Finding extra storage space in your new house should be a bonus, but a viral TikTok shows that not all extra space is created equal. Some of it comes with a pretty significant creep factor.
In a May 14 video, North Carolina-based photographer Noelle (@recklessrevivalco) revealed a secret hiding space in the closet of her cousin’s new home. The video has racked up a staggering 25.9 million views and counting over the last two months.
“My cousin just bought a new house, and I’m scared,” Noelle tells her viewers. She pans her camera through a bedroom into a walk-in closet, finally focusing on a strange door several feet above the closet’s floor.
What did she find?
She opens the door to reveal what appears to be a small playroom with a triangular ceiling, wallpapered with a flowery print with butterfly stickers. The floor is made of disturbingly unfinished plywood.
“And there’s two doors over there,” she says, pointing out two hinged doors wallpapered in the same style as the rest of the room.
“I told her to padlock them because I think someone is living in their walls,” she says.
“Tell me this isn’t the most terrifying thing you’ve ever seen,” she concludes.
“I feel like this is something you’d see on a crime documentary lol,” Khrystle (@khrystle28) wrote in the comments section.
“Why was the first thing I thought of that this was a kidnapper’s house and this was there they hid the children,” SiljeLilje (@sillylilje2001) added.
Another viewer wrote, “As a kid, I would have loved this, as an adult my mind immediately goes to a situation you’d see on Criminal Minds.”
@recklessrevivalco Sleepovers will be at my house…
♬ original sound – recklessrevival_
Was someone in there?
Although Noelle seems to be joking about the situation in the video, the phenomenon of people living secretly in a home’s attics, basements, and hidden crawlspaces is common enough to have its own name: phrogging.
Phrogging is often the result of unhoused individuals or families looking to get a roof over their heads. Notable cases include 58-year-old Tatsuko Horikawa, a woman who secretly lived in a 57-year-old Japanese man’s closet for a year before being caught.
“Jeremy” was the name given to an individual who lived in an off-campus Ohio State student residence. According to USA Today, he lived rent-free in a bedroom behind a basement door that other residents thought was a utility closet.
However, phrogging cases do have a sinister side, perhaps most infamously in the case of Daniel LaPlante. As reported by All That’s Interesting, LaPlante became obsessed with a classmate and later gained entry to her house via a crawl space. He then began to torment her and her family.
LaPlante began impersonating a ghost. TV channels were changed, items were rearranged, milk mysteriously consumed. He even emptied bottles of alcohol without drinking them and scrawled disturbing messages like “marry me” and “I’m in your room. Come and find me,” on the walls in mayonnaise and ketchup. A knife was found pinning a family photograph to the wall.
— All That’s Interesting,
Noelle refers to LaPlante herself in a follow-up video where she also refers to herself as a “true crime” fan.
In the video, she further investigates the door on the far side of the playroom and shows that it only leads to the storage area under the home’s A-frame roof.
Noelle also points out another storage area on the other side of the bedroom. “Someone could very easily live in this room. I’m just saying,” she says.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Noelle via TikTok and Instagram direct message for further comment.
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