It's hard to imagine anything worse than being burgled during the holiday season.
But how about being burgled, and coming home to find the burglars moved into your home, sold your belongings, and changed the locks on you?
Unbelievable as this may seem, that's exactly what happened to Shayna Rice, who documented her experience in a series of TikTok videos.
Rice first gave a cliffs notes account of the ordeal, appropriately accompanying the video with the caption:
"I cannot make this stuff up."
@glamourice I cannot Make This Stuff Up😭😭 #viral #wtf #help #fyp #viralvideo #fypシ #foryou
The video began with a photo taken from the porch of Rice's apartment, showing police cars in the parking lot, summing up exactly what happened in the overlay:
"Someone moved into our apartment while we were gone."
"Changed our locks, packed all our stuff, and sold some of it, and tried to redecorate."
The video then cut to the police driving into the building's lot, as well as forcibly making their way into Rice's apartment."
Rice noted in the overlay the culprits were "clearly still inside.
And indeed, the video's next shot captured the police escorting a man, whose face could not be seen, away in handcuffs.
Rice then took us on a tour of the apartment after the thieves had been driven away.
The apartment was all but completely emptied out, save for a number of trash bags, what looks like a spare mattress on the floor and some snacks and drinks remaining on a bedside table.
In one of the one minute video's most frightening images, a knife could be seen on the counter, the handle wrapped in cloth, which Rice revealed in the overlay wasn't the only weapon found by the police.
"They had a gun and a knife the police found."
The tour of the ransacked, empty apartment continued, with Rice revealing in the overlay the burglars at least appeared to be festive.
"They went into our storage and put up festive decor."
After showing a small, tinsel Christmas tree standing proudly on the mantelpiece, Rice revealed the most surprising item stolen by these unnamed, unidentified thieves—their dryer.
The video's final shot showed a washing machine, with its lid open, standing next to an open spot from where a dryer was clearly removed.
The 4.4 million viewers of the video were astonished by what they saw.
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With many TikToker's simply demanding more details, Rice subsequently posted a series of follow up videos, going into greater detail of what exactly took place.
WARNING: NSFW language
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Rice first clarified the apartment in the first video is just one of multiple properties she currently resides in.
After she pulled up to the building to pick up her Christmas tree from a storage unit, she noticed the unit was left open and there were a number of boxes on the balcony.
A week or so later, Rice's son's father paid a visit to the apartment, shocked to discover tape over where the deadbolt on the door used to be.
Fearing for his safety, the father decided not to enter the premises, but rather call the management office to see if they had paid a recent visit to the unit.
Before hearing from the management, however, Rice and the father learned from a neighbor she had heard a couple fighting from inside the apartment and had assumed it was the two of them.
On their way to the management office, they paid one more visit to the apartment, to discover the locks on the door had been changed.
Revealing in part two of the four part update management hadn't set foot in their unit, Rice and her son's father immediately called the police.
The police arrived at the scene to discover the changed locks, as well as damage from forced entry on the front door, resulting in the officer requesting back up.
After knocking on the door to no response, the team on the scene forced their way into the apartment after the new lock proved quite the obstacle.
"They had to call the fire department."
"The fire department had to come with the little battle ram, and axe, all that."
"It took a couple hits because they said the lock was really strong."
"They must be professionals, they picked the right lock because it was not going down."
"It was better than whatever lock we had on there clearly."
After finally making their way in, the police did indeed find people inside the unit.
Rice revealed in part three of the update, she could hear the officers identify a gun from inside the unit.
The police then escorted the thieving squatters from the unit, a man and a woman whom Rice did not recognize.
Rice was relieved to see them in handcuffs and even more relieved to see the woman wasn't wearing any of her clothes.
"Honestly I was just a little relieved that when she came down the stairs she wasn’t in one of my little fashion outfts."
"I told my baby’s dad, ‘If this b*tch comes down the stairs and she’s in one of my fashion outfits I’m running up'."
After the police cleared out of the unit, Rice and her boyfriend toured the unit, seeing the barren scene she had documented in her first video.
Rice was mortified to discover they had stolen all of her shoes and purses, as well as her son's toy kitchen, but was astonished to see they actually took the time to decorate.
"She took down some of my decorations too, like she was redecorating my house."
In the fourth update, Rice expressed her disbelief that the thieves were somehow able to steal their dryer, and the one item her son's father hoped they wouldn't steal.
"My son's dad said when we were outside waiting for the police, 'if anything's missing, please don't let it be my air fryer."
"Air Fryer, gone!".
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Rice then revealed the thieves claimed someone gave them permission to stay there, without any evidence to back it up.
Thankfully, Rice revealed she did have renters insurance and anything the thieves left behind in the unit now legally belonged to them, which included a new laptop.
Rice claimed the whole experience was "Like a Lifetime movie", something fellow TIkTokers tended to agree with in the comments.
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In one final update, Rice offered answers to some questions in the comments section, including addressing her multiple residences, which had a number of TikToker's baffled, but which Rice believed to be fairly common.
Rice revealed that thankfully the thieves weren't in the unit long enough to claim squatters rights and their insurance will cover everything they lost.
And while some people poked fun at Rice in the comments, particularly the fact she has multiple apartments, Rice revealed she has found humor in the situation as well and in the end feels fairly lucky.
"Honestly, I'm glad everyone finds it so funny, because we're laughing through it right along with you guys."
"Because honestly, we only lost material things that can be replaced."
@GregAbbott_TX/X
