Three police cars ...

This happened two nights ago.

I just got back home late from London, having met up with some friends from Berlin for the evening. Gone to bed at midnight, got to sleep eventually, and got woken up by noise next door. I figured this must have been the house beside mine, where someone was rummaging around the room at an unusually late hour. I did not go back to sleep very well, so I stayed awake and listened. The noise got worse and worse and worse, all of a sudden drawers seemed to be pulled open and closed, one after the other. This did not sound great, but I did nothing about it. Yet. Eventually, there was clanging of metal and some trashing going on. Now what? At this point, I asked myself what I would like my neighbours to do when there was similar noise coming from my flat and called 999.

The police was very professional and came quickly, even while I was still on the line. I explained what was happening, and that it is highly consistent with a break-in but that I was not totally sure. Given that I did not physically see anybody entering the house or running from it, it seemed the right thing - especially as this is the time for mid-term break and people with school-age kids might simply not be around. The police asked me to come down and try to give them access to the back of the property but unfortunately, I could not help (live upstairs, no garden there). They knocked on the neighbours door, nobody answered. Knocked on the door downstairs, nobody answered. There were no signs of a break-in, and the only white cube van in sight belongs to the neighbour who I heard, so that was definitely not a burglar's vehicle. Eventually the police packed up without finding anything and left.

I told my other neighbour (and landlord) the next morning that I called the police and why - T generally knows what's going on around here. Later that day when I was just thinking that I was in delirium and imagining things in the middle of the night, I get a text to explain what happened. It was a disturbance downstairs. Caused by ... a mouse. Apparently the little critter had been sighted by the woman downstairs and her husband went out to catch it. He was doing whatever he could to track it down - apparently emptying ("burglaring"?) large parts of the bedroom in the process ... So we had three police cars vs one mouse. The mouse won that one, but let's hope it gets trapped and held accountable in the near future!

Anyway, once you sit back up after laughing, I would like to to recap the reasons for my 999 call. What would you have done in my situation? Is it a great idea to walk in on a potential burglary? Not usually, particularly not in Britain - particularly after the prime minister announced loudly and publicly that you should be allowed to protect your home.  Bearing this in mind, what would you bring if you were the burglar? Even if I did show up with a large frying pan (or other suitable objects), this could be counted as aggression in most countries should anything serious happen. And, finally, as a neighbour, would you not prefer the police to do the confronting bit? At least that's their job ... In retrospect, I am convinced that this was the absolute right thing to do.