I'm panicking. I get my phone in my hand. I call 911. After I heard the glass shattering and the pounding, we heard like really heavy footsteps. And I said the dispatcher, He's in our apartment, he's in our apartment. And I just remember feeling like frozen with fear from HV Studio. This is unnerved. Welcome back to the Unnerved podcast. It's where normal people share their abnormal stories, and if you enjoy true stories of the strange and terrifying, then you're in the right place.
I'm your host, Chris Fricke. When you imagine your safe place, what comes to mind? For most of us, it's likely our homes. A place where we can let our guard down and be at ease. The structure of a house is supposed to provide safety from forces of nature and protect us from those with evil intentions. But with every protective
fortress there is a weakness. Perhaps a door with a weak lock, or a window that can easily be broken, or perhaps a fire escape that leads an intruder straight to you. In today's story, Liz and her roommate were visited unexpectedly in the middle of the night by an intruder with unknown intentions. This is her story. My name is Liz and I am from Atlanta, Canada, and my story begins in the summer of 2018. I was living in an apartment
with a roommate. It was a big townhouse that had been split up into a bunch of apartments and I was getting ready for work. I had AI was a student at the time and I had a summer job that I had to get up pretty early for, so I tended to go to bed around the same time every night around 11:00 PM, maybe a little bit before.
Cities in Atlanta, Canada are known for being very humid in the summer, especially the one I live in, and it was one of the most humid and hot nights I have ever experienced living here. And I was getting ready for bed. I had put on, I think just like a big T-shirt because it was that kind of pajama weather. I guess I got into bed as I was laying there. It was just so hot that I thought to myself, I should get up and I should open my windows. So I had two windows in my room
at the time. One was beside my bed. Some of the windows had been updated, but a lot of them were like original windows from probably like the 1900s. While my window beside my bed had a screen in it, there was a window that led it onto the fire escape across the room for me, and it did not have a screen in it. I typically didn't use that window, but I on this night decided to open it alongside the one that was beside my bed. So I got up. I opened that window and I laid
back down in bed. I I couldn't get comfortable. I was just tossing and turning. It was so hot. It was so humid. The windows weren't really giving the relief I needed, but I had two thoughts kind of running through my head at the time. And I'm kind of an anxious person, so this is pretty common to happen. The first one was, what if there's a fire and I'm only wearing a big T-shirt to bed? And the second one was, what if an animal comes through my
window or a bird or something? Because even though I live in a city, there's still raccoons, there's pigeons, there's starlings, there's things like that around. So I just couldn't get those thoughts out of my head. I decided to get up. I put on some PJ shorts or pants, I can't remember which, and I went over to the fire escape window because it doesn't have a screen in it and I closed it and I locked it. I got back into bed. It was probably a little after 11:00 PM at this point and I
managed to fall asleep. The next thing I remember is just waking up. Remember looking down at the foot of my bed because I had my phone charging on this kind of charging station so it was sitting upright and I could see the time 12:40 AM. I I wasn't a person that would typically just wake up randomly throughout the night, especially when I'd only been asleep for like an hour and a half or so. At that point I just remember kind of like sitting up.
Why am I awake? I kind of felt like this, like a cute sense of like something woke me up and I need to know what it is. And as I'm sitting there kind of trying to get my bearings and whatnot because I'd been awakened from what felt like a pretty deep sleep, some movement across the room caught my eye. And as I look across the room towards this movement through the fire escape window, I see that what's caught my attention is a person standing out on the
fire escape. My first thought was, oh, what is my roommate doing out on our fire escape at almost one in the morning? Like, she has a job. She works tomorrow too. I don't know what's going on here. After seeing this person, a glimpse of this person, I decide to get up and just go check on her to make sure everything was OK. My roommate's room had the door that went out into the fire escape. It was like French doors.
They weren't really interior doors, but she had like an exterior door just right in her bedroom essentially. So I remember getting up and I had a deadbolt on my bedroom door. Actually at the time it wasn't a very good one. So I undid that and I opened my bedroom door and I turned right to go down the hallway towards her room because we were kind of at different ends of the
apartment. As I turned down the hall, I am suddenly aware that my roommate is running down the hallway towards me and she's kind of pulling on clothes haphazardly. I'm like very confused because like 2 seconds ago she was out on the fire escape. Now she's standing right in front of me, like I have no idea what's happening here. As she runs up to me, she just says someone's trying to get in my room and I just remember feeling like frozen with fear.
I'm panicking. Let her into my room, close the door. I close the deadbolt, press my back against the door. I get my phone in my hand. I call 911911. What is the location of your emergency? I'm giving a description of what's happening, my address and stuff to this dispatcher as I was describing what was happening, what we were hearing, what have you. We just start hearing glass shattering and and like the sound, like thudding, like
someone was beating something. After I heard the glass shattering and the pounding, we heard like really heavy footsteps. Nice in the dispatcher. He's in our apartment. He's in our apartment. Like I said, I was pressed up against my bedroom door, keeping it closed, so I was panicking. We could hear just the footsteps, and I could, I swear, I could feel like air coming underneath the bedroom door. And I was just like, convinced that he was like, in the hallway, like listening out the
door, like I was crying. I was panicking. I couldn't. It was at that point that I I had to give the phone to my my roommate, 'cause I was just beyond consolation at that point. We heard these footsteps, but they eventually got quieter. We were like, OK that's interesting. And and my roommate actually then at that point climbed onto my bed, which was near this other window and she looked out into our backyard and she saw a guy run across her yard and he
jumped the fence. She told the dispatcher that she said, OK, he's he's run through the backyard. And it was then that the dispatcher told us, OK, yeah, the police are there, it's safe, you can go downstairs. I think we took a minute because we were both just so rattled. Still, we we stayed in my bedroom for another minute or two and then eventually worked up the nerve to open the deadlock and and to just run downstairs.
We open our our main apartment door and the first thing we notice is there's just mailboxes everywhere. There was only probably like 6 units in that building, so there's usually like 6 mailboxes out on a shelf that were just, like loose. They weren't attached to anything and they were just everywhere, just strewn about,
letters everywhere. We walked outside and there was more mailboxes out on the street and one of our neighbors, our downstairs neighbor, actually said that she had heard this commotion and looked out the window and this guy had just thrown a mailbox at her window. So he was just looking to cause damage, I guess. I don't know what his deal was. Everybody that lived in that building was outside talking to
the police. Our downstairs neighbor, he was there with a broken off chair leg swung over his shoulder and he said that I guess he kind of confirmed for us that the glass we had heard shattering was actually his back door and luckily his had the, I don't know what they call it like the anti break glass where it has kind of the wires in it, but he wasn't actually able to breakthrough it.
It just like shattered but stayed intact, which is good because our glass door upstairs did not have that. He actually tried to get into four other buildings, so he was really on a rampage that night. But he tried to get into four different apartment buildings or townhouses in that same area. So ours was not the 1st 911 call that was received about this guy. Particularly after we gave our statement to the police. My roommate gave a description
of what he looked like. We were still so scared, like it was probably like 2 in the morning at this point. We asked one of the police officers if they would come upstairs and just check her French doors in her room, 'cause we knew that our downstairs neighbor's door was broken, but we didn't know if ours were was or not at that point.
He came upstairs with us. We go into her broom and my roommate, she she demonstrates what had happened and like what he had done was like, shook her doors really aggressively. I don't know what the purpose or goal of that was, but he he shook her doors really aggressively. And so she demonstrated that she grabbed the doorknobs and she shook them. And as we're staying there and she's doing this, one of the doors just opens like nothing.
I remember her just standing there and being like, well, that was close. Like, I don't know what would have happened if he had been able to get in because like, for all I know, I don't know what he broke our downstairs neighbor's door with, but it appeared to be his fists because he didn't have a weapon when he was running through our backyard or
anything. So I don't know if he was on drugs or what was wrong, but he was really dead set on causing damage and I don't know what would have happened if he had actually made contact with the person, which is like kind of scary to think about. The other thing is, like, if I had left my fire escape window open.
Old house, they have big windows and you could certainly climb through this window, which is the purpose because if there was a fire, you need to be able to climb out of the window onto the fire escape. Sometimes I think about like, what would have happened if I had just left it open and like, gone to sleep. Oh, it's so. It's just like, really gross and creepy to think about. I do think he was apprehended. I think I saw it in the news the following day or a couple days later.
But I don't think he actually faced any jail time for it, because all he all he did, I guess in quotes, is property damage. He didn't actually serve any time for it. He might have had to pay a fine or something like that, I'm not sure. But for all I know, like I might have walked by him on the street and wouldn't even know. And I think that's also really creepy. Just like not knowing. Don't know what this guy's name is, don't know what he looks like. He didn't serve any time.
He's just out and about in the world. And I know so many people who don't lock their doors and don't lock their bedroom windows even though no one got hurt in the end and it turned out OK. Just like use this as a cautionary tale to always lock your door to your apartment, always lock your windows because you just don't know who is out there and what their intentions are. And so many of these stories, like I'm a pretty avid true
crime was scenario. And like so many stories start with people just being easily to get into someone's house or apartment or what have you. And it's just like always lock your door, because you just never know. The regional police released a statement the day of the incident saying that they responded to a report of a man trying to break into numerous apartments. Upon arrival, officers became involved in a foot pursuit with
the suspect. The 24 year old male was arrested and would face two property damage charges. Although Liz's apartment wasn't directly entered, knowing that their home could have so easily been invaded is unsettling. Their building's fire escape gave the culprit easier access to the residents windows. A structure that was meant to save lives in this instance made them more vulnerable. And Liz isn't the only person whose fire escape has given an
intruder easy access. Looking for a bold burglar who is scaling fire escapes to break into apartments in Queens. Police say this is the man they're looking for in connection with a string of apartment burglaries in Rego Park, Queens. Andres Tedesco says he knows the suspect broke into his apartment on Saunders Ave. because the grocery bag and loot the man is carrying in this surveillance
video belongs to him. He took two computers, some of my girlfriend's cameras and unreplaceable jewelry. Tedesco wasn't home on the afternoon of February 8th when police say the burglar scaled this fire escape up to the third floor, forcing open Tedesco's bathroom window. When I opened the door and I saw like everything was ransacked. It was awful. Chris Wu says he knows the feeling. He's among three tenants in Tedesco's apartment building allegedly burglarized by this
same man. Police say on New Year's Eve afternoon, the burglar climbed this fire escape, broken through Wu's kitchen window and took off with his wife's jewelry. We turn around, look at her dresser, and her entire dresser was just rummaged through. My wife just panicked. She just started freaking out and I was like, Oh my gosh, and then we realized somebody had been in the house.
Police believe this same suspect is responsible for at least five break insurance here in the Rego Park area, and he's pretty brazen, breaking into most of the apartments during daylight hours. It was definitely very violating, you know, definitely. We still live with a heightened sense of awareness. And a heightened security system. The Woos now have new window locks and alarms to make sure they're not victimized again.
Fire escapes clearly serve an important purpose, giving residents a way out in the event of a deadly fire. But given the access they grant to criminals, a deterrent could help. Window and door alarms are an affordable solution, giving you a heads up to a home invasion. Because fire escape or not, if someone really wants to get into your home, there's usually a way. Thanks again for listening to Unnerved.
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