Dear Evelyn, I hope this isn’t a waste of your time because I know you deal with much more serious things than this. I live alone in a second-floor flat in Edinburgh — I’ve been here three years without incident. About six weeks ago I started noticing that the laundry I leave drying on the airer overnight is folded by morning. Not just folded — properly folded, the way I’ve never managed to fold a fitted sheet in my life, but now they’re coming out neat as anything. I’ve checked the windows, checked the door locks, watched the airer before bed to make sure I’m not somehow doing it in my sleep. I set up my phone to record one night and the footage showed nothing — the pile just looked different in the morning than it had when I went to bed. My flatmates moved out eight months ago, I’m certain I’m alone, and I haven’t changed my routine. I don’t feel frightened exactly. More like observed. Is that worse? Should I be doing something about this? I almost feel rude saying I want it to stop when, genuinely, the towels have never looked better. — Margot T., Edinburgh

Margot, I want to start by saying: the fact that you feel observed rather than threatened is not a minor distinction. Your instincts have given you something quite useful there, and I would not discard that feeling in favour of a more dramatic interpretation.

You are not the first person to write to me about this kind of situation, though the laundry detail is particular to you — the last letter of this nature involved a reorganised spice rack in a bungalow outside Stirling, which resolved entirely when the resident began leaving out a small dish of oats on the kitchen counter. I mention this not because I think you should begin feeding something, but because it speaks to the broader pattern: what you are describing is almost certainly a form of domestic attunement, in which a residual or present entity has taken on what I can only describe as a custodial relationship with the space. These arrangements are, in my experience, far more common in tenement flats with load-bearing internal walls than architects would like to admit.

My first piece of advice is practical, and I mean it genuinely: do not attempt to disrupt the behaviour, but do begin a log. Note what is folded, how it is folded, and whether there is any pattern to what gets attention and what does not. Margot, if your fitted sheets are receiving care but your pillowcases are not, that tells us something. If everything is being addressed equally, that tells us something different. You are not gathering evidence against anyone — you are simply learning who you are sharing space with, the way you would with any new neighbour. Six weeks is not very long.

My second piece of advice will sound strange, but I give it with complete confidence: go and stand at the airer before bed, just once, and say out loud — not loudly, just conversationally — that you have noticed, and that you are grateful. Do not ask questions. Do not invite elaboration. Simply acknowledge. In my experience of these custodial arrangements, the entity in question is not seeking conversation; it is seeking recognition. There is a difference, and getting it right matters.

I should mention that I put this situation to Greg, who edits this column, and he suggested perhaps you had a sleepwalking condition. Greg’s casserole has been on his desk for thirteen days and he has not acknowledged it once, so I will leave you to weigh his observational credibility accordingly.

The feeling of being observed, in this context, is not worse. It is accurate. The question is simply whether the observation is indifferent, curious, or fond — and from what you describe, Margot, I suspect it may be the latter. That is worth something.