Late-Night Doorbell ‘Prank’ Mystery Solved With A Very Strange Twist

2025-09-14

Residents at an apartment block in Schwabach, southern Germany, believed late-night pranksters were to blame for their doorbells buzzing nonstop.

But when police arrived, they found a much slimier source of the annoyance, reported multiple media outlets.

It turned out that a small slug had been sliding up and down the bell plate and repeatedly triggering the sensors.

After initially coming up short in their investigation, police officers eventually caught the mischievous mollusc in the act.

It was “brought down to size, taught about its territory boundaries and placed on a nearby stretch of grass,” police said, per The Guardian.

It’s not the first time a slug has sparked such confusion.

Back in 2021, a woman in Essex, England, was woken in the night by her doorbell ringing. She discovered it had been triggered by a slug.

“I was a bit freaked out first and then when I played it back, I started laughing,” Lianne Jennings recalled at the time. “When I showed my friends, they were a bit freaked out ― they gave me the kind of look like they thought there was a ghost or an alien or something.”

Well, at least it wasn’t a snake.

• 2025-09-14
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