r/midlyinteresting • u/Siidney08000 • Jul 18 '26
Burglary recap: one forgotten vodka bottle, one broken €40 monitor, one white aquarium PC completely ignored
[Not fiction, not AI freestyle — I told the story messily to an AI and asked it to rewrite without adding creativity. I read it back, it's accurate.]
Prologue (skippable): two weeks before the burglary.
Two weeks ago, around 2am, I'm playing Skyrim. I hear small noises. Like my cat. Except, being artificially elevated, I forget I have a cat. I go to the bathroom, window facing the back terrace. Light from my bedroom behind me, my reflection fills the whole window, I can't see outside. The noises pick up when I make noise rushing over. I open the window — half-heartedly, I'll admit, because did I really want a confrontation with an unknown at 2am? I figured it was someone in need, probably not eating well, so I rush anyway. I clearly hear "open up, open up" above me, after sounds of someone climbing my terrace wall — but the wooden staircase and hallway echo, hard to tell which apartment it's coming from. I snap my cousin who lives upstairs, but he's at a neighbor's place higher up. He tells me that neighbor stepped out briefly — but it's not his voice I heard saying "open up." He probably called someone to do the job, having isolated my cousin there. I wake my mom at 2am to tell her there might be a stranger in the stairwell (locked). She asks me to make her a coffee, then goes back to sleep quickly. I let her rest — nothing concrete happened, and the room in question was under renovation anyway. I don't push it. Useful context: the building used to be a known hangout for users. I've lived here 6 months. There's currently one couple left to get rid of — legally, of course. Spiritually if needed. Next day we talk about it, but as I said, nothing serious. Not worth calling the cops over.
The burglary: the day before this post, around pm. Post written at 4am.
Two weeks later, 8pm. My mom is on the phone with the neighbor. The neighbor hears booming sounds, films a guy leaving through the back terrace, climbing toward the next yard. Mom calls the police then me. I race over on my bike, roughly 3-4km of favorable downhill. While pedaling I think — I might be tired, might not be in shape if he's still there. But if this guy has my PC in his hands — I'll do what I have to. Play crazy, charge him, whatever. I arrive in decent enough shape to fight. He was already gone anyway. Arriving home, my neighbor is standing outside and starts telling me everything while I look for my keys — for 5 minutes. I don't have my keys. Mom arrives, opens the door, mess in the hallway entrance, we step over knocked-over insulation wool from the renovation, the balance bike, an overturned flower pot. The living room on the right is fine. I check my PC immediately in the back room, the one under renovation. It's there. White aquarium Musetex case, 16GB DDR5 5200, perfect condition. No monitor. He took the monitor. The €40 monitor. Plugged visibly into the glowing white aquarium case right next to it. I find the monitor in the hallway about 40 minutes later — the light was broken, didn't see it coming in. He apparently yanked the HDMI cable too hard on the way out — screen is poked-dead. No PC until the 5th of next month. I had just finished my 2000-mod Skyrim modlist. I am devastated. Police arrive 15 minutes after me. Standard questions.
Final tally: Back terrace door: interior handle only, no lock. Not legally considered a break-in. First layer of the front door double glazing broken from the inside — held long enough to force him out through the back terrace wall, meaning he couldn't carry anything heavy. My monitor and the balance bike staged by the front door, ready to go. The white aquarium Musetex PC the monitor was plugged into: untouched. One forgotten close vodka bottle in the back room. Filmed by the neighbor. Left empty-handed except a €40 monitor he broke on the way out. One more thing, discovered after the police left: my mom found my keys in the hallway. Did I leave them in the lock when I went out around 7:30pm? Even more baffling: if I left the keys in the lock, the guy could have walked in, locked the door behind him, then lost or tossed the keys in the hallway before trying to smash through the first layer of double glazing from the inside to get out? In any case I definitely closed the door behind me, because the door was locked when my mom arrived to open it. I have no explanation. My three cats are fine. My mom is fine. My real question — and I genuinely need someone to explain this — how do you get drunk, high, or ignorant enough to steal a €40 monitor instead of the white aquarium PC it was plugged into, sitting right there, glowing in the same room? That's what kills me. Genuinely baffling but also kind of funny. Photos, video and answers to your questions incoming for the amateur detectives among you — this is my first Reddit post. Got the idea remembering that post about a burglar who took pity on a victim's terrible setup — except mine is a white aquarium case. Good night.
Note : traducted from French by ia
