A shocked resident opened his shed door to find two strangers inside after a knife chase.
The man made the discovery after he returned to his home, in Cambourne Place, Mansfield.
And he shut and bolted the shed door, Nottingham Crown Court heard, with the men inside.
Then he heard a bang on the door, as though it was being kicked open, and defendant Davices Anderson appeared with another man.
Anderson, 18, of Fairisle Close, Clifton, gave himself up, saying: "I give myself up. I don't want to run anymore".
After his arrest, he said: "I don't do knives, but what was I supposed to do? They burst in. I couldn't let them get me".
Anderson fled to the shed from a house where he and another man had jumped over a wall and down an alleyway carrying knives.
Another man, in a group of three, was chasing them with a knife and shouting "where is my ******* money", the court heard.
Police recovered two large kitchen knives from shrubbery.
Anderson was before the court for one offence of possessing a bladed article on March 24.
The court heard he had 12 previous convictions on his record for 15 offences, including two robberies, using threatening behaviour and racially-aggravated harassment.
Barrister Abigail Hill, prosecuting, said of the latest offence: "This was a group of men running around a residential area carrying knives".
Anderson is on a community order, which Judge Timothy Spencer QC said he wanted "to run its course".
He told him in the dock: "This community order seems to be working".
He gave Anderson a 12-month custodial sentence, suspended for two years, and reserved any breaches to himself.
"Stay clean and stay away from weapons," warned the judge.
