she told KTLA<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m scared to be here alone.\u201d<\/p>\nMatthews, her husband and their children had been renting the Hemet home in Riverside County for about three months when a series of strange noises began raising questions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I\u2019m in another area of my house, I can hear doors close.\u201d<\/p>\n
The family eventually traced a constantly sounding alarm to an unexpected location: beneath their backyard deck.<\/p>\n
Matthews\u2019 husband and her brother-in-law, Dangelo Phillips, removed a wooden board attached to the deck and uncovered what appeared to be a sizable basement or cellar beneath the home.<\/p>\n
Phillips said they also discovered a tarp and a black tube that appeared to contain drugs.<\/p>\n
The space was not simply empty.<\/p>\n
Inside, the family found cleaning products including bleach, soap and detergent, along with other items that suggested someone had been using or accessing the area.<\/p>\n
Phillips said they also discovered a tarp and a black tube that appeared to contain drugs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s when we found a tarp and a black tube that looked like it had some drugs in it,\u201d Phillips said.<\/p>\n
A Riverside County family was left alarmed after discovering that someone had apparently been living underneath their newly purchased home.<\/p>\n
Since the family removed the wooden board, Matthews said she has not seen anyone entering or leaving the area.<\/p>\n
The hidden area also appeared to have access to the home\u2019s electricity. A fan had been plugged in inside.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can see the door with the fan plugged in down there,\u201d Matthews said. \u201cSo they\u2019ve been using my electricity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matthews said she had never been told about the space beneath the property when she signed the rental papers.<\/p>\n
She contacted Pro Management, the company that manages the home, but said she received no response.<\/p>\n
The Hemet Police Department sent an officer to investigate after Matthews reported what the family had found.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey said if we see anybody down there, to call them,\u201d Matthews said.<\/p>\n
Since the family removed the wooden board, Matthews said she has not seen anyone entering or leaving the area.<\/p>\n
That has done little to ease her concerns. <\/p>\n
She remains worried about who may have known about the hidden space and whether other people could potentially be using it.<\/p>\n
Neighbors told KTLA they were not surprised by the discovery, saying the home has had many tenants come and go, including some who were reportedly problematic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A California family thought they were settling into a new rental home. Instead, they discovered a hidden area…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,723,4182,612,61601,3586],"class_list":["post-430766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-crime","tag-metro","tag-riverside-county","tag-squatters","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}