A Philadelphia woman who set up a camera to spot raccoons wreaking havoc on her roof deck picked up an entirely different masked prowler staring back in the dead of night.
The bone-chilling masked figure was caught on a trail camera Saturday night, lurking across the roofs of connected row homes at 2am.
In the video, the unsettling masked man appeared to be poking around on the woman’s porch, assessing her items and maybe even testing her window.
‘It’s very violating,’ the anonymous neighbor told WPVI. ‘I definitely don’t recognize the guy.
‘Don’t know what he was doing up there. He was poking around. It looked like he might have been checking the window or something.’
Neighbors said the prowler managed to gain access to the roofs through a broken alleyway gate near an abandoned house.
Bill Fitch, who lives nearby, saw the masked figure in person the very same evening.
‘He looked down at me, and I thought maybe it’s just a guy on a roof in the middle of the night,’ Fitch told WPVI. ‘I don’t know, I gave him the benefit of the doubt for no reason.’
‘But later, when we went upstairs, I saw him clearly with a ski mask on up on the roofs, with a flashlight, looking to like gain entry into stuff,’ he added. ‘Like he was checking windows.’
Fitch called 911, but the masked man was gone before the police arrived.
Now the entire block lives in fear. Neighbors in the South Philadelphia neighborhood don’t even want the name of their street to get out, for fear of unwanted attention.
‘I feel like he’s going to come back,’ Fitch told WPVI. ‘I feel paranoid, really. We’re locking the doors, we’re double-checking things.’
Fitch began loading heavy items like bicycles against his doorway at night, to make it even more difficult if the mysterious prowler were to come back and try to enter.
The anonymous neighbor who captured the culprit on camera put a ‘No Trespassers’ sign on her roof, which she admitted sounds ‘crazy.’
Residents in the area said they want the city to fix the broken gate, which they alleged allowed the trespasser to mount their roofs.
However, installing gates in city alleyways is an illegal but common practice in Philadelphia.
Because of that, the cost of installation and repairs often falls on property owners.
What would you do if you found a masked stranger prowling around your home in the middle of the night?
According to High Schwartz Law Firm, in Pennsylvania, trespassing refers ‘to entering private property without the owner’s permission.’
That includes homes, yards and even roofs. The offense is punishable by up to $25,000 in fines.
The incident is still being investigated by the Philadelphia Police and the subject has not been identified.
The Daily Mail contacted the Philadelphia Police Department for comment.
