A woman has described the terrifying moment she reportedly found a man hiding behind a wall of a rental property while spending a night away with her family. Therese booked a place to stay for the night after a family party last weekend with her partner and two children. The home was advertised as unoccupied and she claimed the landlord assured her that he wouldn't be there when the family got home from the party.
The encounter with the landlord
Therese told Kieran Cuddihy on RTÉ's Liveline: "I met with the landlord to get a key. That was in a key lock box. He showed me around the house. He had his clothes in his dryer at the time, and so they were drying away. I was leaving, heading back to the party, and I said, 'Will you be here tonight when I come back?' And he went, 'Oh no, no, I won't be here'.
"At the time, I didn't realise when I booked it, the entire piece. It does have advertised the entire home is yours. But even with that regardless, I wouldn't have minded if he was staying there because B&B hosts still stay in the house sometimes. I just asked, 'Are you going to be here tonight?' And he went, 'No, no, I'll be gone'."
Clues of an intruder
Therese also noticed the children's room downstairs was next to a locked room, which she felt uncomfortable about but didn't think there was anything she could do about it. After returning from the party, the family found the washing machine running again, and the house key was on a chain in a lockbox outside - clues which made them think they were no longer alone in the property.
Therese said: "That did make me think that he was here. I knocked off the washing machine because the kids were going to bed at that point, and I was like, 'I'm going to knock off the washing machine because the single beds were right beside it'. Still I felt a little bit weird. So I said to my partner, 'Will you go upstairs and just check all the rooms.'
Discovery behind the wall
"And he went up, then he came back down. He was feeling a little bit weird. We didn't initially notice that there was like this partition-looking wall. It was actually a really thin piece of plasterboard with a nail. So there was no nails on one part. This was in the sitting room, in the living room. So my partner went, 'What's behind that?' Because it looked like it could move. So when he went to move it, it came off.
"It was just darkness behind it and I hear 'hey, hey', so we obviously died. And I went, 'Is there somebody behind that wall?' And he went, 'Yes'. Now the man didn't come out near us, but like straight away, I went to get the kids and just leave right now."
Confrontation and aftermath
"It was pitch black, so you couldn't say a thing. And obviously, when you get frightened, you're not expecting to hear somebody go, 'Hey, hey', from a wall, which I thought was just a wall at the time. We left, initially had the kids outside. In the end, I did end up meeting him at the front of the house. He said that he didn't meet me before.
"And I said to him, 'Why have you done this? You have traumatised myself and my kids when you easily could have just said, 'Yes, I will be here later on'.... And he went, 'Well, my Google reviews don't say that'."
Booking.com response
Booking.com said it has launched a probe into the incident and has taken down the listing while the investigation continues. A spokesperson told the Irish Mirror: "We take safety and security very seriously. As soon as we were made aware of this incident, we launched an investigation into the property, which is ongoing. The property has been suspended while the investigation is completed."
