A Redditor on Reddit’s “Let’s Not Meet” forum shared her experience working home alone when she heard the front door open and close, thinking it was her boyfriend in their house. It wasn’t until she peeped through her bedroom door, which was barely a few inches open, that her worst fear kicked in.
The Original Poster’s (OP) boyfriend was a teacher in town, and since it was a Tuesday, she knew his last class finished at around 1 p.m. OP estimated he would be home by 2:30 p.m. and couldn’t be more thrilled to make up for the fight they recently had.
OP claimed she couldn’t recall the reason for their scuffle, but it was still one of those arguments that kept them from talking, calling, and texting each other. She was in bed working when she heard the front door slam shut.
The woman thought it was weird because she knew her partner would be coming a bit late. However, she concluded that he must have skipped his last class, something he occasionally did. OP didn’t bother further and waited for her boyfriend to come into the room and change his clothes.
Her earphones were half plugged in as she lay on the bed doing her work. The bedroom door was shut, but she could hear heavy footsteps outside. She thought it was strange for her boyfriend to walk around their apartment like that.
The tiptap of the clumsy footsteps sounded suspicious. Since OP was still sunken in their mid-fight drama, she overlooked its eeriness and lay there waiting for her partner to show up. Moments later, she noticed their bedroom door creak open. OP was thrilled as she turned around to smile at her guy sarcastically. She saw that the door wasn’t open more than a few inches. She peeked through from the bed and freaked out, seeing a woman’s hand with red painted nails clutching the doorknob.
She froze on the spot while whoever was outside her bedroom closed the door without entering. OP was terrified and shook her head for a few seconds with all sorts of dubious questions. “Could that have been his mom?” she thought. “His sister? The landlady?” For some apparent reason, OP concluded it could be her guy’s mom or sister.
She raced out of the bedroom door and gaped at the empty living room that smelled heavily of ladies’ perfume. That’s when she snapped to her senses and realized her boyfriend’s mom and sister never had their house keys or hadn’t visited before. She was also sure their landlady would never barge into their house without permission. Fear kicked in as she stormed to her bedroom and shut the door. She called her guy from the balcony and asked if his mom or sister had come around unannounced, but he said no. He warned her to stay where she was; then he immediately called the cops.
A few minutes later, OP heard the doorbell go off. She knew it would be the cops and sprinted from the rainy balcony to the main door and let them in. They scouted around the house but found no one. OP felt awkward.
She checked if anything was missing, but everything was intact, including the jar of money by the entrance. OP thought the intruder might have fled after seeing her in the bedroom.
Moreover, she was sure nobody could’ve opened the front door without a key and, for the most part, assumed it would’ve been the landlady. Since their landlady was out of town and never answered her phone, OP and her boyfriend suspected her.
When the woman returned, OP demanded that the locks on the front door be changed. Just as the landlady came around to do it, she alerted OP and her guy of weird scratch marks on the keyhole. She told them someone had used sharp tools to break into their apartment. OP barely came out of the fright when her boyfriend told her a couple of days later: “I have something to tell you…but don’t freak out.”
OP froze in horror when he revealed their orange kitchen scissors were missing. She butchered their house in search of the scissors, but even six months later, she couldn’t find them. OP was unsettled by the whole ordeal of someone breaking into their house only for a pair of scissors and not any visible valuables.
After reading her story, several people found her plight frightful, particularly when she described the hand with red-painted nails. “I don’t know why, but the hand with the red nails bit really creeps me out too,” a Redditor stated. “The whole seeing the red nails on the doorknob line was really creepy,” another echoed.
“It’s strange, but whenever I sit in the living room watching TV, I leave the door slightly open for the dog to come in and out,” another user wrote, adding:
“[…] And sometimes at night, I’m convinced I’m going to see a hand wrap itself around the edge of the door. Dunno why but the thought really creeps me out.”
“If you’re a girl and you’re home alone, use deadbolts…Tell your boyfriend to knock or text you when he gets home so you can open the door,” a fellow Redditor advised. “My advice may be controversial and all, but buy some landmines,” another wrote.
Still freaked out recalling the nightmare, OP said she didn’t suspect her landlady after meeting her in person. “She’s somewhere around 70 years old, and the hands I saw were definitely not elderly,” she predicted. One Reddit user suggested that the hands may have belonged to the woman her boyfriend was supposed to meet, and perhaps he gave her the key to the home. “Maybe someone thought they’d surprise him, saw you instead, and took off,” the person said.
OP replied to the comment, claiming she had considered the possibility. However, she was sure that the person who broke in did not have a key and used a tool to open the door. “My SO is the most private person in the world and won’t even give a key to his own family members,” OP added.
In addition, the OP worked from home, which would have made her boyfriend more cautious should he have had another woman. “There’s no way he would hide secret rendezvous by utilizing their own home when she’s always home,” one comment read. Another Redditor believed it was a failed robbery. The woman may have had an accomplice waiting outside, but as soon as she saw OP, she decided to leave and grab the scissors in case OP got up and attacked her. As for the intruder, OP said she never met the person after that and hoped she would never meet her again.
Do you think OP could’ve caught the intruder had she decided to step out of the room when she first heard the front door slam shut?
OP said she assumed her boyfriend was home earlier than usual when she heard the front door shut at a time when she didn’t expect him to be home yet, so she simply waited for him in the room. If she had decided to step out of the room, she would likely have caught the intruder. What do you think?
How would you react to finding out an intruder had broken into your house?
As soon as OP realized a stranger had broken into her house, she immediately alerted her boyfriend, who informed the cops about it. Although she was scared, she pulled through the ordeal with the support of the cops and her guy. How would you handle this plight if you were OP?
