'Poltergeist' was thief

[sophia8]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/may/11/consumeraffairs.insurance
When we had builders in, between January and March, one of them complained that he kept finding his tools had been moved overnight. When I came home from work each evening, something odd had happened - lightbulbs had failed or been removed or the connection for my landline had been pulled out of the wall. I lost £70 from my purse and £350 in £2 coins from a box hidden in my airing cupboard and two rings. Later I found that a laptop computer and digital camera had also gone missing. But with all the building work going on, I assumed I was just mislaying things.
It turned out that one of the builders was a thief who regularly misled homeowners into thinking that his thefts were poltergeist activity.
Wonder how many poltergeist reports he was responsible for?

[AgeGap]

The thief missed a great opportunity. He could have charged his victims for an exorcism when the job was done.
"...and when I leave you will find that no more of your possessions will go missing."

[Beerina]

You're just supposed to take things in the attic or places nobody goes regularly. Stealing obvious stuff and saying, "Uhhh, a ghost musta took it!" is just stupid.

[sophia8]

The thief's MO was to misdirect his victims, by planting the idea of a poltergeist. First, he'd just move stuff around, make things not work, and so on. Only when the victim was primed to accept that odd stuff would be happening - things being moved around and go missing in their absence - would he start removing stuff. That way, the victim wouldn't immediately start thinking that their things had been stolen; it would be a continuation of the previous "odd happenings" pattern.
Pretty good psychology.