A few weeks ago mum told me that there was a theif in the household. About $150 has gone missing from her purse over the past couple of months. And that was just what she’d noticed, when she knew she had money and then it wasn’t in there. She said there had been a number of occaisions when she thought she had money but found she didn’t when she went to spend it, but she wasn’t sure if she had just been mistaken or it had been taken. After being told this I realised there had been times like that for me too, even one I remember quite clearly when I was dead certain I should have had over $20 in my wallet but then had to go to an atm to buy lunch. At the time I didn’t suspect it had been stolen though.
We’re 90% certain that my younger brother has been taking it, for various reasons: he seems to be buying a lot of things we didn’t think he could afford, he keeps a hidden ‘stash’ of money in his room (mum stumbled across it once when cleaning, younger brother claimed he’d just been saving up for quite a while, and promptly moved it to another unkown location), and just going on what I know of my family’s character, while I wouldn’t have said any of them would be stealing from us, if someone was I would’ve picked him as the most likely. We’re also fairly sure he’s been doing it more often than we know about, it’s just when he gets greedy/stupid and takes ALL the money in someone’s wallet that we notice, though I at least have of course been keeping better track of how much money I have since mum talked to me about this.
Today I went to buy lunch and went to take the $5 note out of my wallet to pay for it, only to discover that it wasn’t in there, and neither were all my other notes. I know I’m not just mistaken this time, I definitely had $105 in notes in my wallet; I had $110 earlier in the week and all I’ve done is buy my lunch a couple of times, using coins once too. The trouble is, I have absolutely no way of proving that my brother has taken it. I don’t know how much money he had before, but he did have a reasonably large amount, because he’s ‘saving up’ to buy an amp for his electric guitar, so I can’t even use the coincidence of him suddenly having more money just when money disappears from my wallet. If I confront him about it he’ll just know I’m on to him, if he doesn’t already. I can’t steal something of his or do some other act of petty vengence because I can’t be completely certain it’s him stealing the money. Can anyone think of something I can do?
Leave a message in your wallet saying;
“Listen you little shit. If you steal money from me one more time, I will _________(insert random threat).”
Then sign the note so he knows who its from.
It might not be him, this once happened to me, and it turned out to be the housekeeper, Try making a small, but unique mark on your bills, leave them in an obvious place, and if you find they are missing, check your brother’s stash, if you find the bills w/ your little mark on them, then it’s him
Mark your bills.
Of course, that assumes that you would be able to check them before he a) spends them or b) exchanges them for unmarked bills. But maybe if he noticed a bunch of marked bills in your wallet, it might discourage him from taking them.
(Just noticed in preview that David said the same thing, but oh well.)
Leave some money out that’s been treated with that substance that turns your hands blue after a short time.
When his hands turn blue you’ll have the little bugger. Keeping the plan to yourself is kind of key.
But you should always be prepared to be surprised by the outcome. Because sometimes it’s someone just taking advantage of the fact that you already think it’s somebody else!
Trouble is, we don’t know where his new stash is.
And I am aware that it may not be him. He has actually admitted to stealing one $50 note that went missing from mum’s purse a few months ago though. Of course, that also makes it more likely that it could be my other brother cashing in on the fact that we’ll think it was youngest brother.
I suck at Clue.
Get as babysitter cam. You know, one of those little ones that you hide behind something? They run for hours on a tape and you can catch the little “whoever” red handed.