u/mollyroxy

This happened around two years ago and I still think about it all the time because of how unsafe it made me feel. My family and I had moved into a duplex around 7 months before this occurred, the house wasn’t in the best neighborhood but it was spacious and in our price range. I need to include a bit of background information that will make more sense as the story continues, when we first moved in, the other side was occupied by a nice couple, they were pretty quiet and they moved out shortly after we moved in. After they left the other side of our duplex was completely vacant, the couple had left a washer and dryer they said we could use after they moved out because our unit didn’t have either. It was a bit of a pain to get to the other laundry room as it was in the neighboring backyard, it’s worth noting that we didn’t lock the laundry room because it felt unnecessary as we didn’t think anyone would go through the trouble of hopping the fence. On the day this occurred, my dad came to pick my sister and I up to go to dinner, earlier in the day I put all of my squishmallows into the washer in the neighboring backyard, I had been collecting these Squishmallows for 7 years at this point so I wanted to check on them before we left. I started approaching the backyard when I suddenly saw a man running from that direction, my dad cursed him out and he took off on a bike, I thought that was the end of it. When we came back from dinner the sun had gone down, my squishmallows were still in the washer but I decided not to check on them because I had a really weird feeling about what happened earlier. I went inside and used our downstairs restroom which is located under the stairs, each side of the duplex is a mirrored version of the other so while in the bathroom you could hear if someone was on the stairs in the other side. I heard a huge rumbling above me so I shouted out and asked who was on the stairs, my mother replied that no one was there and I got a horrible feeling in my stomach. I told my mom we needed to call the police and we did, they showed up about 20 minutes later and confirmed there was someone inside the house. I asked the policeman if he thought they would steal my stuffed animals and he laughed and said no. The police banged on the neighboring door and had with a megaphone they yelled at the guy to exit with his hands up. The police eventually had to knock the door handle off with a sledgehammer and bring K-9 units in to clear the scene. The dude was arrested along with another woman who was also residing in the house. We went over to check on the other side the next day and found out the squatters had moved mattresses they found on the street inside and they did in fact steal my squishmallows. They were covered in unknown substances so I had to throw them all away. One of the weirdest experiences of my life, I’m just glad everyone made it out