Renter “terrified” to find strange man in his basement

Wyatt Lanford had recently moved to a new apartment.

He was “petrified” to discover that a squatter had set up home in the basement of the building. 

“I always thought that someone squatting inside your house and you not knowing was […] just some urban legend,” Lanford says in a viral TikTok video. 

He lives in a “beautiful 110-year-old apartment” in Portland, Oregon. 

“I don’t live in the greatest area, but I don’t live in the worst area,” Lanford says. “For the most part, it’s a really great place to live.” 

But the illusion of peace was shattered when he “heard someone screaming or wailing or crying” outside his door one day. 

“It turned into an animalistic growling, almost demonic,” he recalls. “I tried to open the door and as soon as it unlatched, they started screaming in the direction of my door.” 

The noise lasted for around 15 minutes before security came to escort the person out of the building.  

It turned out that was just the beginning of the strange happenings in Lanford’s apartment building. 

“My first clue that something was wrong is that my neighbours in the building were posting notes to our front door, saying that their packages are missing or someone’s clothing was missing from the laundry room.” 

Early one morning, Lanford took his dog Leo downstairs to go to the toilet. While he was down near the basement, he heard a strange shuffling sound coming from inside. 

“I saw a very peculiar-looking man coming out of the basement, and he was staring at me like he had just been caught,” says Lanford. 

He eventually learned from neighbours that the man had been living in the basement for weeks. 

Lanford says he is now “terrified to go into the basement” where the rubbish bins are kept.