Reply #16: Sounds like you've got an entity

[MorningGlow]

And your niece might be "helping" them move physical objects just by being there--the entity can pull energy from her to help him/her move things more easily--the entity could do it alone (before your niece moved in) but utilizing her energy makes it easier to accomplish.

Personal experiences:

When I was little, we moved into a house where a little boy died just before we moved in (terrible story of abuse). Anyway, I had his bedroom, and he would constantly take my toys. Somehow, at 9 years old, I knew enough to say to the air, quite clearly, "Okay, give it back." And then I'd go out into the hallway for a few minutes. When I went back into my bedroom, the thing I was looking for was invariably in the middle of my bed or on the floor next to it (where I had just looked).

In our present house we have the ghost of a former housekeeper. She keeps letting the cats out onto the sleeping porch off the back bedroom (that door has a deadbolt but apparently it doesn't matter). And I've had a rash of broken wineglasses. No other glassware breaks--just the wineglasses--and they all break in very improbable ways. The weirdest one was when Mr. MG got one out of the cupboard and put it on the kitchen island--it was made of really thick handblown glass, but when he put it down on the island, not knocking against it in any way, it "exploded", he said. VERY strange stuff.

So in the past year or so we've broken about half of our wineglasses. (Luckily we had too many to begin with.) The other day I nearly 86-ed another one by bumping it as it sat on the counter waiting to be washed, but I caught it. It nearly happened again about an hour or two later, the same way, and I had an epiphany. Seems Beatrice (that's her name) has a problem with the "demon drink". She lived here during Prohibition and I believe she was a big proponent of temperance. So now she tries to deter me and Mr. MG from drinking alcohol. As soon as I realized that and asked her to stop breaking our glasses (by causing all those improbable accidents), she backed off, and we haven't had any more broken wineglasses.

My point is that you can talk to the entity who's "stealing" your cutlery--or perhaps is trying to "help" and not realizing that s/he is hindering instead--and simply ask them to stop. Unless you've got a pooka/poultergeist who's trying to push your buttons, the entity will stop. Give it a try--you've got nothing to lose except more forks! :D