History Main / RansackedRoom

* In ''The Autobiography of UsefulNotes/MalcolmX'', Malcolm mentions a time during his 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.

* ''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]].

* The rushed way involves tipping over all furniture, cutting open mattresses, smashing windows, and dumping everything on the floor. Seriously, if the whatever is something small; the ''mess'' would be harder to find it in than anything else. Mooks that resort to the obviously ransacked technique may want him to know it's happened, may be TooDumbToLive, or may resort to it because it's quicker.

* In ''The Creeping Shadow'' from ''Literature/LockwoodAndCo'', 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.

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'' story "Bless This Mess" (DC issue #27) has the girls confined to their room until they clean it up. Everytime they do, it mysteriously becomes messy again. It's the work of their foe Him, but not for any MacGuffin. He's simply yanking the girls' collective chain without them knowing it.

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'' story "Bless This Mess" (DC issue #27) has the girls confined to their room until they clean it up. Everytime they do, it mysteriously becomes messy again. It's the work of their foe Him, but not for any MacGuffin. He's simply yanking the girls' collective chain without them knowing it.

** Played straight in the subsequent film ''Film/MacGyverTrailToDoomsday]]'' when [=MacGyver=] and Natalia find the door to her apartment busted open, and the whole place ransacked.

* The same thing happens in the prequel, ''VideoGame/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade'', where the villains ransack Jones' father's home in search for the Grail diary. Fortunately it was mailed to Indy beforehand.

* In ''VideoGame/TheMysteryOfTheDruids'', Halligan hides a magic amulet in a vent in his cabin when on a sea voyage. Obviously the instant he does this he returns to find his place ransacked by the villains looking for it.

* ''Series/Motive'': Detective Lucas describes this once as 'ruffling' the objects of the house, to which Angie makes fun of him for.

* ''Series/{{House}}'': House comes home to his apartment trashed and fears a burglar, only for his nemesis Detective Tritter to appear with a search warrant and a massive number of confiscated painkillers. He says he almost didn't bother coming but figured House would be too vain to bother getting rid of them when he came under scrutiny of trafficking.

* In ''VideoGame/TeenageMutantninjaTurtles (NES)'', the Foot Clan do this to the Turtles' apartment when they kidnap Splinter.

* In ''Film/{{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/TheNameOfTheRose''. The herbalist discovers the book that's the [[MacGuffin motive for the various murders]] in a medieval monastery. He goes to tell William of Baskerville, who tells him to lock himself in his room and let no-one in until he arrives (Baskerville is held up in a theological conference). On returning to his apothecary, he shocked to find the place ransacked. He bolts the door and quickly goes to check the book is still there. It is -- lying on the floor under a table. The herbalist is relieved, until he sees a hooded figure step out from behind a curtain and walk toward him...

* A variant in ''Literature/ABrothersPrice'': Jerin does this in his own quarters, searching for clues to the identity of his predecessor's adulterous lover. He finds more than he bargained for, [[spoiler:namely, evidence that predecessor Kiefer had not only been cheating on his wives, but had murdered his father-in-law with poison]].

* ''{{Series/House}}'': House comes home to his apartment trashed and fears a burglar, only for his nemesis Detective Tritter to appear with a search warrant and a massive number of confiscated painkillers. He says he almost didn't bother coming but figured House would be too vain to bother getting rid of them when he came under scrutiny of trafficking.

* 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.]]
* Subverted in ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}} FES'': in one of the security videos, Mitsuru calls in the cops because she thinks someone has broken into Junpei's room. Turns out it ''always'' looks like that...
** ''VideoGame/{{Persona 2}}: Eternal Punishment'' subverted it first. When Katsuya saw [[TrashOfTheTitans the state of Maya's room]] he immediately assumed a break-in.
* The rushed way is played out halfway through ''VisualNovel/{{Snatcher}}'', culminating in a very tense scene.
* In ''VideoGame/TeenageMutantninjaTurtles''(NES), the Foot Clan do this to the Turtles' apartment when they kidnap Splinter.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* An inversion occurs in ''Hung Out'' by Creator/MargretWeis. One of the main characters is a telekinetic with [[PowerIncontinence trouble controlling her powers]]. She realizes that her room has been searched because everything is neat and orderly instead of haphazardly strewn everywhere.

* 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.

* 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.]]

* In ''Film/CallMeBwana'', Matt goes to his hotel room in Africa to find it ransacked by Soviet spies.

* ''ComicBook/RobinSeries'': Tim's room is ransacked by his own father after the football coach can't remember Tim trying out for football. Tim sort of implied he tried out and failed to excuse a bruise by saying he'd stayed late at school because of tryouts, although given Tim's interests photography of the event would've been a more reasonable conclusion. He tore the entire room apart, had his wife try to hack Tim's computer, and started taking apart the walls before finding the Robin suit.

* Subverted in an advert for Yellow Pages: a man comes home and sees a neighbour telling him that she saw his front door ajar and, after seeing how messy his front room is, assumed that he's been burgled. We see in a flashback that he's not been burgled and his was responsible for the mess.

* An early episode of Manga/DetectiveConan has a case where a hotel room is ransacked where a famous author was murdered. The police think it was a robbery gone wrong due to the place being ransacked and the victim's money is missing [[spoiler: It was shown at the beginning of the episode that the man who shot him was his best friend/roommate and he ransacked the room earlier while the author was in the bath to stage the scene of a robbery gone wrong.]]

* 'Franchise/SherlockHolmes'':

* 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.