car back!

Years ago, when my dad was living and working in Glasgow he had his car broken into and the stereo nicked. Not that unusual, of course, but the thieves had carefully taken his Womack & Womack tape out of the cassette player and left it on the seat. I think he was more angry at the damning indictment of his taste in music.

When my parents were burgled, they ignored the 2 pcs, 3 tvs, multiple stereos and all the credit cards. Plus 2 sets of skeleton keys that would have given them access to 2 local schools (it was pretty common knowledge where we lived amongst the kids mum taught, at least). Instead they took £60 in cash and a jar of Atrixo.

Two doors down had their Dyson pinched later that night, nothing else.

The things people take from the aircraft totally amaze me - it would appear anything with a Virgin logo is fair game (and then comes up for sale on Ebay).

The most bizarre was a seatbelt. They had unclipped it and we didn't realise until doing security checks. We were a full flight coming home so would have had to leave a passenger behind. Captain was furious and went storming in to the terminal demanding all passengers be searched when leaving customs hall. Needless to say we never saw that seatbelt again and one poor person didn't come home with us.

We were burgled years ago and they emptied my freezer as well as taking all the house keys and H's car. When the police came and I gave a report I was laughing when he asked me what had gone from the freezer, as apparently I could make that part of the claim.

Well there was a leg of lamb, some chicken breasts......

Years ago I had an old Ford Escort. Someone broke in and knicked the steering wheel and also took the bloody windows out.

Thanks all for replying, it looks like people all over the world aren't too choosy what they pinch?

For the record I am taking the Saturation monitor back in the morning?

We had our car window stolen - fiesta!!! They took it out in one piece and that was all they wanted. No remains found!!! All a bit strange.

My H has just reminded me...

A couple of years ago our friends went travelling. When they had been away for a few months, we all got an email saying

" Ha Ha very funny, but put my shed back!"

We didn't understand! Apparently his mum and granny had been round to mow the lawn and granny had asked where the shed had gone ?

The entire shed and contents had been removed!!

My friend was so proud of his shed - bless him... he had put the flat pack together and the previous summer we had been invited to a shed warming party/bbq! so he thought we had done it as a joke... unfortunately not.

We never saw the shed again[:'(] Cant believe someone could nick an entire shed!

Someone stole all our food from our big chest freezer that we stored in the garage - about two weeks before christmas, so it was full of nice things we had slowly been collecting! My only hope is that is was for a family that were too poor to afford things, and not some random bloke who sold our christmas food and tubs of home cooked soup off to people in the pub! ? However, they only stole food and not the bikes, tents, old computer monitors etc that would maybe have been worth something, so it was very random - and quite funny when the police had to make a list of what food was in the freezer!

What was worse is that I thought my husband was pulling my leg when he called to tell me we'd be burgled. I hung up the phone because he wouldn't admit it was a joke ?