Sydney couple shocked to find intruder living in basement of apartment block

A Sydney couple have been left horrified by what they found in their basement, and security were unwilling to help.

A Sydney couple have been left horrified after discovering that a stranger had snuck into their apartment complex and turned the building’s basement into a temporary home.

Adam*, who preferred not to use his last name, told news.com.au the person had broken into the storage cage belonging to him and his girlfriend, put their own lock on it, then hung up blankets for privacy.

Cigarettes were visible from the outside, as was a towel, blankets, toothpaste and containers of vitamins, while a couch appeared to be being used as a bed.

The intruder appears to have been using another neighbour’s storage unit as a wardrobe and it’s assumed they were using shared bathroom facilities on the building’s lower floors.

“When we took a look in it was really concerning,” Adam said.

There was “definitely a live human living here”, he added.

The couple claim they contacted police and apartment security, but both were unwilling to “lift a finger” to help them.

The storage container that belonged to Adam’s girlfriend, which an intruder had boarded up and appeared to reside in.

The signs Adam’s girlfriend put up around the building after she claimed building management and security were not helping.

Someone else’s padlock

Adam’s partner had only recently purchased an apartment from a block built by Meriton in an area in Sydney’s south and the previous owner had left behind a couch in her storage cage.

She noticed pretty quickly that someone else had placed a padlock on the storage compartment and just assumed “it was an opportunistic neighbour”.

But several weeks later when she revisited the storage shed the entire thing was blocked from view by blankets and when she and Adam peered inside, they realised someone had been living there.

Adam immediately called after-hours security, who he slammed as being “dismissive” of the situation and also blamed them for leaving their storage cage unlocked.

“They said ‘it’s so hard to do security, there’s three or four different apartments using the basement area’. They were pre-emptively trying to say anyone could have come in,” Adam recalled.

“But the issue isn’t how they got in there, it’s how we get them out.”

Eventually they called police who took six hours to show up and when they did, said there was little they could do.

The authorities advised Adam to move the stranger’s belongings to force them to leave the premises.

It appeared that the trespasser had moved into other storage units as well.

They appeared to be using this cage as a wardrobe.

‘Not our job’

The couple asked if security could be present while they moved the items out of the storage locker to provide back-up in case the trespasser caught them.

“They said ‘no, not our job’,” Adam said.

Adam’s partner, concerned for her safety, placed posters around the building last Friday warning residents that there was an intruder living downstairs.

Building management promptly took down the posters and sent a stern email to Adam’s girlfriend, saying she had “falsely” represented them.

Over the weekend, Adam and a friend used a pair of bolt cutters to break the lock and remove the person’s belonging, which is where they allege they came across cannabis and other drug paraphernalia.

They dumped the intruder’s items in the nearby bin.

But in another blow, the building management team then accused the pair of illegally dumping rubbish, and said they would be fined if they didn’t remove it.

Adam ended arranging a council pick up service to avoid being charged.

The emailed threat saying they might be fined for dumping the intruder’s belongings near the bins.

A note another neighbour left when they noticed their storage cage was also being used.

“I feel like Meriton has done nothing to assist us,” Adam said.

When news.com.au reached out for comment, Meriton, which is responsible for the building’s management, and the owners corporation, Genesis Strata, blamed the other for the handling of the case.

Meriton claimed they weren’t in charge of hiring or managing security contractors, while Genesis Strata said this fell under Meriton’s remit.

“The building manager has followed the protocol with respect to the issue at hand, in consultation with the strata managers,” a Meriton spokesperson said.

They stated the owner’s corporation had “principal responsibility” for contractors’ behaviour in the building.

They also emphasised that their building management team had never seen the intruder, either in CCTV footage or in real life.

Genesis Strata said the fault lay with Adam and his girlfriend as they were responsible for securing their own property.

“The owners corporation does not (and legally cannot) interfere in an owner’s security arrangements for their own property,” a spokesperson told news.com.au.

“The owner (Adam’s girlfriend) did the right thing by informing building management as soon as she was aware of the intruder, and proper process was followed to immediately involve the police.”

A review is now underway at the apartment block to get to the bottom of how someone was able to sneak in and live in the basement.

It comes as on Tuesday, it was reported that residents in the Mascot Towers units, also in Sydney’s south, learnt that vandals had broken into the property and were occupying units.

“Apparently, people have broken in and are squatting in the units, and there’s a rat infestation,” one of the residents, Brendan Stubbs, told NCA NewsWire.

“I was quite shocked by that. It’s just so upsetting.”

The Mascot Towers have been empty since June 2019, when owners had to evacuate their homes because of structural safety concerns.

And earlier this week, a Melbourne woman realised a stranger had been living in her garage.

The woman, called Kate, revealed she and her former roommate had been living in a property with a separate garage – and had presumed the miscellaneous items inside had belonged to one another.

But when Kate was moving out, her flatmate asked her to grab the belongings in the garage, leading to the unusual discovery.

*Last name withheld over privacy concerns

[e-mail]

Originally published as Sydney couple shocked to find intruder living in basement of apartment block