Break-In at Paws Awhile

Sunday evening, after we said goodbye to our guests, we were sitting on the sofa at Paws Awhile and we heard a rattle at the door. Lucy started barking so we thought it was probably just a dog passing by. The door continued to rattle as though someone were trying to unlock it and then suddenly it opened and a man gave a surprised shout when he saw us in the condo. He pulled the door partially closed and shouted an apology, but he continued to stand there. I went to the door and found that when he had tried to jerk the door closed, he had embedded the key clip into his finger. We had to get the pliers to get the key clip out. We gave him some tissues and some ice and took the bloody key. 

He stood there and explained that he had just driven in from someplace up north (we don't remember where) and that he had rented one of the condos in our building. He asked us how he could find out which condo he had rented. He pulled a printout of what looked like an email from his pocket. I told him to go to the office downstairs and if no one was there, to call the after-hours number on the door. He looked a bit confused so I asked him if he had a cell phone and he said he did. I closed the door and we finished watching our movie.

We didn't think much more about it.  We assumed that when he had checked in, the manager had accidentally given him the wrong key so we didn't even ask him where he got the key. The key had the white tag on it with our unit number so we knew it was the one from the manager's office.

The next morning when I went to return the key, I talked to the managers and they said nobody was supposed to be checking in on Sunday. They didn't know who the guy is or how he had gotten the key. No one had called the after-hours number on Sunday evening. They speculated that he had gotten the key from one of the workmen, but none of the workmen should have a key. They are supposed to get it from the manager when they need to work there.

I spoke with Herb, the handyman, who had worked at the condo on Wednesday.  He had gotten the key from the manager Wednesday morning, but when he got ready to leave, no one was in the office so he returned the key to the lockbox next to the office.  The managers say that that box is locked and there is no way the guy could have gotten the key from the box.

So, it remains a mystery who he was and how he got the key. He didn't appear to be nervous at all about being caught breaking in. He told his story calmly and was in no hurry to get away. I wondered if he had been scammed by someone else who had rented him our place, except that he never called the after-hours number. 

He appeared to be somewhere between his mid-twenties to mid-thirties with long brown hair, of average height and weight. He was wearing khaki pants with his cell phone sticking out of a side pocket. If you know anyone who meets this description, would you ask them how they got our key?