The owners obviously renovated before putting the house on the market – the house smells of paint – but they’ve made the same mistake most people do when they remodel a kitchen: they’ve upgraded the cabinets and appliances, but kept the same inefficient, dated layout.

It’s nicely done, with granite countertops and interesting stainless-steel backsplashes, but the way people live has changed a lot in the last few decades: a kitchen isn’t just where you cook any more, but where you live. They should’ve taken down that wall to the dining room – who actually uses a dining room these days? – and created one large, open-plan space. It would’ve given them a lot of natural light, too, from the west-facing front of the house, and they could’ve put in some French doors at the back to get that indoor/outdoor feel.

I check out the cupboards. Emma Bridgewater crockery, yawn. Expensive Le Creuset saucepans but cheap knives, which tells me everything I need to know about the people who own this house.

Upstairs is equally disappointing. A cramped fifth bedroom that should’ve been used to expand the master bathroom, or, better yet, create a decent walk-in wardrobe. Original features no one’s had the courage to either eliminate completely, or assimilate into the new design.

None of the beds are made. The cupboard doors in the master bedroom are flung wide, as if they’ve left in a hurry. Her sweaters are neatly folded in colour-coded stacks, but his side of the wardrobe is a tangled mess, with ties dribbling down the shelves, and balled-up socks on the floor. In my experience, incompatibility in a wardrobe is a more reliable indicator of divorce than infidelity.

I open the cabinet in their ensuite bathroom, scrutinising the prescription labels.

She’s had two bouts of cystitis recently. He’s got bad haemorrhoids. She’s missed a couple of her contraceptive pills this month. I wonder if her husband knows that.

Bored suddenly, I go back downstairs and scan the knick-knacks on the bookshelves in the sitting room, looking for a souvenir before I leave.

I never take anything valuable, or clearly sentimental. A fridge magnet. A bulldog clip. Nothing that will be missed.

There was a time I broke into houses on a weekly basis. Whenever life got too complicated, I’d slip away and disappear into the silence of a house that wasn’t mine. I’d spend hours in other people’s homes, perusing their wardrobes, reading their books. I find it profoundly soothing to exist in a world where I’m not supposed to be, for reasons I’ve never been able to explain.

It’s been months since I allowed my darker self to call the shots, but I’m tense and exhausted. Some people drink or take drugs to relax. This is my addiction.