A New York City influencer has issued a grave warning about the importance of locking — and deadbolting — your front door, after a man entered her luxury Manhattan apartment in the middle of the night while she was alone in her bed.
Kate Bartlett, 25, has been living in New York for more than five years, during which time she has built up a huge social media following by sharing regular videos about her favorite fashions, daily routines, and lavish trips abroad.
However, she recently set aside her more light-hearted content to focus on a much more serious topic, opening up about a harrowing encounter that she had with a late-night intruder — and the lessons that the incident taught her about safety, particularly for those who live alone.
At the beginning of the video, Bartlett emphasized that she “debated” telling her story for a “long time.” Ultimately, she decided it was “worth it” if her experience could help to keep “one person safe.”
“So two years ago, a random man broke into my New York City apartment in the middle of the night while I was there,” she said as she warned viewers to keep their doors “locked and deadbolted.”
Bartlett went on to note that the location of her apartment in the high-rise, as well as the round-the-clock security in her building, had given her a false sense of security, particularly because she believed that she was residing in a “very safe” area of the city.
“Two years ago, I was living in a luxury high-rise building downtown, I had a 24-hour doorman and I was on the 42nd floor in a very safe neighborhood,” she explained. The key system in her building was more like a hotel, using key cards rather than the traditional metal keys.
“So the doors to all of the apartments in the building were a key card system. So it wasn’t like a key that you had to turn and lock. It was just like a hotel key card that you would scan and the door would open,” she went on.
“Obviously, you need a key card to open the door, but they also had a deadbolt for an extra layer of protection.”
Bartlett admitted that often, when she slept, she would just close the door and not deadbolt it because the man she was dating at the time would sometimes come by later and had his own key.
“One very, very random weeknight, around 11:45 to midnight, I was going to bed. I had, like, taken my melatonin, my phone was on ‘do not disturb,’ and I was about to fall asleep. I was kind of halfway asleep,” she recalled.
“And since the doors had an electric system, they were very heavy doors, so they would make a very loud noise when they would open or close. So I heard the door open, but this was not a weird thing to happen. Like I said, I thought this was my boyfriend at the time.”
However, what seemed innocent turned out to be the influencer’s worst nightmare as she quickly discovered that the man who had entered her home was not her boyfriend.
“I would say five minutes went by, and I was hearing rustling around and somebody trying to turn on the light switches — which were kind of hard to turn on — moving things around,” Bartlett added. “So eventually, I’m just like, ‘Hello, hello?’ and I am calling out his name and I hear a man’s voice say, ‘No, this is housekeeping.’”
The 25-year-old confessed that her “heart sunk to my feet” in that moment, and she began looking around for what she could use to protect herself, eventually grabbing her tripod as a weapon before inching toward the living room to confront the intruder.
“I hear this man running out, and the door slams shut. I open the door, and I see a man running down the hallway and running down the stairs. I called my building, I called the police. The doorman came, and basically everyone in the building told me that they didn’t believe me, which was really horrible, and they literally asked me if I was hallucinating.
“Next night, the same thing happens to another girl in the same building. Everybody finally believes me now. A few days pass, and they actually end up catching this man in the service elevator,” she added.
However, the influencer revealed that the police were unable to make an arrest.
“Because my building did not have any ‘No trespassing’ signs anywhere, legally, they couldn’t do anything,” she explained. “So they just had to let him go. The same thing happened to about I want to say three or four women in the building I was living in, and I really don’t think that it was targeted, but I actually don’t know.
“Months later, finally they were able to arrest him or do something. I don’t actually know what they did, I moved out.”
At the end of the clip, the content creator urged fans to lock their doors even if they are living in a “luxury building.”
People on the web flocked to the comments section and expressed their shock at the situation, as many thanked the influencer for sharing her story.
According to attorney Girvin Ferlazzo, “no trespassing” signs are not mandatory in New York City and trespassing can still be considered illegal if there are no signs posted.
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