A young Australian woman is scared to sleep in her own home after discovering that an intruder had been living in her attic.
Monica Green, a mother-of-three from Rockhampton, Queensland, had noticed weird things around her house for a while, but she never really worried, dismissing them as coincidences or figments of her imagination. But on Monday, after coming home with her kids from a doctor’s appointment, Monica couldn’t ignore the obvious anymore. The backdoor was wide-open, the air-conditioning and the TV were on, and there was a half-eaten plate of chicken nuggets in the kitchen. She immediately called the police, and later learned that whoever had broken into her home, had probably been living there a while.
Photo: Денис Токарь/Unsplash
While checking the house for clues, officers noticed that the manhole cover leading into the attic was partially open, and upon checking the attic, they found evidence that someone had been living there. For how long, and how they managed to remain undetected no one can say, but an investigation in this case is underway.
“I felt violated. I felt like my personal space had been invaded. I felt shocked, terrified, scared,’ Monica Green told the Courier Mail. “I’m finding myself constantly shaking at the smallest noise. I’m triple-checking all my locks now before I go to bed. I spent the night in the house last night with family here, but being alone in the home scares me.”
Thinking back on everything she had noticed around the house lately, Ms. Green says that there were plenty of signs that something was not right. On one occasion food had gone missing, and another time her security camera system had been disabled, but she didn’t pay much attention when these things happened.
Photo: pasja 1000/Pixabay
Green and her family believe that the intruder must have gained access to the house by stealing her keys, and they have now changed all the locks. Still, the young woman is frightened that the person might return, and not knowing his intentions, she doesn’t know what to expect.
“Why was he in the roof? What was his intentions? Was he here to harm us? Was he here to steal one of my kids? I’m meant to be the one that protects them and I feel like I’ve failed,” the mother-of-three said.
As creepy and bizarre this story may sound, it is definitely not unique. The act of secretly living in other people’s home is so common it even has its own name – phrogging -which aims to describe the culprits’ tendency to jump from one home to another.
Back in 2018, we wrote about a “ninja squatter” who lived in a woman’s house for six months without her noticing. A year later, we featured the story of a woman who discovered her ex-boyfriend living in her attic. So yeah, this sort of thing is apparently not that uncommon.
