The Time A Psychopath Broke Into My Room While I Slept

I've been asked to tell this story a lot lately, so I thought I would share it here.

When I was about 19 or 20, my dad and stepmom went on vacation and asked me to housesit for them. Since I was living at home with my mom, stepdad and stepsister, I jumped at the chance to have a whole house to myself for a week. I vowed to water plants, bring in mail, feed cats, etc and be the perfect housesitter. Before they left they warned me about possums getting under the house at night and making noise (they lived near a canyon) and basically told me not to worry about it.

I was having a great time being queen of the castle. Saturday night rolled around and I let a friend (he happens to be my husband now) borrow my car to deliver Sunday papers and then went to bed. Round about 2:30am I hear a weird scratching noise, but I assume it is possums and go back to sleep. 30-60 minutes later, I still hear the same noise and then realize it's not coming from under the house, it's coming from the bedroom window. Possums aren't that tall and can't climb walls, so now I am fully awake. I start to wonder if I ever locked the back door. I get up to check, and of course I hadn't locked it. So I flip on the back patio light and see a man pop up from the bushes near the bedroom window.

PANIC TIME!

Creepoid asks if he can talk to me for a second. I tell him to get the hell out of there and that I'm calling the cops.

As I'm dialing 911, I realize I'm not at my own house and don't remember the exact address. Luckily, I was a good housesitter and had neatly stacked the mail by the phone so I could recite the address. Unfortunately, I didn't know that the mailing address that they used was actually the street on the lower part of the canyon, and the front door off the little access alley that everyone on the street actually used, had a different address. Oh, and that all the little alleys were different variations of Main Street, Main Avenue, Main Lane, etc.

So while I'm on the phone with 911, explaining that there is a psycho trying to break in and kill me, Hannibal Lecter actually busts the window and climbs in. Apparently I started screaming calmly explaining to him that he needs to get the EFF OUT while the 911 dispatch person is saying "IF YOU CAN GET OUT OF THE HOUSE, GET OUT NOW! THE POLICE ARE RIGHT OUTSIDE!"

So I run out the front door, but not before grabbing a giant flashlight to club my attacker over the head with. And when I get outside...there is nothing. No cops. No cars. No flashing lights. No lights at all. And I'm standing there wearing the lime green underwear and white t-shirt that I had gone to bed in. Holding my flashlight. I don't even have my car to escape in, because I loaned it to my friend for the night.

What felt like an eternity later (5 seconds), a car drives up. Not a cop car, but a regular sedan being driven by the neighborhood newspaper delivery woman (coincidence?). She sees me standing there in my lovely white t (braless) and green undies and stops to ask me what I'm doing there at 3 something in the morning. I explain about the crazy ax murderer in the house and how I'm looking for the cops. She tells me that they're just around the corner, on Main Avenue, about to bust into another house. So I tell her to GO GET THEM! and she drives off.

I'm still standing there (like horror movie bait) with my flashlight and my underwear, listening to the serial killer moving around inside the house, talking to himself. Seconds later, a whole precinct of cops runs up to the house on foot. They tell me to stay where I am outside, and they all run in the house. I'm still standing there BY MYSELF, outside, for what felt like a good 10 minutes, before I go back in the house.

The head cop reprimands me for coming inside and not waiting for them to bring me in, and immediately starts questioning me. I ask if they caught the guy, they said yes and that they took him out the back of the house and put him in the squad car. So headcop starts asking more questions. I actually have to stop him and ask permission to GO PUT ON MY PANTS, and he responds by laughing and smiling and follows me to the bedroom to get my pants. Gee officer, you had no problem letting me sit outside at 3am without any police protection, but now you have to follow me and watch me put my pants on? Well, don't I feel safe now?

Anyway, long story short, I wasn't attacked or harmed in any way. I was subpoenaed to testify at the dude's hearing, and apparently he was a psych patient who had gone off his meds and thought it was his doctor's house. The first time I really got a good look at him was in the court room, and he had one of those "I see dead people" white patches of hair on his head. Freaky! Maybe he thought I was Bruce Willis and was coming to shoot me?!

I'm very lucky that nothing happened to me. Imaginging what could have happened really freaks me out. The silver lining bonus is that I am terrified of the dark and super paranoid about noises that I hear at night. It was years before I would take a shower when I was home alone at night (I was afraid the noise of the shower would drown out the noise of the killer coming to chainsaw me to bits). However, I also learned that in fight or flight situations, I will cuss at you and try to bash your head in with a flashlight. I took some self defense classes after that, but after sitting through all the horrible attack stories, it only convinced me that I was going to be raped in my driveway, and I had more anxiety than ever, so I quit going.