I think someone may be living in my attic......

shucksdood · 3 months

ask a pest control company if they charge for inspection, sometimes they don't, tell them you hear noise in the attic.

wawawahine · 3 months

Whatever the end to this story is, please for the love of god update us when you reach it.

Krayzed896 · 3 months

Set off your smoke alarm, and yell "OH SHIT MY HOUSE IS ON FIRE!!!"

jrannis · 3 months

OK, You are not crazy. Someone is entering your place through the attic. The key word in the entire post is the word "townhouse". This means that the building is divided into separate dwellings that could share a common attic depending on the class of construction. Some attics in duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes and even town houses can share a common attic. There are many stories about a neighbor popping his attic hatch and going next door, opening the neighboring attic hatch and "dropping in". Some attics are wide open from end to end and others have a two hour fire rated wall between them. Usually the two hour wall in just a couple of layers of drywall that can be cut or kicked open.

I would suggest that you install a couple of latches that would prevent some one from opening the door from the attic side.

Something else to consider is that they may be entering your townhouse and using your attic to enter other apartments. This would require the installation of a couple of latches that could be locked with a key or padlock.

SpectralKiller · 3 months

Well here goes the plot for Paranormal Activity 4.

jpmarra · 3 months

Something very similar to this happened to me one time. Easily the scariest thing I've ever dealt with. Here's the story:

I was 19 at the time. I'd just moved into a two bedroom apartment with my dad in Florida. It was a triplex, and we rented the middle apartment. My dad had a job that kept him out of state for about 9 months out of the year, so I basically lived alone aside from the 3 months he was home.

One night, around 4am (I, like many other redditors, kept a very stupid sleep schedule) I was just about to fall asleep, when I heard my front door open. Now, the apartment had tile floor and was relatively empty. Any noise made in the house would reverberate to my bedroom. I never kept my bedroom door shut since I lived alone. So, I hear the door slowly open, and can hear the crickets outside. At first I thought I was only hearing things, but after gathering up the courage to get out of bed and check, I found the door cracked open. What followed was me searching every nook and cranny of the house with a knife and a 13 year old beagle, who I made enter each room before I did. (not my proudest moment, but whatever) I didn’t find anything and wrote the incident off as just a weird moment.

The next day I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I ALWAYS lock the front door, so it couldn’t have been just me not shutting the door all the way, and wind pushing it open. I eventually decided that it was probably a friend of mine playing yet another over the top prank or something. I got home from class, went into my bedroom and just about shit my pants.

There was a walk in closet in my bedroom that I never used. I probably only opened the door once or twice, to put some boxes in when we first moved in. Since then I had never opened the door and normally left my stuff in front of it. When I got home, the door to the closet was open, and the light was on. There was a bunch of weird insulation all over the place, and a chair in the middle of the closet, leading up to the attic door. I freaked out and ran out of my house. A friend of mine was on his way over, and when he got there I made him investigate by poking his head through the attic door. He said he didn’t see anything.

At this point, I contemplated calling the police, but decided against it because I didn’t want to sound crazy. I started asking friends that would normally pull a prank like this if they did it, and one of them started to take the blame, I assume just to fuck with me and get credit for scaring me. So I let it go.

About a week later, as I’m walking inside, my neighbor stops me and tells me he needs to fill me in on something. So we sit on the porch, and he basically tells me that the other apartments tenants had been evicted about 3 weeks earlier. He said that they had been secretly sneaking into their empty apartment while him and I were away. They were using our attics as a way in and out apparently. I guess we all shared attic space. He told me he called the police the day before and the guy was inside of the empty apartment and was arrested. The holy shit feeling didn’t go away until I moved to Philadelphia about a month later.

Life is scary.

alczervik · 3 months

put scotch tape on the doors when you leave, if it is broken then you know someone has opened the door. you can also mark the tape so someone can't peel it off and replace

MeyerWolfsheim · 3 months

Besides getting some people together and searching the attic, dump some flour beneath the attic entrance so they can't leave without getting it everywhere. You could also shout, "I KNOW YOU'RE IN HERE MOTHERFUCKER!" and see if they come out.

Nerozero · 3 months

Does anyone else hope the guy living in his attic has a laptop, is a Redditor and is freaking out right now

DonaldShimoda · 3 months

Wait, so the cops tried to get into your attic and failed in the exact same way you did, then told you not to worry about it and left?

That's some fine police work there Lou.

pjquinn76 · 3 months

Bake a cake. Knock on the attic entrance and yell that the cake is ready. If someone comes down. Give him/her/it some cake. Nobody's too crazy for cake.

like9mexicans · 3 months

I will remove said person from attic for $100. PM me

GonnaDoBest · 3 months

Burn the house down. If they find a body, you were right.

lovingmama · 3 months

Call the police and don't feel bad about it. Shortly after my bf and I moved into our house, we heard crazy noises coming from our attic. I was hysterical because I would have sworn on my son's life that I could hear footsteps and creaks. The cops came out, checked everything out, and thankfully, it was nothing. But they said not to feel badly at all and they would rather come and find nothing than come and have to clean up a murder. Please call them if you're concerned.

Edit: I accidentally a word

Sketchy_As_Fuck · 3 months

Set a few landmines up there underneath the fiberglass insulation.

Personally I prefer the Valmara 69 because of its sensitivity and kill radius.

[deleted] · 3 months

And there was nothing.

Do NOT listen to this guy, OP is dead. Attic guy killed him and took over his life.

Headpuncher · 3 months

Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME about the ladder?

Drive down to your nearest Wal-Mart. It's open. Buy a ladder. Call the cops again.

Worst case scenario, you have a funny story and just return the ladder tomorrow.

You're paying taxes to have a Police force, use them.

Bloody_Conspiracies · 3 months

Call the police. It's better to be safe than sorry.

This might interest you.

Fat_Dumb_Americans · 3 months

Next week on Reddit. IAmA Guy who has been living in an attic for 2 years. AMA.

omnihotdog · 3 months

Just call the cops. If you want, call the regular number in the phone book.

You might just want to say you think someone's been entering your house when you're gone though. They'll post an officer on your street for a while and look around your place. No big deal, and you really aren't putting them out for it. Better safe than sorry.

Or well... cased and robbed blind in a few weeks. I'd be most concerned about someone getting in and out though your garage than living in the attic.

Restacks123 · 3 months

George Bluth Sr?

augustusgus · 3 months

it's probably just a giant spider or something.

Gertiel · 3 months

A couple of real-life events which have happened in my area make me think you may be on to something. In one, a guy kept noticing odd things that didn't really seem to mean anything in his town house. One day, he came home and his back door into his garage was ajar. As he parked in his garage via his garage door opener, he just thought he'd left it open accidentally that morning and no big deal as the garage door itself was closed. On other occasions, it seemed like his keyboard or mouse were perhaps moved on his desk. He lived alone and just assumed he'd somehow bumped them to the new locations. When his keyboard started sticking, he discovered it was full of crumbs. He rarely ate over his keyboard and thought it odd, but as he did sometimes eat something at his desk and he had never thought to clean it, just assumed he had spilled more crumbs inside than he realized. Anyway, eventually more and more things happened, though nothing was ever missing, and he set up a hidden video camera. Turned out his neighbor was jimmying the side door to his garage which he never used so never noticed anything. The neighbor knew he had a really awesome computer system for gaming as he'd looked in the window after hearing the guy playing one night, and came in to use his computer when he was gone for gaming. The video he captured was shown on local news.

Another time it was reported on the local news an apartment complex had burned to the ground because some sort of hobos camping in the attic had accidentally knocked over an alcohol stove they were using up there to cook. According to the reporter, they were climbing to the roof and getting in via a loose roof vent.

010101010101 · 3 months

It could be Mrs Rochester from Jane Eyre.

aislingcats · 3 months

Really? You think someone is living in your house without your knowledge and your first thought was to buy a camera.

No. You have something better than a camera, you have neighbors. Go talk to your neighbors. Ask them if they've ever seen anyone besides you leaving your house. If they say "Yeah" tell them what's up.

It doesn't matter how, but you need to get into your attic today. Get someone in the house with you and pry the attic door open. You need to find out now if someone is up there. Even if your neighbors say "No, never seen anyone but you" you still need to see what is up there and if a person is being super sneaky about not being seen.

That is your house. Start acting like it belongs to you.

kresblain · 3 months

Perhaps you're quite insane and the person in the attic is one of your deranged personalities.

Kedawei · 3 months

I heard noises coming from the attic in my previous house, turns out they were raccoons fucking

PandaJones · 3 months

The good news is that if there is someone up there, they are probably not going to kill you. If they haven't done it by now then they are probably just someone with no where else to go. But they may have some mental problem, so best to not approach them alone. Get a couple of friends to come over.

Also, do you ever talk to your neighbors? You may want to ask them if they see anyone coming and going.

WhitePostIt · 3 months

Okay relevant story:

One day my mom was home alone, and she had the garage door open. The door that leads from the garage and house is left unlocked, and next to it is the downstairs bathroom.

My mom hears a loud bang from the bathroom, and she goes for a look. The door is closed and the light is on, when she was sure she had left it off. Thinking that she simply forgot, she tried to open the door, and naturally, she couldn't.

It wasn't locked, someone was pushing BACK.

Freaked out, she called the cops, crying about someone locking themselves in the bathroom. Cops arrive quick, curious that someone is pushing back on the door but not, you know, locking it, but figure it's someone mentally disturbed.

They yell through the door that they don't want to hurt them and all that. No answer, so they resort to forcing the door open. The ram and ram, and it won't budge. Again, the door wasn't locked - it would open just to the point you could see a sliver of light, and that's it. They can't unscrew the hinges - they're inside, and given that there's a wall just three feet it front of the door, they can't get much momentum.

So they call in backup. A big guy arrives - someone who looked like he could open a fucking steel vault. In two rams, he's got that door open and fills up the door-way so the others can't see past him, put he's just standing there. Finally he bends down, seems to fumble with something, and turns around.

It was our god damn fucking cat.

Apparently, Alex had gone into the bathroom like she was prone to do in order to drink from the toilet. She had somehow knocked over the step ladder (which was closed and propped against the wall) in such a way that it fell on the light switch (for that room, up was off, down was on), turned the light on, and then kept the door closed by way of being jammed between the sink and table on the opposite side.

The cops found it damn funny. Not my mom though, she was super mad at the cat for indirectly causing damage to the door, step ladder and bathroom furniture.

Imalostmerchant · 3 months

I think someone may be living on the main floor of my townhouse...I stay in the attic.

ScriptPitcher · 3 months

Alright kid, I know its been a rough day for you, but hear me out here.

You live in a nice house, it always smells fantastic, we make it seem like anyone who watches this movie could live there. Also, we make you a woman if you aren't one already. You leave some flowers out on your kitchen table in a vase every week or so, and you realize that your favorite flower form the bouquet is gone each time you get them, a yellow tulip. You get scared and make a posting on your favorite website where you go for advice. He sees the thing because it's his favorite website too. He puts two and two together and realizes that its him you're referring to in the post that catches his eye. BOOM! Plot Introduction.

But hold up! He's your former neighbor. His house was foreclosed on and he's living there because he thinks you won't mind with the odd hours you work. We make it a social commentary about the current housing market, and the extremes he's being put through, the boys at Hollywood love an angle like that.

Now he sees that you're going to call the cops. He hides in the attic, and avoids capture by hiding in a chest that the previous owner hadn't removed from the attic when he left. He gets inside of it at the last second, and hides inside of it while the cops search around. BOOM! Plot Twist! You're gonna love this kid! I'm a genius! He finds a decomposing body inside the trunk, and realizes that the previous owner was a serial killer in the area that has yet to be captured.

After some digging around after the cops leave and put to rest your fears of someone else living in the attic the man living in the attic does some searching around about the previous owner. NEW TWIST! Stick with me babe, you're gonna love this one! The chief of police in your county is the old killer, and he thinks you've inspected the attic. So he comes to your house in the dead of night ready to put you down for good. But then the man living in your attic comes down to save you from him. There's a fight, and the gun goes off, both of them get shot in the ensuing fight.

Cut to a graveyard, you're standing over the grave of the man that lived in your attic. The killer lived, and is in the hospital, but soon to be brought to jail. You leave his favorite yellow tulips on the grave which you find out he'd been storing underneath the floorboards of the attic which explains why your house smells so sweet every week on the second floor, even though you've kept your flowers on the first.

So, we got a deal here kid? We sell this to the suits at Hollywood and split the profit on our half 70/30?

Flashback_Grandad · 3 months

Get some friends and go up there, if you find anyone/anything you can deal with it as a few rational minded people rather than one paranoid mind

Adelleda25 · 3 months

Now are you sure its not the evil twin brother that your parents have hidden from you called Hugo but it turns out you are actually the evil twin...you evil bastard!

wedgewood_perfectos · 3 months

call these guys they have the most experience.

danceswithsmurfs · 3 months

Townhouse you say? Is it the kind where a bunch of connected two-story homes share walls but each has its own front door? It's quite possible that all your neighboring townhomes share a connected attic. Either there are no walls separating the different attic areas or the walls are so thin that someone broke through them on purpose.

If this is the case, then it's fairly simple to sneak in through the attic and go through any apartment you wish. One of your neighbors probably went through all the stuff in the attic (yours and everyone else's) and is now getting braver and entering the apartments below.

*edited because I cannot abide typos

GuyInTheAttic · 3 months

Im sure your just being paranoid man. Do us all a favour and forget about all this nonsense. Also, keep the music volume down late at night and leave more beer in the fridge. Thanks.

checkYourFucknAttic · 3 months

Not trying to scare the piss out of you or anything, but this is how my uncle got murdered, so please don't wait to find out what is going on. My uncle stayed home sick from work and ran into a guy in his kitchen. The guy was a transient who had apparently been living in his attic and would come down during the day sometimes to use the house. The guy got so startled running into my uncle that he stabbed and killed him.

Anyway, this isn't something to fuck around with. Call the fucking police immediately. If someone is living in your attic they are doing it to have a place to sleep at night, so call them tonight. Don't feel embarrassed. I have called the police before to check something out, and even though it turned out to be nothing they said they get calls like that all the time. Please call the fucking police.

eat4fun · 3 months

Leave them an invoice for the rent.

burgershark · 3 months

Get a friend and two baseball bats.

Set off the smoke alarm and start a small, controlled wastebin fire under the attic door so smoke can get in.

Wait.

Turnshroud · 3 months

It's been over 10 minutes

eats more popcorn anxiously

PersonMcGuy · 3 months

I don't know maybe you could LOOK IN THE ATTIC?

Bancas · 3 months

For the love of god please update us when you figure this out.

fulldisclosure · 3 months

Psych did it. It's your other personality.

Herborist · 3 months

Just call the cops. Say you have a home intruder, tell them where he is, they'll check it out, and if it's nothing then they'll leave.

The cops aren't going to be mad or arrest you.

trishypohta · 3 months

Has anyone else been refreshing this thread all day for the updates? I have. This is fascinating.

NINE_HUNDRED · 3 months

OP gets killed, Hobo steals laptop, becomes OP.

Weaselvoyager · 3 months

OMG...sounds like what happend where I work...lights being on when I came in the morning, noises in the attic above the offices. The alarm constantly going off...we just discovered one of our employees was sneaking in at night through an air vent....creepy.

Snowkaul · 3 months

Buy one of those security cameras disguised as clocks. Leave it in your house. Watch what's on it, but not at home.

nacho-bitch · 3 months

Your garage door has a short. This happened to me. One of the staples holding the wire that runs to the motion sensor had rubbed through the insulation. So basically the door always thought there was someone standing in the way of it closing. You should ask the guy living in your attic to help you fix it.

phdblue · 3 months

could be a bro, might enjoy the company

frogger_is_dead · 3 months

I wouldn't worry. They are really nice people

Deradius · 3 months

Step 1. Hide your weed.

Step 2. Call law-enforcement on the non-emergency line, explain the situation, and ask if they could, at their convenience, send an officer by to help you check out the attic. This is (at least in part) what the cops do. Have a sealed bottled water ready for the cop - attics are hot, and so are vests. Have a flashlight ready too, on the off chance the cop forgets his/hers.

Step 3. Make sure you hid your weed before the cops get there.

Step 4. Cops check the attic. If someone is living up there, there will be evidence.

Step 5. Profit.

themightybaron · 3 months

First off. Wait until you are alone and its late at night. Then, armed only with a nearly drained flashlight. Open the attic and enter.

ORRR since this is the real world. Call a bud and investigate it during the day. I will tell you, most attics in attached and semi attached houses are joined with one another or divided by only very thin strapping. It is entirely possible that one of your neighbours (or more likely their kids) has figured this out and taken to checking out the others homes when no one is home. Either way. If you want to really be sure right away apply a small amount of scotch tape to the hatch. There is no way to place it back from above. As for someone living in the attic, its unlikely. Im betting on bored neighbours kid. The end solution is to attach padlocks or dead bolts to the attic hatch to ensure home security. You would not be the first burglarized in this manner.

Or it could be a deranged killer waiting for just the right moment. You never know.

[deleted] · 3 months

I am going insane over the fact that you guys are deciding there's nobody up there based on the fact that its inconvenient to open the attic door

mastahamsta · 3 months

(Last Update) - Nice try, guy living in plzbecrazythrowaway's attic

Sir_Meowsalot · 3 months

Instead of calling the cops and looking like an idiot. You could always call a pest control company and claim you hear noises upstairs and perhaps it's raccoons. They'll go up and check. You may end up having a shy Hobo living in your attic or in reality some raccoons up there. Either way, you'll have found out. Plus, it'll be a great story for the Pest Control guys.

Or, you can do this: Exclaim loudly you've had enough with your Life and you're going to burn the house down in an act of Suicide. Then light a small fire right under the attic door and try to get some smoke going. If you hear footsteps in the attics and lots of stumbling about...you've got yourself a guest.

IntensePancakes · 3 months

Cue onslaught of Arrested Development references

ToxicFlow · 3 months

I think you should approach this situation with a few very simple steps. Light about 40 candles below the attic door. Start making slow humming noises while building it into a chant. Start sprinting around your house at top speed. Wait a few moments and let silence build. Now start smashing glassware against the walls. Proceed back to the attic room with a knife. Start carving patterns in the walls. Cut the tips of your fingers and start drawing all over the room with blood. Go and turn on all of the sinks and the bathtub/shower(s) on at the hottest temperature possible so steam builds up. Make a recording of screaming and talking in gibberish than play it backwards really loudly so it echos throughout your house. Start urinating and depositing excrement throughout your entire abode. Move all of the furniture in your house to one room. Find any and all dolls in your home and put them in the attic room. By this point several demons and satanic things should have been summoned. If there is someone in your attic I'm positive they should move out by the next day. This method is foolproof and has worked many times for me.

kkurbs · 3 months

Update #6 5:33 PM ---- Going upstairs to check this out.

Famous Last Words.

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