A home is a safe place, but sometimes dangers can be lurking for us even there. Luckily, technology has made it simpler to spot intruders and other ill-wishers who might be right on your doorstep. It's reported that around 72% of American households have at least one home security device. 51 million apparently have video surveillance.
Home cameras catch all sorts of interesting stuff. Sometimes, it can be even disturbing. This post is about the latter: the times when homeowners saw something so off-putting through their home cams they wished they could forget it.
We've gathered the most interesting responses from the thread titled "People with home security cameras, what's the creepiest thing you've ever seen happen while you were asleep?" and present them to you here.
#1
A couple who would drive by at random hours of the day for a full week, would walk up to the house and look at my dogs (pit bulls). Look into each window in the front and even checked the back gate/fence.
The camera was older and had no "notifications" so the only way we knew was the moment they decided to open up the door (while I was home sick) and were subsequently rushed by my dogs. I heard the commotion and grabbed the only weapon I had, a bat, to find the front door open and what looked like a m**der scene in my living room.
Blood. Everywhere. All over the floor, the front door, the little entrance way, the window. Turns out I have two very good bois and the idiots went to the hospital to eventually be caught by police. They were going to take my dogs to be in dogfights. Involved in a bunch of other seedy things (d***s, p**********n).
Image credits: Gracelanr
#2
Doorbell cam went off at 3am. Flipped to the live view and there was a deer standing in my yard staring directly at the camera, close enough that the camera thought it was a person at the door.
Deer stood there for a solid minute just not moving. The eyes had that creepy night-vision look so it was extra weird.
(and then the deer took a huge s**t while maintaining eye contact with the camera and that kinda ruined the mood).
Image credits: sppwalker
#3
A random guy helped himself to my backyard. Thinking he was a thief I was already picking my phone to call the non-emergency police line only to look back at my tablet and see him moving my pot plants. ONLY my pot plants. Some of which are very heavy. He even stepped back a couple of times as if to survey his handiwork. Once he was seemingly happy with their new arrangement he then left the same way he came. I have never seen this man before in my life. WTF?
Image credits: Blackdog1341
#4
I live in an apartment unit right next door to the office. They installed a new security camera for their door which covers a part of mine as well shortly after I moved in.
The office manager knocked on my door a few days after the install and asked me to come look at something. She pulled up footage of the night before that showed a guy pacing in front of my door for six hours! He even left for a couple minutes and came back with something he tried to stick in my door frame a few times. I was asleep the whole time and heard nothing.
Turned out to be a recent ex of a friend of mine. I'd only met him once. Still have no idea how he knew where I lived unless he followed her to my place once as we live close by each other. Cops called, reports filed, they eventually found him. He had been on a pretty bad d**g bend since their breakup from what I heard and has no recollection of being there. M**h is a helluva d**g.
Image credits: ZonaEshe
#5
I came home from work one day and could see prints in the snow going up our driveway, then veering left into a field by our house and eventually leading to the main road (we were the only house on a long street). I could tell the prints weren't too recent, as some fresh snow had settled into them. I checked the security cameras, starting at midnight and fast forwarding through the early morning hours, convinced I would catch on camera, the weirdo wandering our property and trying to break in and m**der us. After a half an hour of staring at the screen, the perpetrator finally came into view- a horse from the field across the street had broken out and meandered through our yard and field by our house at around 5 a.m.
The buildup was terrifying, the result of the prints was adorable and hilarious.
Image credits: MegaE_Mom
#6
I saw someone break into my car, take my sweater out of the front seat, stood there and smelled it for a solid 5-10 minutes. Then put it back and left.
I gave that sweater away that day.
Image credits: lvealey017
#7
Not asleep but we were eating breakfast. There is a school down the street from our house. It’s literally two houses down. Anyways in the mornings there’s lots of traffic and children with their parents to school. They walk past our house nearly every day and we never thought anything of it.
Anyways, one day there was a kid who we caught on the security camera running and there was some guy chasing after him.
Turns out he was trying to kidnap the kid and we had it on tape. The kid got to the school and told his teacher and police came and asked to see what we recorded via camera.
S**t’s crazy. Watch your kids.
Edit: he got arrested for attempted kidnapping or something like that and the kid is totally safe now. Now we see his dad take him to school.
Image credits: passtheparthenon
#8
So I'm sitting in my living room at night, just recently moved into my new flat. I'm in a basement flat, own entrance, in a little townhouse on the edge of town. Quiet area, lots of trees, cheap rent and like no public transport or cell reception. I'm living alone for the first time.
I'd just set up the security cameras and hooked them up to a new monitor (the old one was ancient and gigantic). Hadn't figured out where to put the monitor, I'd never had a security system before. It was (at the time) on my work desk, which was at the living room window.
I notice this slight yellow glow out the window out the corner of my eyes, slowly getting brighter. As it does, I notice on the camera that their's a huge a*s shadow cast across my door (visible from camera, to the left of the window) that looks kinda animal but weird proportions. I quietly s**t myself.
It sits there for while, like a good 10 minutes, moving just enough to make me wonder if I'm imagining it moving. There's a kind of whining/buzzing noise, but it's faint and I might be imagining it. I suddenly find religion.
Then all of a sudden there's a loud POP from *inside my building*, the glow goes instantly away, there's a sound like a really pissed cat and then really rapid footsteps. I'm in like full cardiac arrest at this point, bathing in my own urine, crying for my mum.
Flash forward a week or so: I haven't been eaten by a cat shadow monster, though i do have a sudden new interest in exorcisms. I meet the upstairs neighbours (older couple) when they're having trouble getting a large package up the stairs. They offer me tea as thanks. I notice their cat sitting in the window. Its movement reminds me of something, and after a while I realise it's the shadow monster.
I ask a few questions to round out the details. Turns out the neighbours had one of those lights-on-a-sensor which turn on when they detect movement. Cat jumps up to ledge, light turns on. But it was an eco light, so warmed up slow. It then went out. Loudly. I'm too embarrassed/relieved to recant the story, so I make my excuses, leaving the nice couple upstairs with the impression that their new downstairs neighbour is a weirdo who stares at cats, has a really keen interest in light bulbs, and a predilection for nervous laughter. They don't invite me up for tea anymore, but they do ask if I'm OK every time they see me.
#9
The guy wearing dark clothes with a hood over his face who walked up to our fence at 3:00 a.m., saw the Beware of Dog sign and the fake security cameras we have out to hide the ones we really have. Who then proceeded to get down and half crouch, crawl through our gate and into our yard in an attempt to not be "seen" by the fake cameras and got halfway to our door before my sweet good boi went total hellhound and raced to the front door from our bedroom to inform us someone was out there.
As soon as the guy heard the dog and saw the lights in our place come on he just got up and straight ran through the gate and down the street.
We filed a complaint with the cops, nothing ever came of it. He definitely was testing if we really had a dog or a security system in place and that just freaked the hell out of me. We went and got motion-activiated lights after that as an added deterrent. Good boi got a steak dinner the next night.
He's damned lucky I didn't open the door or he'd have gotten mauled and/or worse.
#10
I saw this one video of some guy in California that went to this house and spent 2 hours licking their security camera/ doorbell - disappeared for a bit and then came back to resume the licking of the camera for another hour or so.
Image credits: SpreadTheSlug
#11
We consistently see a black cat once or twice a week on one of our 5 cameras, we don't have a black cat, and all these cameras are inside the house. Our dog doesn't ever act weird like he's aware of it and we have never found any cat hair anywhere let alone a black cat's hair.
Image credits: recon04
#12
When I was a poor college student my wealthy cousin and his wife went on vacation and offered to let me house-sit to give me a break from my 3 slovenly roommates. They live a few towns over in a very nice house with a huge front lawn and a fancy, tall iron fence and double gates. The fence and gates are about 11 feet high. You have to have a remote to open the gates.
That first night I slept so well! I breakfasted like a king and then drove to school. I got back around 5, made a supper fit for a king, and settled down to write an Econ paper. My cousin has a warning system for when someone drives turns off the road and comes up to the gate. There's a chiming sound and you can look at screens in a couple of different rooms to see who it is so that you can buzz them in. I was deep into my paper when I heard the chime. I was confused at first and checks my 'phone before I realized what it was. I looked from the sofa and could see a movement on the security screen. I stood up and got closer and had a clear view of two women getting out of a white car.
One tried to squeeze between two bars of the gate (impossible) and then the other woman tried to boost her over the top of the gate (hilarious). The top one fell and even from the house I could heard swearing. I was about to press the intercom button and ask WTF was their problem but I was chuckling at their antics and so just watched silently. They peered at the house intently from between the bars like a couple of jailbirds for a while. The skinnier one actually stripped down to her bra and panties and tried to squeeze through the bars again. No dice. Butt and b***s were not allowing that to happen. More swearing. Then as the skinny one got dressed again, the bigger one went back to her trunk and got out a f*****g tire iron. As soon as she started f*****g with the hinges of the gate I was on 911.
The cops took too long and the women left. I showed the cops the video but they couldn't get a license plate number. When my cousin and his wife returned the next week I told them what happened and we watched the tape. He said that he had no idea who the women were but his wife looked pissed. I packed up, thanked them for my "vacation" and left.
She divorced him that Summer.
#13
My neighbour told me years ago that when she checked the footage from her security cams outside her front house she found a guy coming into in her yard picking her flowers and sticking them down the front of his underwear.
He was never seen again. Just once.
Image credits: LuckyMitten
#14
Our neighbours took a massive s**t on my lawn and wiped their a*s with a shirt and left it there in the middle of the night. Caught it all on tape but to this day I am still too scared too confront them.
I just want to know what I did to make them do such a thing.
#15
I have a security system monitor (cams all over the church) mounted near the organ console in the choir loft so I can keep an eye on what's going on downstairs in the church while practicing during the week.
The strangest thing I saw was some guy who came in the church with his dog and started drinking directly from the Holy Water font. Then he held the Holy Water dispenser button so the dog could drink from it, too.
I went downstairs and asked if he'd like to use the men's room instead. He said he wanted his dog to drink Holy Water to make him better behaved, rather than to drink from the toilet.
#16
Fell asleep on the couch that night. Had a bad incident of sleep paralysis. Watched the playback a few hours later of me trying to pull myself out of it. With the night vision being engaged it looks really creepy because eyes glow combined with the slow blinking during the event. It's like watching a zombie version of yourself.
#17
I used to work for a company in California. Pretty small office just off the side of the road. Lots of gang activity around the area. They've got the Ring Doorbell camera so they can safely tell if they can open the door at night.
One night there's a group of guys hanging around looking at our property. We don't think much of it because they leave in about ten minutes. Next day a guy shows up and just walks into our fabrication shop in broad daylight looking around. Never has this happened before. Our boss intervenes immediately:
Boss: "Can I help you?"
Guy: "OH S**T Uh hey there, a-are you guys hiring..?"
Boss: "No. You have five seconds to f**k off."
Guy leaves in a mad dash. We called the cops and they find him walking down the street 5 minutes later. Turns out the gang was planning on robbing our facility while we were on holiday leave and they'd assigned him to scout out the interior.
#18
I saw myself sleep walk into the front yard and stand there in my underwear for a few hours before going back in.
#19
When I lived with my dad, he once had this ambitious raccoon that discovered he never locked the doggy door. So the raccoon would come in, eat a bunch of s**t, and run away before we'd wake up. So he put an automated doggy door in so it only works if my dog went near it with a collar designed to open it.
Image credits: PeanutPicker
#20
I watched a fat raccoon knock over my trash cans, pull out a full garbage bag, drag it up on the hood of my car and then rip it open and feast.
#21
I used to have security cameras on her front porch I was growing up. I grew up in a farming town where everyone knew each other so when something happened they could always identify straight away if they were from our town or not. I used to check the cameras when i was bored and I usually checked what happened around 2-3am I had never found anything weird but this one time a black van with no lights pulled up our driveway (visible from the porch camera). A man jumped up and slowly creeped to our front door, he reached for the door handle and then saw the camera. What happened next was the weird part. He promptly took his hand away from the door handle and started staring and smiling at the camera, he then walks up to it and **LICKS** the camera. He then spins around on one heel, walks back to the van and drives VERY slowly out of the driveway. I told my parents and they contacted the police, who couldn't find anything else about him. We never saw or heard anything about him again.
Image credits: LukiePopz
#22
My friend showed me footage that her home security camera got of a c*ked out neighbour running into her door and shattering the glass with his head. The weird part was that he didn't get hurt, smashed the glass but came out without any damages to the head.
When he approached her door he stopped for a moment and then charged like a bull.
#23
I woke up one morning and my front door was wide open. Scared the s**t out of me but couldn't figure it out as nothing was missing.
Went back and looked at my camera and it turns out at around 4am the door just swings open for no reason. Never figured out why.
#24
I was home alone one day blasting music in my room. My dog was sitting on my staircase where she could see the front door, and my room is right at the top of the stairs. When the song ended, I heard my front door open (we have an alarm system and when a door or window opens, it goes beep beep) and then I heard my dog growling like I’ve never heard before. My gut knew it wasn’t a family member, my dad was out of town and my mom and sister were gone. I texted my mom saying “where are you?” And she said she was at the store.
I called the police and hid in my closet. I live in a safe area and they took 20 MINUTES to come to my house. The operator stayed on the phone with me and told me to stay quiet. When the police and my mom finally got back home, we checked the security cameras. The footage glitched right when the person came into the front door, so all we could see was a tall black silhouette (the light was shining in from behind him). Never found out who it was but they must have left when they either saw my dog or heard that someone was home.
Image credits: rosalie2222
#25
Screen on the security tablet next to my bed lit up rather bright for about 3 to 5 seconds, I ignored it and went back to sleep. The next day i went through the footage and could clearly see a face looking through window on my front door.
This happened several times over the 2 years I lived at that rental property.
#26
My mom woke up to a notification on her phone that someone was at the door. Checked out what it was and some creepy man (who we'd never seen in the neighborhood before) was licking and sucking on the doorknob. Weirdest stuff Ive ever seen LOL.
Image credits: chickenlumps
#27
I got a security camera to keep tabs on my sick cat. The first day I swear every time I connected she turned and stared directly at the camera.
#28
My family had one installed 2 months ago in front of our garage. One night, we got an alert and after watching over the tape, we saw a man doing cartwheels back and forth across our driveway. Very cool.
#29
Not a home camera, but one at work. We had some issues with stuff being stolen out of offices overnight so we set up a camera that recorded to a network share. We placed the camera so that you could really only see the top half of the room, from the desks up, because we were mainly concerned about the change and usb keys that had gone missing. For a couple of weeks there was nothing but the cleaning crew coming in real early or the occasional guard doing routine checks. One day we checked the video from my officemate's computer and saw a guard sit down at my officemate's desk and pick up his deskphone and have a half hour conversation. There was no audio on the video so we skipped through a bunch of the video but the guy was just chilling, talking, laughing, then he seemed to lean forward and get serious in conversation. Then he hung up the phone, stood up, and **pulled up his pants.** We all gasped and wtf'd and then there was a moment of silence before we realized what had happened. My officemate, who was sitting at his desk while we watched the video, and realizing he was sitting in the chair some random guy had just j**ked off in, immediately stood up and threw his chair into the hallway.
#30
Saw a woman talking to herself stealing my trash. I was so confused the week I moved in because everyday I threw trash away my can was empty and I kept convincing myself I was just losing it. Finally got my cameras up and realized what was happening. Turns out the lady went to every can up and down multiple streets every night taking and throwing away trash, found out she had some mental health issues and lived around the corner. Moved the cans to the backyard instead of the side of the house after all that.
