The Cleaning Burglar

North Rhine-Westphalia, 2012. A couple in their fifties leave for a two-week walking holiday in Italy. On day two, a man forces a kitchen window. Climbs in. Has a shower. Changes into the husband's clothes. Makes a sandwich. Watches German game shows. Decides not to leave.

For four days, he lives in the house. Sleeps in the spare bedroom. Eats their food. Drinks their beer. Reads their books. Uses, the police later confirmed, their toothbrush.

And then — for reasons that the German press, the police, and several psychologists subsequently spent considerable time on — he begins to clean. The kitchen counters. The oven, scoured. The fridge interior, reorganised. The bathroom mirror. The carpets, vacuumed. The skirting boards. The windows, cleaned from inside with the family's own Windex.

On day four, the neighbour with a key lets herself in to water the plants. She finds a man she has never seen before, in her neighbour's pyjamas, vacuuming the spare bedroom carpet. He says — I am the cleaner. The German police arrest him at the train station.

Kit and Eden on the man who left a thank-you note.