So, a little while ago a man knocked on my front door. I'd guess he was in his early to mid 20's, about 6'-1" tall, skinny (not like a meth addict skinny), t-shirt and jeans, clean but not dressy, could be a college kid. He had the worlds smallest soft-sided pet carrier. His vehicle was parked on the street blocking my driveway (no room to pull into my driveway, could have been intentional or unthinking). He seemed nervous and said "I was told to come here for Harvey?" I told him I had no idea what he was talking about and he apologized and walked back to his vehicle and drove off.
Most of my neighbors are elderly and none have any pets that would fit in that tiny carrier (my suspicious thought is it was the cheapest one a person could buy. I mean a kitten would fit in it but even a 10 lb cat would be crammed in it). Also, he left right away. No additional questions, no getting in his vehicle and sitting there calling somebody to see if there was a mixup with the address. Just walked to the vehicle, put the carrier in the back seat, got in and drove off. Was it a test to see if I was an elderly person that could be easily overpowered, or if nobody was home to see about breaking in (now or later)? It's cloudy and raining outside so combined with the average age of my neighbors nobody's out (but old people are nosy and look out the window anytime they hear a car door close or other noises).
Should I prepare for invasion? Or do you think it was an honest mistake?
What was his car like? Details, man!
I want to lean on the side of honest mistake.
I kinda see the just getting in his car and leaving as something an anxious person might do. Like they feel bad they inconvenienced you and instead of sitting there for 10 minutes they just started driving away, probably to pull into a gas station or parking lot near by to try to regroup.
In reply to Shadeux :
Vehicle was a white Toyota Rav4. Either washed recently or not driven in the past 2 weeks due to recent winter weather events causing road salt to be deployed several times.
Or he was worried you where going to shoot him as is the new normal nowadays when strangers walk up to someone's house.
Hard to tell. Years ago I hadn't gotten a chance to mow the yard (it was a Friday so I was planning on doing it over the weekend).
I was WFH that day, two 12-13 year olds came to my door and asked if they could mow and edge my lawn for some money. I asked them how they planned on mowing my lawn without any equipment? As they stood there dumbfounded, I told them I didn't need their help and they could move along. I wholly suspect they thought I was just going to open my garage and let them have access to my equipment to steal.
We've had some stuff stolen from our garage before one time when my fiance accidentally forgot to close going to work one day.
In Chicago my elderly grandmother let the "water department" workers into her house to check the water pressure in her basement.
The guy who waited upstairs stole $1500 out of her dresser drawer while they went into the basement. Well known gypsy ring running around the city.
They only post 100 warnings a year not to let them inside.
In reply to VolvoHeretic :
Granted, I didn't throw the door wide open and invite him in for tea & crumpets, but I didn't raise my voice or curse at him either. I just asked if I could help him and then told him I have no idea what you're talking about.
Could they have gone to an address at a street instead of an avenue or some similar GPS mistake?
In reply to Datsun240ZGuy :
He wasn't getting invited in and made no effort to slip or force his way by me. Not sure if that was because I'm not an octogenarian like most of my neighbors, because he was scoping me/my place out for later, or because it was a genuine mistake.
My biggest doubts about it being a mistake is the fact that there are only 10 or so houses on my street and it's a dead end. There is no reason to drive here if you aren't visiting one of the residences. Also, the street name is unique, not something that would be easily mistaken for another name.
The previous owner of my house was a widow in her 90's and even though I've been here for 2 years, I do still occasionally get mail for her. So somewhere there are still records of an old lady living here.
Then there's the new looking pet carrier that was tiny and parking in a way that blocked my truck in. If he honestly didn't think about blocking the driveway might be inconsiderate I wouldn't expect him to think about moving out of the way before calling somebody to figure out if there was a mistake.
In reply to red_stapler :
No, the street name is unique and not something that misspelling another street name or using road instead of street, avenue or court would bring up.
The carrier you describe definitely wouldn't fit Harvey.
Someone knocked on my dad's door last week. They had a package with his name and address. Asked for ID. My dad showed the ID with his finger over critical info. The guy said he needed a picture and my dad was smart enough to say no. The guy said he couldn't deliver the package then, so my dad said OK and closed the door. Saw on the news later that people are getting IDs stolen by this scam.
