An Average House. An Average Neighborhood.

My mum and I moved into a completely average house when I was about 15. Everything was fine, we loved it. One day I was home “sick” from school and I was messing around on the computer when I heard our garage door open. I freaked out and went down the hall to get my mobile phone and saw the hallway door that connects to the garage opening, I panicked and yelled “get out!!!” and two young boys slammed the door and ran off. I started crying and called my mum who told me to go next door to my neighbours and she was going to come home from work.

When she got home she was speaking to my neighbour for a bit. The neighbour ended up telling us that she thought it was probably the young boy that lived in the house before us. Apparently he sometimes goes around to everyone’s houses and “breaks in” and eats their food and watches TV and stuff. And for whatever reason, they were all OK with that. Apparently he came from some sort of broken home and they all felt sorry for him so they didn’t call the police. Mum and I were completely unsettled by that and put new locks on all the doors that week. We didn’t care if the other neighours were OK with that; we weren’t.

A few months pass and nothing ever happens again, we figure he knows we’re not cool with his weirdness and doesn’t try to break in again. A week or so later I’m in bed asleep and I wake up in the middle of night for no reason at all. I’m not hot or cold, I don’t need to pee, I didn’t have a nightmare – I just woke up. I had this incredibly uneasy and weird feeling wash over me. I felt like something or someone was watching me and I got completely freaked out. I went into my mum’s room and slept in her bed that night. It kept happening a few nights and I thought I was just having nightmares or was getting scared of the dark for some reason. I ended up sleeping in my mums bed for about a week because I was so legit scared of the dark now.

I finally worked up the courage to sleep in my own bed one night, but I could barely sleep. I felt totally uneasy and nervous/scared. I got to sleep for a bit but then I woke up again. I looked outside my window and I could SWEAR I saw face/figure of someone standing there. Obviously, I nope’d the fuck out and ran back to my mum.

One of the nights I was back in her bed, we were all asleep and feeling fine when I wake up to my dog on the end of the bed, growling. Now, our dog is an old golden retriever and has never growled or barked at ANYTHING. She is a huge wuss and completely placid, she has no problem with strangers, even if someone knocks on the door and comes in, she couldn’t care less. So I wake up, all dazed, confused and half asleep. I hear the dog growling and I’m asking her “what’s wrong?” I look up from the bed and I shit you not – there is a man standing in the doorway with a knife. I screamed like a banshee and the dog started barking at this point. Mum woke up and saw the man too. He went running down the hallway and out the back door. I’m crying my eyes out, the dog is barking her face off and mum is frantically trying to call the police.

An HOUR later they finally get here and of course, the dude is gone. Morning comes and we go outside to see that the back gate has had its lock cut with bolt cutters, and the door leading into the house had been smashed in. The cops come in and dust for prints and leave shit everywhere but at the end of the day, they can’t and don’t do anything.

We moved out that same day and went to live with my grandma and grampa until we found a new house. Pretty much no one in the family believed us, or thought we were just making it up for attention (my family are assholes).

A few weeks later we get a call from the police and they managed to match the prints to some teenager who just got arrested for breaking into another house. It’s the same guy that was breaking into all the houses in the neighbourhood and used to live in the house we were in. So mum’s talking to the cops and some of the neighbours when suddenly someone tells us, completely casually, “Oh yeah, that’s the Milat kid.” Wait… Did they just say, MILAT? Yeahhhh… Pretty much any Australian will know this last name, Ivan Milat. The serial killer. His NEPHEW was breaking into people’s homes and our home. While we were sleeping. WITH A KNIFE. And people were OK with that.

…So, we move into a new house and forget all about it… Until about a year ago.

Milat nephew gets 43-year jail sentence – NEWS

He and his friend murdered another teenager in the same fucking place his uncle dumped all those bodies. …WTF!?

So… The guy that broke into our house, watched me while I was asleep and stood in our bedroom doorway with a knife while we were sleeping actually MURDERED another teenager a few years later. Mum and I nearly fell over when we heard about it. No one really believes us… which pisses me off. But it really happened.

Sometimes when I think back on what could’ve happened if I slept in my own bed that night, or if the dog didn’t bark, or if we never woke up. It really freaks me out. It’s also left me with a huge fear of the dark. I get really uneasy if I have to go outside at night by myself or if I wake up in the middle of the night.