Night Crawlers

Someone, or more usually something, living secretly in your house is one of those horror movie tropes ...

Monsters Coming Out Of The Attic Are A Horror Staple

... that usually leads to semi naked females being chased about, in rooms where the lights are always broken.

But if you assumed that its just a movie scenario you'd be very wrong. People discovered living in the roof space in businesses, factories and houses is far more common than you might think.

For instance police in Fernley, Nevada arrested Matthew Hamley, a 35 year old burglar in October 2020, after he was discovered in the crawlspace of a grocery store. He had fallen into the area at least two days earlier, after removing roof tiles, and had been stealing food and drink (and we assume using staff amenities), at night, then returning to his crawlspace habitation during the day. Of course staff had started to notice items going missing and that's when the police were called. But this is not necessarily a rare event.

In Japan in 2008, a man found a strange woman sleeping in an unused cupboard in his home in Fukuoka, southern Japan, after setting up a secret camera when food kept mysterious disappearing from his kitchen. Similarly in 2012, a woman in the US state of South Carolina discovered her ex-boyfriend living in her attic more than 12 years after they broke up ... Really? 12 years!

Robert Havrilla Needed More Attic Space?

In July 2017, surveillance footage from Jerome Kennedy’s home in North Taylor Avenue on the North Side of Pittsburgh, revealed that someone had been crawling through his attic at night … his neighbour Robert Havrilla had apparently removed a false wall that he engineered, climbing onto the ceiling, above the baby’s crib, and he laid on some planks that he placed there to support his weight. Mr Kennedy said he had heard someone above his bedroom on multiple occasions, and even saw flash-lights coming down through his heating vents. Mr Havrilla was arrested and appeared in court, and where he got the charge of 'luring' dropped, but he still faced other charges including burglary. 

In February 2019, a North Carolina college student, who thought that a ghost was haunting her digs after objects started disappearing, and hand prints appeared on the walls. However when she came home early one day, she discovered a homeless man in the apartment, and wearing her clothes.

Matthew Casto Is A Boy, Possibly With Issues ..

Finally, in every parents worst nightmare, in 2019 in Mount Juliet in the US state of Tennessee, an 18 year old man was found to be living in an attic above the bedroom of a 14-year-old girl, allegedly only coming down at night to visit the teen girl after she locked her bedroom door.  The teens mother raised the alarm after she arrived home to find a “creepy” man standing at the top of the staircase and screamed at him to leave her house. He refused, and allegedly immediately bolted to the daughter’s bedroom, and up into the attic via a hatch inside the girl’s wardrobe, refusing to come out. 

Police investigators say Matthew Casto had actually been living in the attic “for some time”, and that even after they arrived, “Mr Casto refused to exit the attic space despite police commands, so they entered the confined space and removed him by force”. He was charged with one count of aggravated criminal trespass, and warned to have no further contact with the child.

We have blogged before on similar home invasions, but its still a creepy thought that someone could be creeping about in your home or business at night, while you lie innocently asleep and unaware.