'We thought there were animals': She hears 'knocking under the house' for weeks, police discover naked man living in crawl space

A 93-year-old woman and her family living in El Sereno, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, had been hearing strange noises for weeks and didn't understand where they came from. “Most of the time it was late at night. We thought there were animals under the house“testifies Ricardo Silva, the woman's son-in-law, to KNBC.

Last week, the noises intensified. “As if there was a knock on the door. When my wife went around the house, she heard knocks under the house where she passed. She thought something was wrong.”he adds.

A crawl space about sixty centimeters high

The family eventually called the police and when officers arrived, they found a naked man in the crawl space. This is a man identified as Issac Betancourt. He appeared to have been staying under the property for some time. Local police tried for hours to convince the 27-year-old to come out, to no avail.

Tear gas was eventually used to force Isaac out of the crawl space. He was arrested for trespassing. It's unclear exactly how long Isaac had been under the house, but the family believes he was able to stay there for almost six months.

The crawl space itself is onlyabout sixty centimeters high and extends under the entire residence. The family believes he used one of three air vents to come and go. Now she will secure the crawl space to prevent this from happening again.