A real estate agent in Montana got an unexpected surprise when she showed a home over the weekend.
Alyssa Webb, of Billings, told local station KTVQ in an interview that she was taking a prospective buyer through a virtual open house when she opened a door off the garage — and found a man hiding right behind it.
She screamed at the sight of him.
“I thought, ‘Is he going to attack me? Is he going to pull my leg? Is he going to tackle me to the ground?’” Webb said.
Webb said she was able to find him when she started to smell cigarette smoke from the garage. She turned to see where the odor was coming from — and when she turned to one side, she locked eyes with the intruder.
“I very quickly just shut the door and took off running,” said Webb.
Webb has been a real estate representative in the area for the last 5 years and had never before experienced something like this.
She believes the man decided to squat there after seeing a “For Sale” sign on the front lawn.
She was not alone during this encounter; her boyfriend was waiting for her just outside, she revealed. By the time police arrived after a 911 call, the man was gone.
“I think that’s something that can really be talked about in this industry, that maybe ‘For Sale’ signs can be taken away for safety,” Webb said.
“I’m going to have a little trauma to unpack moving forward in my job,” she said, adding, “I show homes in the dark, on the weekends, at night, all hours of the day. And yes, I’m usually by myself.”
Webb also posted her experience to the social media platform TikTok in a series of videos, which have garnered over 7 million views.
She is not the first real estate agent or person involved in the industry to deal with squatters, however.
Comments flooded with fellow real estate agents from around the country, who claimed to have experienced the same situation.
“This is why my mom stopped appraising houses,” one person wrote. “She found people two times and was done. This was the 90’s before cellphones too.”
“My husband’s a general contractor and is remodeling a house and found homeless people in it the other day,” another commented.
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Read More: Real estate agent finds squatter during a virtual house tour