weholditdown Thread

The scariest thing that has ever happened to me happened on a Friday morning. My boyfriend had left for work and I was making breakfast and getting ready to leave myself. He left the door unlocked, but as we live in an apartment complex where you need to either know the code for the main door or buzz the flat you want from outside, this wasn't as irresponsible as it might sound - besides, I was still in the house and would be leaving soon.

I was just checking all of my essentials were in my bag, when I realised my phone wasn't in there, nor was it in the living room/kitchen. I realised it must be in the spare room, where I'd previously got dressed (the only full length mirror is in that room), so I went in there.

I quickly realised something was amiss when I saw that some clean clothes I'd folded and placed on the bed that morning were now strewn across the floor. It also seemed like there was a lump under the duvet. Heart pounding, I tentatively lifted up the duvet and found a man who I had never seen before lying under it. His eyes were open.

Without thinking, I said 'Excuse me?' in a loud, but shaking voice. The guy stood up then. He was massive and being a 5'3, 125lb girl alone in the house with this complete stranger, I became even more frightened. I genuinely thought this guy was going to attack me. However, again without really thinking about it, I told him I didn't know who he was, but he needed to get the fuck out of my flat right now. He looked confused and seemingly right through me and I assumed he must be on drugs or something. He asked if he could collect his stuff and I replied that there was no stuff to collect, as this was not his home and he needed to get out right now before I called the police.

Thankfully, he did get out and I quickly locked the door and made a series of phone calls. One was to the non-emergency police number telling them that a man I did not know had somehow got into my flat and that while I had got him to leave, I didn't feel safe leaving for work until I knew he wasn't around. They promised to send someone around right away after I gave a description of him. I also called my boyfriend to tell him what had happened, but not to come home, as the situation was/had been taken care of. I also called work to tell them I was going to be late and why, then sat patiently and waited for the police to arrive.

Then someone started knocking on my front door and not just any old knock. They were pounding their fist against it aggressively.

I looked outside my living room window and there was no police car yet. Sure enough, when I peered through the spy hole in my front door, I could see the man from earlier. At this point, I promptly lost my shit. I'd surprised myself with how calm I'd been before, but now I was sat on my living room floor, crying, hyperventilating and telling the police that they needed to try and get here quicker. I also called my boyfriend, who said he was coming straight home.

I sat on the floor for what probably amounted to 5/10 minutes, but felt like hours, listening to the man hammering on my door. I heard a car pull up outside and to my great relief, a policewoman got out. Shortly after, I heard voices outside my door. The woman was asking the man who he was and what he was doing here. She told him she was coming inside to speak to me and that he should under no circumstances follow her in. She came in, asked me for my side of the story and then told me she was going to get the man away and then come back and talk to me. Back outside, I heard her berating him for terrifying a woman 'half your size and nearly half your age'. She took him in her car and drove off.

A while later, she came back and told me what had happened. The man had been contracted to do some work in my city. On the last day, he had gone on a huge bender with some colleagues and got so wasted that he walked into my flat, mistaking it for his hotel room, hence why he asked for his 'stuff'. I had music playing that morning and - as mentioned above - was making breakfast, so he must have walked in unheard while my back was turned. After I ordered him to leave, he continued hammering on the door because he was still convinced this was his hotel room and that he needed his stuff (no idea who the hell he thought I was in that case). How he got in was explained by the policewoman, who said that she'd been able to get in and out easily without punching in a code or my flat number. The lock on the main door must have been broken.

So while this turned out to be a relatively harmless guy, it still holds up as the scariest thing to happen to me in a while.