She thought someone was delivering a package. Instead, bomb squad arrives and immediately gives her an evacuation order: ‘check this grenade’

A London-based TikToker just had a surreal experience. When she went to answer the door, she expected a package delivery. However, what she got was a potential bomb threat. DSG (divasweetiegirl) took to the platform the next day to share how her routine day turned into a tense evacuation after her neighbors were cleaning out the basement. The video has over 22,000 views.

As DSG told TikTok in her video, “I genuinely feel like some people won’t believe me when I tell you this story, but yesterday a policeman knocked on my door.” She said she had just thrown on some clothes, expecting a courier. When she opened the door, the towering man allegedly told her, “Sorry, this is a bit of a weird one, but your neighbors might have found a grenade in their basement, and it would be good if you could evacuate.”

When he asked her, “Do you have a lot of people in the house?” DSG rushed off to get her family and dog out of the house, yelling, “Evacuate, evacuate!” She described the scene outside, saying, “It’s true that there is a police car outside, a cordon, like a police tape thing. We waited outside for around an hour because the bomb squad has to arrive to check this grenade and take it away.” Then, instead of waiting there indefinitely, DSG and her siblings went into the city to get food and only learned the scale of the danger when they got back.

A danger from the World Wars

According to DSG, the grenade could have been very dangerous. She alleged, “we found out afterwards that the bomb squad was not able to identify whether it had gone off previously or not. So it genuinely could have been a live grenade that they randomly found when they were clearing out their basement. So, yeah, that’s my fun story for today.”

DSG’s viewers were shaken by her story, but some even shared similar experiences. One user commented, “This happened to me at uni and they evacuated the whole school and town and they had to explode it on site.” Another user shared, “My area got heavily bombed during the world war, so they always find bombs every couple years and block off the streets.” Last year, London police also used controlled explosions to deal with a bomb threat.

Others explained how they would have likely reacted. One TikToker admitted, “My first instinct is not to trust anyone so I was like what if this is some sort of scam or something.” 

Despite these musings, DSG’s story is a reflection of a very real danger that exists in London, the UK, and even around Europe. According to 1st Line Defense, the primary threat comes from German air-delivered bombs dropped during World War II that failed to detonate as intended. 

The noted that an estimated 10% of munitions deployed across the UK did not function correctly. Even after decades of disposal operations, many bombs remain buried, waiting to be discovered during groundworks or home renovations.

According to the risk mitigation company, between August 1940 and June 1941 alone, nearly 15,000 high-explosive bombs were dropped on London, a figure higher than all other UK cities combined. The River Thames served as a primary navigation point for bombers, leading to intense targeting of the city center and surrounding districts. The night of May 10, 1941, stands out as the most devastating, with 711 tons of high-explosive bombs dropped on the capital.

In 2025, ABC News reported that over 160 unexploded practice bombs from World War II were discovered under a children’s playground in Wooler, England. It had begun as a single discovery during an expansion project. How then, a much larger cache was found, forcing officials to pause construction until the site could be fully cleared.

Beyond construction sites, this year, climate change is becoming the biggest threat with regard to unexploded ordnance. Per The Journal, the drought and resultant wildfires and droughts across Europe are unearthing old munitions in the worst way. Some fires have also been cruel acts of arson that used cats. 

The outlet noted that intense heat can trigger explosions in rusted weapons, while receding water levels in rivers have revealed everything from naval mines to sunken German warships. Sarah Njeri, a peace and conflict scholar at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, explained, “Climate change is now doing the work of unburying and reactivating what was previously stable.”

For residents in historic cities, it is clear that the past and the ravages of war is never truly buried. As DSG’s experience and other surprise finds indicate, this goes well beyond a “fun story.” Unexploded ordnance remains a persistent and dangerous reality.