Ok y'all, I need your help and your brains.

That being said, we're never going to come up with an answer or solution but I'm going to ask anyway!

Alright... so I mentioned at some point over the last couple of years that I bought some handkerchiefs.  I tie-died half of them to use to open doors and touch things (pandemic style) and the rest of them I kept in my pocket for patting drippy noses (thanks adult allergies!)

So while I haven't been using the "open door" ones, I do have one in my "wear around the house" hoodie and I wash it/swap it out from time to time.

When I do laundry, I tend to bring it up to my room after and sit on my bed watching some show to Fold and put things away.  (Laundry, by the way seems to be like a two or three hour ordeal time wise so that's no fun! But I digress a little... ahem.)

Ok ok ok... so the last time I went to grab a (folded) handkercheif out of my closet where I store them, the one I pulled out (on top of the pile) looked like this:

(Ignore the bottom right corner, I'll come back to that)

Ok, so uploading it has warped it a little, but this thing is a square.  If that matters.

So I pull this out of the closet, and go to put it in my hoodie pocket and I see... I see...??? chunks and parts missing.  What the actual fuck??

I immediately got a "this is not good" vibe and started checking the other things in that cupboard for signs of bugs or mice or rats or something.  But while I was doing that, it didn't seem right... the thing would have had to like crawl into the middle of a fold and chew... under the fold?  Because I store them folded up, right?  And the missing parts were in the middle of the fold, I'm pretty sure.

So, yeah, I looked around the cupboard, horrified that there might be mice in my space but... I didn't see any other signs (I later sent a photo of it to a pest control company who said they couldn't tell from the photo but if it was a rodent I'd see other evidence like droppings...)

Next thought... I haven't talked about it but we had someone living here until a month ago who had/was having/is having? a fairly significant mental illness crisis.  Police have been called, ambulances have come, strange and threatening notes were left about things that didn't make sense.  Doors were written on in sharpie. Stickies were left around.... it was... not comfortable.  So the next thought was "did neighbour open up my drier and slice/cut pieces of the handkerchief and I somehow didn't notice when I took it out to fold and put away? 

To see if this might be the case, I cut the bottom right corner with scissors to find out how easy it was to cut (hard to get through those side seams) and how it looked carefully cut (straight edges).

I started texting people to see what they thought/guessed.  Most figured mice.  Jason figured it was the Machine and that the thing had been caught on part of the machine and ripped.  Hmmm....I'd already tried to rip the thing, but like I said, those side seams were pretty tough.

I went down to the machines and ran my hands over things - no sharp edges, but sure, anything is possible I suppose, but wouldn't I have seen the left over "ripped out" parts?  Hmmm... because it's not like I was dealing with this moments after doing laundry, this might have been a couple of months ago, or weeks at least, so I suppose it's possible someone else found them and threw them out?  So I left a note... asking if anyone else had had laundry machine issues.  No responses.

Ok, next thought... I... had a nightmare and woke up and got scissors and cut the thing, threw away the cut bits, folded it up and put it away?  Not... likely, but also a possibility I suppose.

If it wasn't something done AFTER I put it away, one of my huge questions is how did I not notice this when I took it out of my basket to fold it and put it away?  Even if I was watching a show and not fully paying attention, surely I'd notice the lack of material?  NO????

So, really, there is no good solution here... Possibly something happened in the machine (dryer) and I didn't notice when folding it (that's disturbing.). Possibly something happened to it after I folded it and put it away (that's disturbing.) Possibly machines ripped it and that puts all of my clothes at risk and that's disturbing.  Possibly I cut it and don't remember and that's disturbing.

So... I have no "good" answer to what happened and I feel like "an unwell neighbour who has since moved out cut it" is the "best" answer cuz rodent/pest is an awful thought and me being weird and forgetful is an awful thought.  I don't know what to think here and like I said there will never be an actual answer, but to you all who are outside my mind... any thoughts on what on earth YOU think happened???

Help!