14 DAY TRIAL // Velma Kellen of Yelm, Washington, recently learned she had an unwanted visitor staying with her. She had no idea a squatter had made a home right under her house.
73-year-old Kellen was alerted about the issue by a repairman called in to fix her heating issues. She had just bought a new furnace, and was surprised when it wasn't working.
He found that her ducts had been cut, to divert the warm air to a person living in a small space under the residence.
“Well, I've got good news and bad news. I've got your ducts fixed, but somebody's been living under your house,” he told her, according to her account relayed by Komo News.
”They cut the duct so that the warm air was blowing down on them,” she said. “They were getting all my warm air from the front of the house,” she describes.
Someone probably bunked in the crawl space to get out of the freezing cold.
“I was just amazed when he came in and told me. [...] I couldn't believe it. I thought, golly sakes,” she adds.
Asking the plumber what led him to think that there was someone living there, he showed her an empty beer can and explained that there were more recipients where that had come from. Several cans of beer and one liquor bottle were recovered.
She admits that there were warning signs before that, as she always thought she smelled smoke in her house. Kellen was convinced that it was the smell of marijuana she had felt. The ventilation system would have allowed for the smoke to be carried inside the residence.
Even though she owns three dogs, the small pooches never barked at night, alerting her to the presence of an intruder.
She contacted her insurance company about the problem, and had to pay $500 (€382) to fix the heating system.