History Main / RansackedRoom

** Subverted in the TV-movie ''[=MacGyver=]: Lost Treasure of Atlantis''. When [=MacGyver=] and co. enter Prof. Atticus's study, they think that this has happened. Then Atticus notes that it has always looked like that.
** Played straight in the subsequent film ''[=MacGyver=]: Trail to Doomsday]]'' when [=MacGyver=] and Natalia find the door to her apartment busted open, and the whole place ransacked.

* The horror-parody ''Film/SaturdayThe14th'' makes a RunningGag out of ''inverting'' this trope. Having moved into a HauntedHouse, family members keep finding that their messes -- dirty dishes, undone laundry, sloppy bedrooms -- have been mysteriously ''cleaned and tidied'', by monstrous forces competing over a missing book. Eventually, when the numerous resident monsters are shown looting the kitchen by night, one of them is dressed in an apron, rubber gloves, and a vintage 50s-housewife headscarf, and keeps unintelligibly scolding the others for the mess they're making.

* The horror-parody ''Saturday The 14th'' makes a RunningGag out of ''inverting'' this trope. Having moved into a HauntedHouse, family members keep finding that their messes -- dirty dishes, undone laundry, sloppy bedrooms -- have been mysteriously ''cleaned and tidied'', by monstrous forces competing over a missing book. Eventually, when the numerous resident monsters are shown looting the kitchen by night, one of them is dressed in an apron, rubber gloves, and a vintage 50s-housewife headscarf, and keeps unintelligibly scolding the others for the mess they're making.

* In ''The Creeping Shadow'', thieves ransack Lucy Carlyle's one-room apartment, leaving a terrible mess. They get what they came for, the skull in the jar, but don't realize its true value as a Type 3 ghost, a ghost that has the ability to actually talk with a sufficiently sensitive psychic. They just want powerful sources to use to create a gateway to the other side.

* On ''Series/TheFlightAttendant'', Miranda Croft ransacks Cassie's apartment and is troubled when she finds among other things multiple passports, convinced that Cassie is much more than just a simple flight attendant.

[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]

* In ''Film/DressedToKill1946'', Holmes and Watson return to their rooms in Baker Street only to discover they have been ransacked by the gang searching for the music box.

* The horror-parody ''Saturday The 14th'' makes a RunningGag out of ''inverting'' this trope. Having moved into a HauntedHouse, family members keep finding that their messes -- dirty dishes, undone laundry, sloppy bedrooms -- have been mysteriously ''cleaned and tidied'', by monstrous forces competing over a missing book. Eventually, when the numerous resident monsters are shown looting the kitchen by night, one of them is dressed in an apron, rubber gloves, and a vintage 50s-housewife headscarf, and keeps unintelligibly scolding the others for the mess they're making.* In ''Film/TheSignOfFourSherlockHolmesGreatestCase'', Thaddeus Sholto arrives home to find the house servant BoundAndGagged, and the library ransacked: books thrown off shelves, furniture broken, chairs slashed, etc. Presumably the rest of the house is in a similar state but the library is he only room shown.
* In ''Film/TheTallBlondManWithOneBlackShoe'', a team of government agents are following a man pegged as a super-agent whistleblower by an interdepartmental rival - they sneak through his apartment while he's out, photographing all his personal effects and planting bugs. [[spoiler:The man, however, is an innocent regular guy randomly picked as a decoy, and his day-to-day activities are feverishly scrutinized by the agents.]]
* In ''Film/XMenFirstClass'', when Hank trashes his own lab after going through a [[PainfulTransformation Painful Transformation]] into Beast.

* A grim subversion in ''[[Literature/NineteenEightyFour 1984]]'' -- Winston Smith puts a white grain of dust in his diary, as well as the more obvious thread. He thinks his diary's safe, but later the Thought Police inform him they replaced the dust too. [[MindScrew They may have been lying.]] ''Maybe''.

-->-- '''[[JustForFun/TheUniversalGenreSavvyGuide The Evil Henchman's Guide]]'''

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* ''Series/MacGyver1985'' TV-movies:
** Subverted in the TV-movie ''[[Series/MacGyver1985 MacGyver: Lost Treasure of Atlantis]]''. When [=MacGyver=] and co. enter Prof. Atticus's study, they think that this has happened. Then Atticus notes that it has always looked like that.
** Played straight in the subsequent film ''[[Series/MacGyver1985 MacGyver: Trail to Doomsday]]'' when [=MacGyver=] and Natalia find the door to her apartment busted open, and the whole place ransacked.

* In ''Film/TheSignOfFourSherlockHolmesGreatestCase'', Thaddeus Sholto arrives home to find the house servant BoundAndGagged, and the library ransacked: books thrown off shelves, furniture broken, chairs slashed, etc. Presumably the rest of the house is in a similar state but the library is he only room shown.

* The horror-parody ''Saturday The 14th'' makes a RunningGag out of ''inverting'' this trope. Having moved into a HauntedHouse, family members keep finding that their messes - dirty dishes, undone laundry, sloppy bedrooms - have been mysteriously ''cleaned and tidied'', by monstrous forces competing over a missing book. Eventually, when the numerous resident monsters are shown looting the kitchen by night, one of them is dressed in an apron, rubber gloves, and a vintage 50s-housewife headscarf, and keeps unintelligibly scolding the others for the mess they're making.

* A grim subversion in ''[[Literature/NineteenEightyFour 1984]]''--Winston Smith puts a white grain of dust in his diary, as well as the more obvious thread. He thinks his diary's safe, but later the Thought Police inform him they replaced the dust too.
** [[MindScrew They may have been lying.]] ''Maybe''.
* Literature/JamesBond's hotel room in ''Literature/CasinoRoyale'' is ransacked by {{Mooks}} looking for a cheque. They don't find it because [[spoiler: he's hidden it behind the room number - on the ''outside'' of the door]].

-->''"Are you afraid of a tiny little dog, Jeeves?"\\

* In Creator/DanAbnett's ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} Literature/GauntsGhosts'' novel ''First & Only'', Zoran comes to Gaunt because he is aware something is happening: he surprised a man searching his room.

* In one of the opening scenes of the Literature/XWingSeries novel ''Starfighters Of Adumar'', Wedge mentions that his room has been subjected to a very thorough example of the subtle type. He isn't sure why until General Cracken, head of New Republic Intelligence, comes to brief him; he then (correctly) surmises that Cracken's agents were searching for listening devices.

* Subverted in ''Series/TheMentalist'', while Jane's room wasn't exactly ransacked and the bad guys ''did'' find what they needed [[spoiler:Jane's information regarding Red John]] and left without a trace. He notices however when a toothpick he purposely left in the door earlier fell out of place.
** He also points out that a completely ransacked room suggests the thief did ''not'' find what they were looking for, since at best that would mean they found it in the last possible place it could be (extremely unlikely), or more likely not at all.

* In ''The Autobiography of UsefulNotes/MalcolmX'', Malcolm mentions a time during is younger(and wilder) days, when he came home to find his apartment ransacked. He immediately grabbed a few clothes and left for a friend's home, because he knew that it was most likely done by the Police, who would have planted drugs in the room, and would likely already be on their way back with a search warrant to "find" it.

[[folder:Film -- Live Action]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* The 1993 Australian spy series ''Series/{{Secrets}}'' showed how this is done in real life, with the GovernmentAgencyOfFiction always taking Polaroids of the room beforehand so everything could be replaced exactly where it was after the search.

* In Creator/DorothyGilman's ''Mrs. Pollifax On Safari'', Literature/MrsPollifax packs her case with great care and always in the same way. Because of this, she can pick up the subtle shifts that proved someone had searched it and repacked it, very neatly. (Note that tradecraft makes Literature/JamesBond and Travis [=McGee=] carefully arrange things to alert them if they've been searched--Emily Pollifax is just a neat elderly lady. But that's the point.)

* The horror-parody ''Saturday The 14th'' makes a RunningGag out of ''inverting'' this trope. Having moved into a HauntedHouse, members keep finding that their messes - dirty dishes, undone laundry, sloppy bedrooms - have been mysteriously ''cleaned and tidied'', by monstrous forces competing over a missing book. Eventually, when the numerous resident monsters are shown looting the kitchen by night, one of them is dressed in an apron, rubber gloves, and a vintage 50s-housewife headscarf, and keeps unintelligibly scolding the others for the mess they're making.

* The horror-parody ''Saturday The 14th'' makes a RunningGag out of ''inverting'' this trope. Having moved into a HauntedHouse, members keep finding that their messes - dirty dishes, undone laundry, sloppy bedrooms - have been mysteriously ''cleaned and tidied'', by monstrous forces competing over a missing book. Eventually, when the numerous resident monsters are shown gathering in the kitchen by night, one of them is dressed in an apron, rubber gloves, and a vintage 50s-housewife headscarf, and keeps unintelligibly scolding the others for the mess they're making.

* The horror-parody ''Saturday The 14th'' makes a RunningGag out of ''inverting'' this trope. Having moved into a HauntedHouse, members keep finding that their messes - dirty dishes, undone laundry, sloppy bedrooms - have been mysteriously ''cleaned and tidied'' by forces unknown. Eventually, when the numerous resident monsters are shown gathering in the kitchen by night, one of them is dressed in an apron, rubber gloves, and a vintage 50s-housewife headscarf, and keeps unintelligibly scolding the others for the mess they're making.

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* ''Series/TheXFiles'' ("One Breath"). Mulder is informed by his mysterious informer Mr X that the men responsible for Scully's kidnapping and subsequent coma will be coming to search his room tonight, giving Mulder an opportunity to kill them in 'self-defense'. Instead Scully's sister turns up and shames Mulder into going to the hospital instead. When he returns Mulder finds his apartment trashed and breaks down in tears, thinking he's missed his chance for revenge. But Scully wakes from her coma the next day, making the need for revenge moot.
* ''Series/OutrageousFortune''. Happens several times through the series.
** Van & Munter stealing the "smoking gun" for Jethro. Rushed, made to look like a normal robbery so it doesn't get back to Jethro.
** Loretta stealing the money lenders cash from Draska. Rushed, had to steal the money before Draska sobered up.
** The Horsemen raiding the West house. They couldn't find the drug money so they stole every object in the house.
* On ''Series/{{Heroes}}'', [[TheProfessor Mohinder]] comes home and surprises a Company agent searching (and bugging) his apartment. The agent claims to be an exterminator, and protests "this man pulled a gun on me" to a neighbor witnessing the ensuing fight. Of course, the gun holster exposed under the agent's jacket makes this lie [[ImplausibleDeniability rather obvious]]. [[spoiler: Though it turns out the neighbor was also a Company agent which suggests that previous bugging was staged.]]

* ''Series/EstateOfPanic'', similar to the above, but with adult contestants ransacking a haunted mansion filled with booby traps and unpleasant animals to find cash.
* The 1993 Australian spy series ''Secrets'' showed how this is done in real life, with the GovernmentAgencyOfFiction always taking polaroids of the room beforehand so everything could be replaced exactly where it was after the search.
* The first episode of ''Series/TwoBrokeGirls'' subverts this when Caroline first sees Max's messy apartment.
-->'''Caroline:'''Oh my God, we've been robbed.\\
'''Max:'''No, this is how it always looks.\\
'''Caroline:'''Oh my God, totally cute.

* Has popped up a few times in all the ''Series/{{CSI}}'' series. One prominent one was when Mac from ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' went to what he thought was his girlfriend's room on the ''Series/{{CSI}}'' half of the two-part, two-show crossover. It was really someone impersonating her after she was kidnapped back in New York, and the room was torn apart by someone working for the guys her boyfriend owed money to.
* In ''Series/{{MASH}}'', Frank departs from the operating room and discovers a note in his jacket pocket from Margaret. He reads it cheerfully then tears it up. This shocks Margaret, who has kept every note Frank sent her. While Margaret is assisting Hawkeye with a problem patient, Frank ransacks Margaret's tent looking for all the notes from him she kept. Notably it ''starts'' as the subtle type, but by the time Margaret gets back to her tent the next morning, the place has been turned upside down and Frank is asleep in the middle of it.

* ''Series/TheMagician'': In "The Magician - Pilot," Blake visits Francine's apartment in search of Mary Rose. He finds the apartment ransacked and Francine beaten up on the floor. Francine's dazed words send him to a houseboat, only to find the bad guys have beaten him to it, with the houseboat ransacked and Mary Rose missing.

* Yeesha's bedroom after you revisit Tomahna in ''VideoGame/MystIVRevelation'', in which [[spoiler: Achenar had been searching for her Linking Book to Serenia, which you faintly see him use just as you get back to Tomahna.]]

* Happens to Chiaki at the very beginning of ''Anime/DarkerThanBlack''. [[spoiler:They weren't actually trying to find anything, though; it was just to send a message.]]

* ComicBook/{{Tintin}}'s flat is ransacked in ''The Secret Of The Unicorn'' after his MacGuffin is stolen. He doesn't discover the PlotCoupon which was formerly hidden inside it until afterwards -- it had rolled under a chest, where the vandals failed to find it.

* In ''ComicBook/LoriLovecraft: Into the Past'', Allen arrives at Lori's apartment to find two {{mooks}} from the Cabal ransacking the place in search of the ''Necronomicon''. They are about to start roughing Allen up when they are scared off by an approaching police car.

* In ''Gotcha!'', both the CIA and the KGB ransack Jonathan Moore's apartment. They don't find the film spool he smuggled out of East Berlin because he kept it in one of his pockets the entire time.
* Film/JamesBond in ''Film/TheLivingDaylights'' walks in on Kara Milovy trying to tidy her room, which was thoroughly ransacked by the KGB.

* ''Film/OutrageousFortune'' plays this straight, then spoofs it. First, the two women go to Shelley Long's apartment ''while it's being ransacked''. After a daring escape, they head to Bette Midler's apartment to find it a complete mess as well. Long panics and tries to run, but Midler grabs her and says "No, this is normal."
* In ''Film/TheTallBlondManWithOneBlackShoe'', a team of government agents are following a man pegged as a super-agent whistleblower by an interdepartmental rival - they sneak through his apartment while he's out, photographing all his personal effects and planting bugs. [[spoiler:The man, however, is an innocent regular guy randomly picked as a decoy, and his day-to-day activities are feverishly scrutinized by the agents.]]
* In ''Film/TheGame'', Nicholas returns to his house to find it's been ransacked. Luckily, the pistol he hid in a hollowed-out book is still there, but [[spoiler: it was a trick set up to make him think they didn't find the gun. They did find the gun and replaced the bullets with blanks.]]
* Part of the HumiliationConga in ''Film/TheBigLebowski''. The Dude gets brought against his will to a house party at a pornographer's house, given a spiked drink, blacks out spectacularly, wakes up in a cop car, gets beaten up by the police chief of Malibu, kicked out a cab on the way home, and when he finally gets home, finds that the place has been ransacked by the evil Nihilists.

* In ''Film/XMenFirstClass'', when Hank trashes his own lab after going through a [[PainfulTransformation Painful Transformation]] into Beast.
* Alluded to in ''Film/{{Casablanca}}''. Rick tells Captain Renault his men were so thorough in searching for the letters of transit that the staff just barely got the mess cleaned up in time to open that night.

* The "trash the place" technique was used on Joan's apartment at the beginning of ''Film/RomancingTheStone''. The shock of the event on Joan was magnified because she didn't even know that she had the [[MacGuffin map]] yet, let alone that there were people who were looking for it.
* In ''Film/DressedToKill1946'', Holmes and Watson return to their rooms in Baker Street only to discover they have been ransacked by the gang searching for the music box.

* In ''Film/MysteryRoad'', Jay arrives at Mary's house to find the door kicked in and the house ransacked, with no indication of what the searchers where looking time. later he visits Julie's now empty house to find the same situation. However, this time Jay knows what they were after and is able to locate its hiding spot.
* In ''Film/DumbAndDumber'', ThoseTwoBadGuys consider trashing Harry and Lloyd's place to send them a message, but decide that (based on what the place already looks like) such a message would get lost. They settle for killing Petey the parakeet instead.
* In ''Film/HenryAndVerlin'', retired prostitute Mabel finds her home ransacked by people who suspect her of abusing Verlin.
* ''Film/PrairieFever'': After Olivia discovers that Monte has been in the hotel, she races back to her room and discovers the room has been ransacked and the [[BriefcaseFullOfMoney carpetbag full of money]] is gone.

* In Creator/DorothyGilman's ''Mrs. Pollifax On Safari'', Literature/MrsPollifax packs her case with great care and always in the same way. Because of this, she can pick up the subtle shifts that proved someone had searched it and repacked it, very neatly. (Note that tradecraft makes Literature/JamesBond and Travis [=McGee=] carefully arrange things to alert them if they've been searched--Emily Pollifax is just a neat elderly lady. But that's the point.)
* In Creator/DanAbnett's ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} Literature/GauntsGhosts'' novel ''First & Only'', Zoran comes to Gaunt because he is aware something is happening: he surprised a man searching his room.
** In ''Ghostmaker'', Gaunt is startled awake and catches Inquisitor Lilith in his room. She assures him that she would not have done it if she had known he was there.
* Emil Karpo (a Russian cop) in Stuart A. Kaminsky's Russian mysteries did that once--as well as the usual thread, he put a single hair of his across a doorway or something, which let him know the KGB had searched his room.

* ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'': Harry's dorm room is ransacked in the rushed manner. Only after putting everything back Harry realizes what's missing: Riddle's Diary. This is a particularly tense moment, since it seems related to the whole Heir of Slytherin debacle, but ''only a Gryffindor could have done it'. [[spoiler: It was Ginny Weasley, who saw Harry had the diary and was terrified he'd find out all of her secrets]].
* Creator/JRRTolkien's ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' has an inn room ransacked by the Nazgûl, and by ransacked, I mean beds that were stabbed multiple times with {{BFS}}es. The hobbits, expecting trouble, had slept elsewhere and left bolsters in their beds.
* ''Literature/TheShadowOverInnsmouth'' has the character managing to escape a room ransack. Of course, rather than his mattress, they were planning on cutting open ''him''...
* Played with in ''[[Literature/HardBoiledWonderlandAndTheEndOfTheWorld Hard-boiled Wonderland]]''. Two men deliberately break into the [[TheAllConcealingI main character's]] apartment when he's there to both intimidate him and search/ransack the room.

* In one ''Nick Carter Killmaster'' novel, the title character actually breaks the fourth wall concerning a search, telling people how James Bond ruined the "hair on the doorjam" technique, that he now used a new one, and that we were crazy if we thought he was going to reveal it in a lousy 95 cent paperback.
* The rushed version shows up between scenes with Han's room in ''Literature/TheCourtshipOfPrincessLeia'', although it hardly matters that it's obvious [[spoiler: since he skipped town with Leia already]].
* Subverted in Rob Grant's ''Literature/{{Incompetence}}''. Harry intentionally keeps his apartment messy, but takes photographs before he leaves, reasoning that any fool can ransack a tidy room and replace it as it was, but it takes a professional to ransack a messy room without being noticed.

* In Creator/AndreNorton's ''Literature/TheZeroStone'', Jern returned to find his father murdered in a room like this.
* In Creator/StephanieBurgis's ''[[Literature/KatIncorrigible A Most Improper Magick]]'', burglars break into their home while their stepmother and the girls are away, and leave it ransacked, but take nothing.. Kat deduces they were after their mother's SpellBook.
* In one of the opening scenes of the Literature/XWingSeries novel ''Starfighters Of Adumar'', Wedge mentions that his room has been subjected to a very thorough example of the subtle type. He isn't sure why until General Cracken, head of New Republic Intelligence, comes to brief him; he then (correctly) surmises that Cracken's agents were searching for listening devices.
* Literature/{{Parker}} does this to Brock's apartment in ''The Sour Lemon Score''; emptying every drawer, cutting open every pillow and cushion, and breaking open every stick of furniture where something could be concealed. Brock is shocked that someone could be destructive, and regards the apartment as having been raped.

* ''Film/PrairieFever'': After Olivia discovers that Monte has been in the hotel, she races back to her room and discovers the room has been ransacked and the [[BriefcasFullOfMoney carpetbag full of money]] is gone.

* Has popped up a few times in all the ''Series/{{CSI}}'' series. One prominent one was when Mac from ''Series/{{CSI NY}}'' went to what he thought was his girlfriend's room on the ''Series/{{CSI}}'' half of the two-part, two-show crossover. It was really someone impersonating her after she was kidnapped back in New York, and the room was torn apart by someone working for the guys her boyfriend owed money to.

* ''Series/MurderSheWrote'': In "Bite the Big Apple", Jessica returns to her new apartment to find that it has been thoroughly ransacked.
* ''Series/TheMagician'': In "The Magician - Pilot", Blake visits Francine's apartment in search of Mary Rose. He finds the apartment ransacked and Francine beaten up on the floor. Francine's dazed words send him to a houseboat, only to find the bad guys have beaten him to it, with the houseboat ransacked and Mary Rose missing.

* In ''ComicBook/LoriLovecraft: Into the Past'', Allen arrives at Lori's apartment to find two {{mooks}}s from the Cabal ransacking the place in search of the ''Necronomicon''. They are about to start roughing Allen up when they are scared off by an approaching police car.

* In ''Film/XMenFirstClass'', after Beast transforms into his blue furry form.