The man at the gate - Part 1

Home sweet home?

In May 2021 just before 11am, a scruffily dressed man (driving a white car) turned up at our house saying it was his. Nobody was home so he knocked at the neighbours, to say the house was his. It isn't!  

The following month (near to the end of it) he returned at about 12:35pm and attempted to gain entry through the garden gate and was forcibly trying to get in, even when the gate was locked. Thankfully, I wasn't home alone!    

    This time, he was smartly dressed and driving a blue car!

In the middle of July, a letter to provide a pin number for an online council account that we hadn't requested was on the doormat when I got in! The following day, having phoned the local council to query this letter, the reply was that it was likely an error in someone typing a reference number and to ignore it.

    It soon transpired that receiving the letter wasn't an error as he had returned wanting ‘his paperwork,’ which I later realised to be the pin number. Due to the force in which he used in order to try to enter the property and the fact the neighbours had informed of his previous visit, I phoned 999 and requested police assistance for us whilst the gate was barricaded to stop it breaking!

What happened next was unbelievable as it turned out that he had told the council that he was moving in on 17th and they had transferred the Council Tax to him! A letter even arrived in his name!

    I discovered all of this by phoning the council and when I did so (explaining the situation and that the police were on route) the man at the Council that I had been referred to - with the man at the gate naming him for us to speak to - knew what property I was about to tell him about from my opening sentence! What?!

    He confirmed that the property had been raising suspicion due to the online team being unable to grant the man's wishes due to him not being able to get through security questions. He also said his colleague (in the tax department) had had dealings with him too, and had been suspicious as well!

    Another lady that I then spoke to (it did feel like they passed the issue around, nobody taking any responsibility) even said that she had been speaking to him that morning and that when he’d given her contact numbers previously, she had been unable to contact him. 

Why weren’t alarm bells ringing? 

See next week's blog on Tuesday for what happened next!