South Carolina woman heard thumping in her attic for weeks. She discovered her ex, 12 years out touch, is living above and tracking her regularly

Strange noises at home are easy to ignore at first. However, one South Carolina woman knew something was wrong when the sounds above her kept coming back.

Her children thought she was imagining things. Yet after worrying that someone might be inside her home, she had good reason to trust her instincts.

According to a post shared by Weird Facts on Facebook, the incident happened in Rock Hill in September 2012. Tracy, a 41-year-old mother of five, began hearing strange thumping noises inside her home. What was causing them was something she never expected.

The noises were getting harder to ignore

Tracy first noticed something unusual after returning home with her children one Saturday. She and her two older sons checked the attic but found nothing suspicious. Her children even joked that she was getting older and “hearing things.”

Tracy was not convinced. Later that night, she was using her laptop when plaster began falling from the ceiling onto her computer and bed. The bumping and thumping continued above her, leaving her convinced that something, or someone, was moving around in the attic.

She knew the noises were unusual because she was familiar with how her home normally sounded. “I know the sounds of my home,” Tracy explained while recalling why she could not simply dismiss what she was hearing.

ABC News reported that at around 2:30 a.m., the noises woke Tracy again. She called her nephew and asked him to investigate. He walked toward the end of the attic, where a light was out, and found what the family had missed during its earlier search.

A man was hiding inside. Even more unsettling, Tracy knew exactly who he was: her former boyfriend, whom she had broken up with more than 12 years earlier.

Her nephew reportedly found the man sleeping in the home’s heating unit. Once discovered, the ex climbed out of the attic and fled the house on foot before police could arrive.

The attic suggested he had been doing more than briefly hiding there. Tracy found cups containing urine and feces inside and believed her former boyfriend had been staying above the family for at least several days.

How he got inside remained unclear. However, his access to the home without Tracy’s knowledge was not his first connection to the property since their breakup. Tracy explained that he had done some work on the house around a year earlier.

There was also more recent history between the two. The man had been convicted of stealing Tracy’s truck and sentenced to 90 days in jail. He had reportedly been released about two weeks before Tracy’s nephew discovered him hiding in her attic.

The situation became even more disturbing when Tracy’s nephew noticed that the attic gave the man a direct view into her bedroom through the air vents. From there, he could apparently see into the room without being noticed. Tracy was shaken by what her family had uncovered and wanted her former boyfriend charged. “I feel violated,” she told ABC News. 

People reacting to the Facebook post had plenty of questions about the bizarre situation. “I would’ve acted like I didn’t notice and nailed the attic entrance shut,” one person commented. Another joked, “So technically they were together for over 12 years??”

Others focused on how the man managed to stay there at all. “And how did he survive all that time?” one person asked. Another wondered, “12 years and didn’t think to have a 2 minute look up there?” Someone else kept their advice simple: “Call the police on him!” By the time officers arrived, however, the man had already escaped on foot.

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