When a well-meant intention turns into the biggest embarrassment ever...

Not sure where start... some of you might have read my ranting about mice who have invaded my tiny flat in Prague. It turned out the walls and floorboards were kind of badly made and it was not that difficult for those sodding rodents to eat their way through. And you might have also read that I was even more frustrated because my Dad promised to help me to repair the damage, saying he would do it when he has time on his hands (and commuting to Prague that takes three hours in the morning and three hours in the evening is also dreadful). Okay... I knew I had to wait. Not pleasant but, well, nothing that would kill me.

Yesterday, my Dad said he had to go to Prague this Monday to arrange something - I thought it had something to do with his lecturing (he is a semi-retired but still seriously good air-con specialist who gives lectures to various technicians)...

No. Having realized the damage to my flat was worse than we had originally thought (it was not only about mice but also about seriously bad floor and shoddy insulation), he decided the place needs a major overhaul. Together with my parents' next door neighbour (a nosey bloke who never stops chattering away), they took a van to temporarily move ALL MY STUFF I had there back to my parents' place. Need I say anything more???? I want to die, I am immensely embarrassed...

*chortle*
Nice shiny new flat 👍

On the plus side, finding your stash of toys might teach them not to do something so intrusive again.

Did they actually mentioned finding your toys and "handleing" them? Is there any way they could have missed what they were (like maybe if you keep them in unsuspicious boxes or pouches)?

If my dad ever found my toy stash, I would so want the ground to swallow me up!😖

Subby: You certainly did not disappoint...

Dali256: You don't know my Dad, he would definitely do it again! He thinks that swift decisions and actions are the best thing ever - communicating with others is, however, seriously unimportant. And seeing his decisions are always the best ones, why ask anyone else's opinion?

era: Nope, my Dad did not and I have, mercifuly enough, not met our neighbour. You know, most of my fairly large collection is stored in my bedroom at my parents' (actually, this room is probably as large as the whole of my own flat) but anyway... I do not really care about the fact that one (or both) of them have very obviously seen and handled my lace and see-through lingerie - that is, all my clothes got haphazzardly stuffed into plastic garbage bags (wonderful treatment of delicate fabrics, isn't it?), along with shoes (the most hygienic solution ever - bloody fools).

I kept four toys in a backpack (that I never actually used, it was a freebie that came with my old laptop) in my wardrobe, one of the in its keepsake box (a pretty big Fun Factory toy), and three in their storage bags (my Lelo Smartwand, and a couple of Tracey Cox glass dildos). When Dad came back home (I only learned what he had done while he was on his way back), I literally ran to check all the awfully packed stuff (books and shampoos and canned food thrown into Tesco jute bags etc.), searching frantically for that backpack - I found it pretty quickly. The toys were still in there but someone has stuffed some more stuff inside - on the top of the bag, there were my headphones and some of my keyboard piano accessories.

The question is, who packed it? In the case it was my Dad, I should be okay, he would not bother checking what kind of stuff was already inside the backpack (when he gets focused on something, he totally ignores everything he deems unimportant - and some useless girly stuff is definitely nothing he would care about) - and frankly, even if he had seen the toys, he would not care (I know for a fact he caught a glimpse of some of my toys - generally when he came in unexpectedly to check something in my bedroom or bathroom) and he never ever mentioned it.

The idea it might have been this neighbour of ours is, however, absolutely horrific - imagine an eccentric, tattooed middle-aged biker (owner of a small painting business) with a shaved had who tries to pretend he is a macho 20yo but who gossips like an old lady. He comes uninvited to virtually any barbecue in our neighbourhood because he is incredibly nosey and has to know what is going on in any household.

A couple of months back, his company did some repair work on our windows (the paint was peeling in some places), it was during those weeks I was stuck in my bedroom most of the time, recuperating from my surgery. One day I accidentally overheard a chat this guy (who never, ever stops talking - and who has an opinion on everything any everyone) was having with his employee; having had run out of more interesting topics, they started talking about me (unsurprisingly enough, they saw me shuffling around the house). Our neighbour felt it was important to tell the other guy that I was that "kinda smart but silly, fat and bespectacled girl with thousands of books in her bedroom (I have mentioned the man loves to visit everyone in our street, and to take a nosey peek into every room he can get into), the one who obviously never had any boyfriend and who was bound to be a virgin, even though she must be 25 or something (a bit surprising he thinks I am younger than I actually am)..." And they started that wonderfully "intelligent" chat about what kind of bloke should I find (tough chance) and what could he do to me (to f..k the books out of my head). Just brilliant. Do you believe me I shudder to think this particular neighbour might have seen my sex toys? I guess you do.

I am too much of a coward to ask any questions that would bet me an answer to the "who opened my toy backpack" conundrum - but over the next few weeks, I will dread meeting anyone who lives on our street. Gossips spread quickly (and this is something our crazy neighbour would definitely tell to anyone who might know me)... I suppose that pretty soon I will know wheter I can calm down - or if I should feel mortified for the rest of my miserable life....

Oh, my. Hope everything will settle down easily for you...

Oh my, this is a lesson in keeping things locked in a box.

I think I'd prefer to live with the mice...

The only silver lining in this is that it's your parent's neighbour who might have seen your toy, and he lives three hours away from your Prague flat, have I understood that correctly? So as long as you stay in the city you'll be okay. It also sounds as if he was quite a bit older than you, so you'll outlive him!

Just imagine if that guy was your flat neighbour in Prague - I think that would be much worse!

Talia - Not really... My neighbours in Prague are people of the "I don't really know who actually lives next door" variety, they would not care - at all. But I often go back to my hometown for weekends (I like smaller towns, walks in the countryside and my biking trips), and when I am sick or something, I tend to go there as well - my place in Prague just exudes loneliness; no family, no friends, just my pathetic single bed and four walls.

I still HOPE it was my Dad who opened that backpack, anyway...

Ah bless you my mum once found some of mine plus lube under the matress when she changed my bed so I no a bit of what your feeling xx

I feel sorry for you Briona but look on the bright side maybe some nice guy might offer you out on a date ![](upload://h7LJ67OOrR57VDYrj5ZEwwHAfLG.gif) They may think your going to be fun in bed and they know your a smart intelligent woman.

Oh I know how this feels! My dad was redecorating my room and he told me he'd start one day so thought I'd have plenty of time to hide my little box of goodies but when I came back from work I found everything pushed to one side in a pile with my love honey box on top. BUT luckily I had presents for a mate and mums cousin at the time so I'm praying that's what he saw and not the vibrator in an open box 😳 He didn't say anything though thankfully. Had to hide the stuff in the spare room just in case. I did prewarn him about the presents and said not to look and my mum had told him what we'd got her cousin so I'm praying he either didn't look in or just saw the present box not my box of stuff (bondage tape, lube, edible candles, vibrator not the sort of stuff you want your dad seeing!)

On the plus side your toys are out of reach of the mice - we have a very old house where mice come as standard and one got into our toy draw and nibbled bits out of several toys including a Feeldoe and a Share XL so it was a serious financial blow!

I really wouldn't worry about who knows what about your toys. People always seem to think that their parents and people of their parent's age are not sexual beings (despite their own existence being incontrovertible evidence that, at the very least, they were sexual beings in the past!)

Our children are about your age so I guess your parents are about our age and I have to admit that our toy collection takes up a considerable amount of room and covers a fair range of non-standard activities. It's entirely possible that your parent's collection is as extensive as ours. There are quite a few of us wrinklies here on this forum so I don't think we are exceptional.

Look at it another way - the sex toy market in the UK topped £250 million/year a few years ago and is growing fast. On those figures you have to conclude a great many people - perhaps most - have toys of one sort or another. So relax!