Unfriendly Competition - and the law

[sahyan51]

I'm doing the Unfriendly Competition quest, and I keep running into a problem. I've waited for Agramir to leave his house, then...invited myself in, as it were. Had no problem getting into the basement. Found the shovel and shoes; found the book. Everything OK thus far, but *then*....Every time, a guard shows up, sometimes while I'm still in the basement, sometimes as I leave the house. So how am I supposed to get the book back to Thoromir? Am I making some obvious mistake? (Wouldn't surprise me.) Has anybody else run into this problem - and if so, how have you fixed or avoided it?

[arottweiler]

It's been a while since playing it but it sounds like you have a bounty before you enter the house or you incur a bounty when entering. Before you enter look at your bounty to see if it's zero and then check again when you've entered to make sure it's still zero. Always enter owned houses in sneak mode with the sneak icon onscreen faded out because when it's faded that means no-one can see you so you should be safe to break in somewhere without a guard seeing (or an NPC seeing and blabbing to a guard)

Used to scare the c*** out of me when I was trespassing thinking I hadn't been seen and then a guard would collar me.