In a viral TikTok video that has left viewers stunned and horrified, a woman known online as Dayna Montique shared a harrowing account of how a man secretly lived in another woman’s apartment closet—wearing her clothes, eating her food, and tracking her every move—for possibly weeks without her knowing.
The chilling story, told from a first-person perspective, actually centers on a woman named Maddie from South Carolina, who became an unsuspecting victim of a rare and deeply disturbing phenomenon known as “frogging.”
Frogging refers to the act of someone surreptitiously living in another person’s home without their knowledge—often hiding in closets, crawl spaces, or attics.
Maddie had been living alone and, for months, suspected something was off. She noticed small, almost dismissible signs—like her jewelry being misplaced, or the bathroom window mysteriously cracked open. She initially brushed it off as paranoia or absentmindedness.
But things escalated.
“I started hearing noises like faint thuds when I was in bed,” she recalled. “Or I’d be watching TV and I’d hear footsteps.” She tried to rationalize it away—maybe it was just creaky pipes in the old building.
Then one night, everything changed.
“I come home and the vibe is just off,” she said in the video. “The air felt so heavy.”
Hearing faint rustling in her room, she opened her closet door—only to find a full-grown man standing there in her clothes, calmly looking back at her.
“You know what this man says to me?” she recounted. ‘I didn’t want to scare you.’“
Maddie backed away and called the police. When authorities arrived, the man was still standing in her closet.
The investigation revealed a disturbing reality: the man had been secretly living in Maddie’s apartment, possibly for weeks. He slept in her bed when she was gone, took showers, ate her groceries, and wore her clothes.
But the most disturbing discovery was a makeshift bed in the crawlspace, along with a notebook. Inside, police found notes detailing Maddie’s daily routine—when she left the house, when she showered, when she slept.
“He’d been tracking me,” she said. “Now I still check my closet every single night because I cannot shake the feeling that someone is still watching.”
The video sparked an avalanche of reactions online.
“You know that’s a thing. It’s called ‘Frogging,’” one viewer commented. “They even have a movie about it.”
Others couldn’t believe the horror.
“I got chills listening to this!!” one user wrote. “Why are you still living there? That’s an immediate reason to break a lease,” another added.
While the video was originally posted by Montique for storytelling purposes, she clarified that she was recounting Maddie’s experience, not her own.
However, the story highlights a growing awareness of the dangers of unnoticed home intrusions—and the very real fear that someone could be watching you from the shadows.
Frogging, while rare, has been documented in various real-life cases and is now a recurring theme in horror films and true crime discussions.
Experts advise that if you notice subtle changes in your home—moved items, unusual noises, or open windows and doors—it’s important to trust your instincts, check hidden spaces, and call authorities if anything seems suspicious.
As unsettling as it sounds, Maddie’s story is a chilling reminder: Sometimes, the scariest things aren’t supernatural. They’re real people hiding in plain sight.
