Horror as household discover man ‘hiding behind false wall’ at Booking.com rental after eerie clue

A woman and her family were left ‘terrified’ after a ‘horrifying’ rental horror experience at a Booking.com property, claiming to have found a man hidden behind a false wall in the house

A woman and her family were left “terrified” after a “horrifying” experience booking a property to attend a family party after discovering a man concealed behind one of the walls of the house.

Last weekend, Therese reserved a property to stay in with her partner and two children for the night following a family birthday celebration in the area. The dwelling, marketed as not being owner-occupied, was nearby to the event and appeared like the ideal location for an overnight stay, but moments after arriving things started to take a sinister turn.

“I met with the landlord to collect a key,” Therese told Kieran Cuddihy on RTÉ’s Liveline. “That was in a key lock box. “He showed me around the house. He had his clothes in his dryer at the time, and so they were drying away. I was leaving, heading back to the party, and I said, ‘Will you be here tonight when I come back?’ And he went, ‘Oh no, no, I won’t be here’.”, reports the Irish Mirror.

She added: “At the time I didn’t realise when I booked it, the entire piece. It does have advertised the entire home is yours. But even with that regardless, I wouldn’t have minded if he was staying there because B&B hosts still stay in the house sometimes. I just asked, ‘Are you going to be here tonight?’ And he went, ‘No, no, I’ll be gone’.”

Along with the tumble dryer being in use, she found it peculiar the children’s bedroom downstairs was next to a locked room, and while she was uneasy about leaving the kids to stay there, she thought at this point there was nothing she could do about it. Despite this, confident that the property would be vacant when they returned later that evening, the family set off for their celebration.

It was only upon their return that they discovered something genuinely bizarre was happening at the house. When the family got back, they found the washing machine was now running, suggesting the landlord had come back. The key for the property was also attached to a chain in a lockbox outside the dwelling.

“That did make me think that he was here,” she shared. “I knocked off the washing machine because the kids were going to bed at that point, and I was like, ‘I’m going to knock off the washing machine because the single beds were right beside it’.. Feeling put off by the whole situation, Therese asked her partner to check the rooms, which is when they noticed something very strange with the property.”

Feeling unsettled by the entire situation, Therese asked her partner to inspect the rooms, which is when they spotted something extremely peculiar about the property.

“Still I felt a little bit weird. So I said to my partner, ‘Will you go upstairs and just check all the rooms.’ And he went up, then he came back down. He was feeling a little bit weird. We didn’t initially notice that there was like this partition-looking wall.

“It was actually a really thin piece of plasterboard with a nail. So there was no nails on one part. This was in the sitting room, in the living room. So my partner went, ‘What’s behind that?’ Because it looked like it could move. So when he went to move it, it came off.

“It was just darkness behind it and I hear ‘hey, hey’, so we obviously died. And I went, ‘Is there somebody behind that wall?’ And he went, ‘Yes’. Now the man didn’t come out near us, but like straight away, I went to get the kids and just leave right now.”

Therese revealed she encountered the landlord afterwards, who claimed never to have met her previously, and told him how deeply traumatising the experience had been.

“It was pitch black, so you couldn’t say a thing,” Therese said. “And obviously, when you get frightened, you’re not expecting to hear somebody go, ‘Hey, hey’, from a wall, which I thought was just a wall at the time.

“We left, initially had the kids outside. In the end, I did end up meeting him at the front of the house. He said that he didn’t meet me before. And I said to him, ‘Why have you done this? You have traumatised myself and my kids when you easily could have just said, ‘Yes, I will be here later on’…. And he went, ‘Well, my Google reviews don’t say that’.”

Therese said the entire ordeal has put her off booking accommodation that isn’t a hotel in future, explaining how even in her own home she sometimes feels unsafe. “It’s horrifying. It’s so scary,” she said. “I genuinely. The only way to describe it is… I feel like I was on a Netflix documentary. I wouldn’t believe this.

“The blood drained from my face. The kids were frozen in one spot. We had to physically move them. Their jaws had dropped. They heard the hey, and all we could see was this black hole. We didn’t know what size it was, whether it was a small space or big space, and we knew there was a man behind that. It’s the most terrifying feeling ever.

“I’m still not over it,” she continued. “It’s terrifying, and I feel sorry for the kids. Genuinely, will put me off booking any sort of holiday home in the future. I think I’ll probably be hotels from here on in. I don’t think the kids would want to stay. You just don’t feel safe. Even in my own home now, it’s crazy. I know I am safe, but I’m still psychologically affected by it. It’s terrifying.”

Booking.com confirmed that an investigation has been initiated into the incident, and that the listing has been removed while the probe is ongoing.

A Booking.com spokesperson told the Irish Mirror: “We take safety and security very seriously. As soon as we were made aware of this incident, we launched an investigation into the property, which is ongoing.”

They added: “The property has been suspended while the investigation is completed.”

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