Right now our house in L.A. is in a bit of a disarray because of damage in the dining room/art studio, which has just been remediated and is now waiting for approval from insurance for reconstruction to begin. Everything in that room had to be moved out, and while some of the furniture went into storage, most of what was there is now in other rooms, and so it can be difficult to find some of what we moved.

I misplaced my most expensive fountain pen several months ago, and I still haven't found it. I feel certain that it will show up at some point, however.

I've always been bad about misplacing things, and at one point when I was in my 20s, I would say a prayer to St. Anthony to help me find something, but that was only a last resort. I guess I had too many places to put things, and so I tried to train myself to put things in places where I could find them. When stashing something, I would tell myself "Where would I look for this if I were trying to find it?" I had become aware that my mind worked differently when I was thinking of where to put something than it did when I was thinking of where to find something.

When visiting my parents, I lost the car fob. They ordered a new one which is not so easy to do and not cheap. Months later, the fob was found in the trunk of my father’s (different) car. I think it fell out of my purse when I was helping my father unload groceries.

I lost my backup flip phone in my recent move. I waited until I was completely unpacked thinking I would find it with no luck. I purchased a new phone and several days later found the old one mixed in with the BP monitor. :-(

Lars, what happened to your house? Weren't you in the storms a couple of weeks ago? Because I have adhd & it gets worse with age, is it's impossible to find anything when I put it in a place I know I'll remember so I've gone to great lengths to organize the little stuff I need daily.

This may help you, which is why I did the last topic. There was a small item I lost and looked everywhere for it, even told DH about it. After giving up, a few days later I found the item in one of my clothes drawer. I figured out it was on the bed when I put clothes on it to be folded and put away. So it was on the bottom of folded clothes inside a dresser drawer.

With a phone, you can try calling, tho that's not always helpful if the battery's dead, or it's on silent - or somewhere out of hearing range.

One of my oft-repeated sayings for missing things is, 'it didn't grow legs and walk away', tho it may seem like it did 😄

My biggest problem is letting people borrow things and then forgetting. I am missing two crudite/chip and dip sets, guessing I lent them to someone for an event. No idea who. Checked with my daughter, not her. Very sad I liked the sets.

Lost a check a few weeks ago, it was given to me with no payee. Had to have my son who gave me the check stop pay it. Thought I would find it after the stop pay but not yet.

A few years back I lost my keys, looked everywhere. A few months later after replacing my keys, I found them in a bag where I store my stocking gifts. The bag had been under my pants, hung in my closet. I must have left the keys in a pant pocket and they dropped into the bag after I hung the pants back up.

My DH used to have a small work light that sat on the floor and was very bright. It was also painted bright yellow. The last time I remembered seeing it was at the top of the stairs where I was painting. Then it evaporated.

We moved from that house, and figured we would find it eventually. We moved all of our belongings into storage, and then into the next house. Through all of that sifting and sorting, we never found that light.

Oakley, During tropical storm Hilary, our roof developed a leak in the dining room/art studio, and so we had to contact the insurance company in order to get it fixed. We had collected several gallons of water in that room. Right now we are waiting for the roofer, and so I hope it doesn't rain again before the roof gets fixed. There was more rain in Cathedral City (and worse flooding), but the roof in L.A. is the one that got the leak. The house in CC was fine - it has a concrete tile roof.

I meant to ask, Oakley, do you have a cat? Or would the dog have been playing field hockey with your glasses?

aok, that's very bizarre about the lamp! WTH!?

Yesterday…we decided to go to the lake to tackle the planting bed at our condo. During the late freeze we lost the shrubs that were there. Then the association decided to replace some water pipe along our row. The good news is they dug up our stumps but left an uneven dirt mess, no mulch was left, and we were now left with weeds in about half the bed.

Our weather was cooler yesterday and I had divided some hosta, had a bag of pine straw mulch, so we weeded and got it looking better. I had taken a partial bag of compost over to use. We put all the weeds and such in a large contractor trash bag.

I started looking around for my trowel when cleaning up and couldn’t find it. We searched everywhere, even pulling up some mulch thinking it was covered. Then I thought of the empty compost bag. DH went to check the trash bag and there it was, wrapped up in it. SMH!

I was cleaning out a closet the other day and found my red folding utility knife on top of the top box, near the ceiling. It had been missing for ten years. I agree with aok27502, Oakley. That sounds like the work of a cat.

That missing light has become a running joke. Whenever something goes missing, one of us will say "it's with the yellow light. "🤪

Graywings' story just reminded me of something similar - I have a salad spinner with little clear silicon bumps on the bottom to keep it stable. Soon after I got it, I noticed one of the bumps was missing. I looked everywhere with no luck, so I gave up - it's just a tiny piece of plastic, after all, but it still bugged me every time I used the salad spinner.

Amazingly, I found it well over a year later, on the floor in front of the fridge. I think it fell down into the bottom of the fridge and I must have pushed it out without seeing it when I was cleaning. Finding it made me happy. It's the little things - literally 😁

I once lost my keys for 4 months, then just on a whim I checked my winter jacket pocket that I had packed away on a box in the basement for the summer. Yep. And the credit card I had last used at the gas station, eventually had to replace, had fallen into my winter boot that was below where I hang my jackets (I used to have a bad habit of putting m CC in my pocket at the gas station.)

Just recently DH has lost his car key, and I have misplaced a check I need to deposit. Hmm Hmm…

I am hoping I put my credit card in the pocket of my shorts when I filled the car with gas the other day. The next day I left town on a little vacation. Keeping my fingers' crossed that I will fnd the credit card in the pocket when I get home.

I'm always misplacing things.

Especially my keys! Can't tell you how many times I've had to replace the house key. Fortunately, the I have an extra key fob for the car,, and haven't misplaced both of them at the same time. I have learned to put my keys in the same place as soon as I walk in the door.

Used to be, I'd misplace my glasses, now I can't see w/out them, so they're always on my face. (Unless I'm sleeping)

My keys have a spring hook on them, so I can fasten them to my belt loop or bag - haven't lost 'em yet 😁

I really dislike looking for something lost. I almost can't stop until I've found it, or can barely stop thinking about it.

I made a trip into Home Depot last month and have been locking my purse out of sight in the car, carry my credit card inside in my pocket. Still in the parking lot, I couldn't find the card. So, what pocket at home was holding the card? It wasn't tragic, I do have more than one credit card. I bought my few things and opened the rear passengers door to just sit my items on the back seat not the cargo area of my SUV. There on the floor of the back seat was my card. I have not been in the back seat of the car in many months.

I lost the deed to our house. I am not a prompt filer, I never have been in my own office. A few months after moving here, we had sold our former house, and my mothers house for her, had some paperwork reworked for her and on, and on....I had a larger stack of legal papers than usual and I'm sure carelessly put that deed in a wrong file. It's been a few years and I still haven't come across it, it must be tucked inside something somehow. I said to DH, you know all those people at the Courthouse, would you pick up a copy one morning when you're out running errands (courthouse is about 12 miles away ;)). He did that. He came home with two copies. I said Watch Me. I am putting them in THIS envelope. The envelope is going into THIS file drawer and into the file marked as THUS. Now we both know where it is, and I'm sure the original will turn up one day soon too, when I'm looking for a warranty or old photo or something else inane.

ETA - just in case anyone wondering how DH is known at the courthouse, his job required him to pick up legal descriptions for land use, former surveys, sometimes old maps. He is on a first name basis there, not in and out from standing in front of a judge ;)

I have a renter, who called us over to fix a water stained ceiling on one of the lower levels. We found the screw off faucet sides were missing. She didn't have any idea where they were. She said her cats had removed them....carried them off. Then, a ghost did it. 😂Her son said she'd been having trouble sleeping...and took Nyquil to sleep. Oh!

I've had that moment of panic when I couldn't find my card in my pocket, and then found it in the car - sometimes, things can slip from pockets and fall through the back of the seat and the backrest and wind up on the floor behind or under the front seat.

I lost my son's high school diploma. I'm not the most organized person, but I am usually pretty good at making sure those things get filed accordingly. He needed it at one point. I don't even remember why or what we did when I could not find it. I searched every file in my file drawer and it's not there. He's now 22, recently graduated college and is working full time, and it still annoys me that I don't know where it is. I have my 37 year old daughter's diploma!

Just a few weeks ago, his college diploma came in the mail. I texted him at work that it came. His response - great, don't lose it! Smart a$$ ;-)

I lost a credit/debit card. When searching and retracing my last 24 hours, I ended up at a gas station. I asked the guy in the booth if anyone had turned in a card. He pulled out a little box, full of cards, and asked me my name. He flipped through the 50-75 cards and pulled mine out. Obviously, I wasn’t the only one who missed their pocket when they ”put their card away”.

Last week, I lost my sunglasses case. When a search didn’t reveal it, I uncharacteristically immediately ordered another case online. Yes, of course, I located the black case in my black car interior (which I had already searched) the next day.

The only item I can remember losing and never retrieving was a black raincoat. It slipped off my lap in a taxi (another black interior), I didn’t realize until I was out of the cab and he was gone. I was grateful that there wasn’t anything of value in the pockets. I was at the airport to fly out of that country, so there wasn’t time to try to track it down. I had to buy another jacket when I landed in the next country.

nicole___, Don't you hate it when ghosts move things around in your houses?

I think most ghosts need help lifting things - it's much easier for them to push small items, but I guess it depends on the ghost.

I've not had problems with ghosts at home misplacing things for me. I feel like I am in ghost-free houses now, but that has not always been the case. Our house in Venice seemed to have movement in it almost all the time, but then the previous owner had been murdered in the front yard, although we did not know that when we moved in.

I lost a pair of sunglasses while volunteering a couple of months ago. A crew of us mostly ladies work in greenhouses, and occasionally outside on shrub and perennial mats doing various chores. I was primarily inside that day and outside only briefly. I was wearing a visor and sometimes put my sunglasses on my head, or may have laid them down briefly inside. About an hour before we finished I reached up on my head and no sunglasses. I re-traced all my recent steps, twice, and never found them. Posted a note before I left. They never were found.

We had a new volunteer that day who has never returned. I cannot help but think they went home with her that day but who knows. I hate to think ill of someone I had barely talked with but it was very strange.

Whoa - that reminded me of how my fairly new prescription sunglasses disappeared after hurricane Irma.

We evacuated to stay at our church with about a dozen or so other folks, and the next day I went out to take pictures of the aftermath. When we were packing to leave a little while later, I couldn't find my sunglasses, searched high and low, retraced my steps outside and everything with no luck. Never found them. $250 down the drain.

I too have a habit of wearing my glasses up on my head and they've fallen off more times than I can count.

A good thing that came out of it was I discovered Zenni and replaced my sunglasses with some really nice cute ones for a heckuva lot less $$.

Whew - glad it turned up!

I wish that were the case for the single gold earrings and a white gold ring I've lost over the years...

Thank goodness he thought to run his hand around the space!

I mentioned upthread that I had recently lost a check. We knew it had to be in the house, and thought we might simply ask the issuer to issue a replacement check. Well, DH was going through his to-do box, and there was the check. I kind of figured I had given it to him to scan (he likes to do that) but I also figured he would remember that (he’s very good at that). Anyway, check is now deposited, but his car key is still missing.

Good news. Up thread, I mentioned that I hoped that I would find a credit card I misplaced when I returned home from vacation. Relieved that I found it in the pocket of my shorts.

Finding a lost credit card is the BEST!

I usually don’t notice that I’m missing $5, but I love putting on last season’s jacket and finding a fiver in the pocket!