Cops make disturbing discovery after woman hears knocking beneath her home for weeks

Things that go bump in the night usually aren’t anything to concern yourself about.

It could be anything as simple as foxes or raccoons rummaging through your garbage, or picture frames falling down, so, really, not a big deal.

But for a 93-year-old woman in her El Sereno, Los Angeles home, it was something else entirely - and she was right to be worried.

When she told the rest of her family about the knocking that seemed to come from underneath her house, they innocently suggested it was simply animals, but when police were called, they found something a lot more worrisome.

Speaking to local media, the son-in-law of the elderly woman, Ricardo Silva, said: “It was usually late at night, and we just chucked it off to animals being under the house.

“The noises were kind of like knocking. It was kind of like, as my wife was walking, they were kind of knocking back from under the house so she says, 'you know, something's wrong'.”

As a precaution, the family called the police to investigate.

To everyone's surprise, they found a naked man beneath the home, and attempted to convince him to come out from the crawlspace.

The home where the 93-year-old women complained of knocking beneath the floor (NBC News)

Authorities were able to identify the individual as 27-year-old Issac Betancourt.

Speaking about the weirdness of the situation, Silva continued: “He refused to leave. He wasn't scared of the dogs, and the first two attempts at gas didn't fish him out.

“It's a bizarre thing, but it's not probably uncommon, you know, in this day and age, people are looking for shelter.”

After hours of refusing to come out, police had to resort to tear gas, and were eventually able to arrest the 27-year-old for trespassing.

It is not clear whether he gave a reason for being underneath the house.

Silva said the man refused to leave from underneath the home when confronted by police (NBC News)

It is also unclear how long Betancourt had been underneath the home, but the family suspect he could have been there for up to six months, coming and going from the three different crawlspaces underneath the property.

The crawl space is only about 2 feet high and stretches underneath the entire house's structure. The family believe they have identified the main entrance in which the man entered and exited.

They've also said they are taking steps to secure the crawlspace to prevent a similar incident in the future.