Get Out Of My Flat!

Brave Cara saw off a man in her kitchen

- Alex Noone / Danielle Hoffman

There was a noise coming from the kitchen… someone was in my flat.

Alone in my bedroom across the hall, I felt my heartbeat quicken.

Whatever am I going to do?

It was just after 1pm, one afternoon last October.

That morning had been non-stop. After I’d waved my girls Lauryn, 16, and Ellie, 13, off to school, I’d set to work.

A few days before, I’d had a clear-out and sold a pile of unwanted stuff online.

I’d arranged with the buyers to pick it up before that lunchtime and now I was just waiting for the last buyer to collect a top.

I’d made £13 so far, and piled the coins up on the kitchen work surface.

In the last few weeks, I’d made £70 from similar sales.

The money was a real godsend – as a single mum, sometimes it’s a struggle.

I’ve got fibromyalgia – a condition of the nervous system – so being on my feet’s exhausting and by lunchtime I was so tired.

It makes me really sensitive to pain, my muscles are stiff, and it causes awful headaches.

So I decided I’d message the woman who’d bought the top, tell her I’d put it in a bag on my doorstep, then have a nap.

That’s when I heard the noise from the kitchen, like coins being scraped off the work surface. Someone was stealing my money!

Dangerous

Adrenaline surging, I tiptoed across the hall, pushed open the kitchen door.

There he was.