Mum who insisted someone was living in loft was put on anti-psychotic medication before police made grave discovery

Several years ago, Chloe was watching TV in her flat when she became convinced someone was living in the loft above her.

The mum lived in a new-build block in Gravesend, Kent, with a loft covering the entirety of the flats on the top floor.

The now 31-year-old kept noticing that a hatch to get into there, in her ceiling, kept being left open and had initially found it strange but didn’t really ‘think anything of it’.

This soon began to escalate for Chloe and she was eventually placed on anti-psychotic medication. However, a call to the police soon revealed the grave truth as it turned out a neighbour had been lying to her.

A friend living downstairs reassured her there was no one on the loft, but she could hear footsteps.

Chloe spoke to her next-door neighbour, who also lived below the loft, to see if he heard anything but: “He said he didn’t hear anything and said it wasn’t true.”

She explained to LBC that when she called everyone they told her it was just in her head.

“No one would believe me” she said. “But I don’t blame the people in my life then.”

Chloe was known to mental health services at the time and suffered with anxiety and PTSD.

A ‘different person now’, she added that she had a condition which meant she could hear different environments.

Chloe continued to be convinced someone was living before her and became too scared to go home. Her friends thought she was ‘hallucinating or having a psychotic episode’.

“I started thinking in my head, maybe it’s not true, maybe I do need to see a doctor,” she said.

"When I saw the doctor, I told them ‘I thinks someone’s in loft and that there people coming in and out my house. I truly believed it’.”

Chloe was placed on quetiapine a ‘second-generation antipsychotic’ that is used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and severe depression.

She’s spoke of this making her feel like a ‘zombie’ and like she was ‘not a real person’.

But after roughly two months of taking it, the latch was opened ‘blatantly’ in front of her, revealing a man in the loft.

“He was staring at me and I ran downstairs to my friend screaming for help,” she recalled.

“She was like ‘calm down’, but I’d had enough, I’d seen him. I’m on anti psychotics and I’m still seeing it.

"If it was in my head then why am I still seeing it?”

Chloe called the police, who went up there and discovered he’d been living there, with bags and backpacks stored. “At the time I was just happy that I was right, I was very smug.”

She also claims her next-door neighbour knew the truth, as it was his homeless friend and had been helping him.

A spokesperson from Moat Housing said: “The safety of our customers is very important to us, as it was at the time of the incident nine years ago.

"Thanks to reports from customers living in the building, we were able to work with the Police to investigate the incident, leading to an arrest.

"We secured the loft space shortly afterwards, and have had no further reports of phrogging.

"This highlights the importance of staying vigilant, and we encourage customers to report concerns to us immediately, so we can work with the right agencies to address them.”