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A couple who found an unexploded World War II bomb in their basement did not alert police until the next day because they “didn’t want to wake the neighbours”.

Stephen Sin, 44, found the incendiary device at his home in Crystal Palace on Wednesday but did not want to cause a scene late at night.

Mr Sin, along with his wife Janice Hardy, moved the unexploded bomb into the garden and carried on with their day before alerting the police on Thursday afternoon.

The 44-year-old told the Croydon Guardian he was initially reluctant to call the police straight away because they did not want everything to “stand still”.

Ms Hardy said she previously read a story about someone finding an unexploded bomb but added it caused chaos in the neighbourhood.

She told the newspaper: “It [the story] said it took several hours to blow it up, they had to put a 200 metre cordon around the house, close the road so we decided we were just going to sleep on it.

“To us it didn’t seem like it was going to blow up any moment now because it hadn’t blown up the whole time we have been here.

“We thought rather than wake up all our neighbours and get them all standing on the street in the dark we decided we would leave it to the morning and work out who to ring and what we are going to do.

“But it turned out all alright in the end.”

It is thought the bomb, which is believed to have been made in 1936, had been in the couple’s basement for the entire 15 years they had lived in their home.

Mr Sin told the Croydon Guardian he was calm when he found the device and added it was “not your typical day”.

A Metropolitan Police Service spokesman confirmed officers were called to reports of a World War II incendiary device in Patterson Road at 1.20pm.

The spokesman added it took two hours to remove the device from a garden at the address and it was not thought to have posed a threat.