There is nothing scarier than learning that someone has been inside your home without your knowledge. It’s even worse when the intruder and your family are in the home at the same time. Thankfully, more and more people are investing in surveillance cameras. A family in California is speaking out after their surveillance camera caught a stranger wandering around their apartment in the middle of the night. Although it doesn’t appear that the stranger took anything, it is still a major violation knowing that someone was able to get into your home so easily. Honestly, I don’t know what I would do in that situation.
Surveillance cameras caught the stranger wandering around an apartment complex in Los Angeles’ Leimert Park neighborhood around 3 a.m. on February 24, 2026, KTLA reported. Eventually, he found an open window that led to the Johnson family’s apartment.
“He came to the window, pulled the screen off, lifted up the window, climbed over my couch and he was walking around,” Pazz Johnson told the outlet. “I don’t know what he was doing, but it’s frightening.”
Johnson explained that sometimes, the family leaves the window open at night for airflow. Her daughter likes to sleep on the same couch the man climbed over, she added.
Footage showed the stranger wandering around inside the apartment for a few minutes before he let himself out the front door. But he definitely didn’t leave the apartment the way he found it.
“The screen was off the window,” Pazz Johnson’s husband, Gregory Johnson, told CBS News Los Angeles.
He also noticed the television remotes had been moved around. The intruder also allegedly left a lighter on the floor.
“I don’t smoke,” Gregory Johnson said, per CBS News LA. “That’s when I was like, let me check my cameras. And I’m like, ‘Babe, somebody was in here.’”
The couple said that they were woken up by the sound of their front door’s deadbolt unlocking. Surveillance footage shows the stranger unlocking the front door and leaving. It appeared that he wasn’t interested in anything inside the home.
“My wife left her purse and keys,” Gregory Johnson said. “He walked right past them, didn’t take anything.”
Neighbors also expressed their concern about the incident. “That really scares me,” neighbor Sylva Cox told KTLA. “The fact that he just came in and left. It’s so weird.”
Neighbor Darlene Hester explained to CBS News LA that this isn’t the first time the stranger was spotted wandering around. “He comes in the area quite frequently,” she explained. “You don’t know who lives here anymore. It’s very alarming.”
As for the Johnson family? They’re definitely not keeping windows open in the future. According to KTLA, the Los Angeles Police Department is investigating the incident.
