Home security cameras capture all the movements of the night, and not all of them are comforting. If you were to sit down and watch hours of home security footage, most of them would be painfully boring, but the few rare happenings could inspire equal parts chills and question marks.

While reviewing security footage can be tedious, there's very little point in having a home security camera if you never check it for intel. Plus, it functions as indisputable evidence if a crime or home invasion ever goes down.

In a popular Reddit thread, people with home security cameras shared the weirdest things they've seen.

1. Kuribohhunter saw a man poop in their shrub.

We bought a new house about 8 months ago, and installed security cameras recently. I looked over footage to see if it was working properly and didn't want to believe what I found.

At around 3am there was a random guy that was briskly walking in and out of my driveway, and kept shifting around. He looked as if he needed to find something. He goes over to one of the bushes on the side (it represents the barrier line) and takes a shit. A fucking shit.

I had to replay it a couple times to make sure i was seeing this correctly. Then i thought "Is that thing still there?"

Turns out it was still in the shrub, guess it was his housewarming gift.

2. lvealey017 could never even wear the sweater again.

I saw someone break into my car, take my sweater out of the front seat, stood there and smelled it for a solid 5-10 minutes. Then put it back and left.

I gave that sweater away that day.

3. ElApplewalrus watched their own sleep paralysis.

Fell asleep on the couch that night. Had a bad incident of sleep paralysis. Watched the playback a few hours later of me trying to pull myself out of it. With the night vision being engaged it looks really creepy because eyes glow combined with the slow blinking during the event. It's like watching a zombie version of yourself.

4. LauraPringlesWilder doesn't know who the man was.

I wasn’t asleep but it was 1am. Both my ring cameras go off, which, because of how they’re angled, means only a full sized adult can be in my yard. I check the notification — dude starts walking up the sidewalk to my yard, camera with flood light kicks on, dude instantly turns around like he was mistaken and goes on to the neighbor’s yard.

Neither us nor the neighbor knew him. Shady.

Mostly I just get videos of cats visiting though

5. inflake_ doesn't know what their dog was looking at.

I wake up at 6 am and just go through my security camera before heading to work. One day while looking through, I just saw my dog staring directly at my room. Skimmed through the different timelines, he did that for 30 minutes. Not sure why.

Edit: the full sized adult thing: one camera is angled down, one is angled out from a raised porch. Thus they only both go off if there is movement in my yard taller than waist high. It’s a great setup, highly recommend.

6. Gracelanr's dogs did their job.

A couple who would drive by at random hours of the day for a full week, would walk up to the house and look at my dogs (pit bulls). Look into each window in the front and even checked the back gate/fence.

The camera was older and had no "notifications" so the only way we knew was the moment they decided to open up the door (while I was home sick) and were subsequently rushed by my dogs. I heard the commotion and grabbed the only weapon I had, a bat, to find the front door open and what looked like a murder scene in my living room.

Blood. Everywhere. All over the floor, the front door, the little entrance way, the window. Turns out I have two very good bois and the idiots went to the hospital to eventually be caught by police. They were going to take my dogs to be in dogfights. Involved in a bunch of other seedy things (drugs, prostitution).

7. thingpaint's cat was freaked by the camera.

I got a security camera to keep tabs on my sick cat. The first day I swear every time I connected she turned and stared directly at the camera.

8. InkblotDoggo saw a man die.

I installed some security cameras after some altercations with a horrible neighbor.

Most I'd see was a squirrel, maybe a raccoon or two. Saw a fox once. That was cool.

One night, I saw a guy walking up and down the street, passing my house over and over again. He seemed to limp more and more with each pass, before he collapsed.

Later found out that guy was on a massive drug trip, and he died there. On the sidewalk. In front of my house. There was blood on that patch for weeks.

EDIT: Turns out he'd killed his then-girlfriend at the time whilst tripping out. Was kindly asked to mention it in the main post by a comment.

9. PeanutPicker's dad had a raccoon mooch.

When I lived with my dad, he once had this ambitious raccoon that discovered he never locked the doggy door. So the raccoon would come in, eat a bunch of shit, and run away before we'd wake up. So he put an automated doggy door in so it only works if my dog went near it with a collar designed to open it.

10. SlytherinAhri doesn't know who let the dog out.

Wasn't asleep, but when I lived with my ex, we had a few security cameras and they send you alerts when there's motion detected. I was at work and got an alert that there was motion in the living room and I figured it was my ex coming home early, but I checked it anyway. Instead, I saw my dog standing in the middle of the living room staring at the wall. He stood there for a minute and then got on the sofa to sleep.

Two things were terrifyingly off about that. 1) my dog was a puppy at the time and was crated when home alone. The crate is made of solid wood, metal grates and has thick and heavy eye/hook latches, so there's no conceivable way he could have opened the door. 2) He was kept in the office, which is located off the hall and we kept the door separating the living room from the hall closed during the day to keep the room cooler for him.

I looked back at the recording because I was very confused and unfortunately, because the hall door was closed I couldn't see how his crate got opened. But the hall door opened on its own and he walked out into the living room about 30 seconds later. The hall door was like a regular bedroom door, it closed with a knob/latch and wouldn't have opened even if you pushed on it. There were no sounds aside from the normal house noises. No cars or people had been in view of the outside cameras since we'd left and no other motion detections had went off.

11. AleenaMorgan caught their neighbor stealing.

We caught a neighbor who stole a package off our front porch that UPS had dropped off. It was an expensive car part (idk what kind, my husband is a car nut).

He was very quick to give it back when the police showed up at his door, because my husband wanted his car stuff rather than press charges and have it go to evidence.

12. Lovelyhairedpianist's boss prevented a robbery.

I used to work for a company in California. Pretty small office just off the side of the road. Lots of gang activity around the area. They've got the Ring Doorbell camera so they can safely tell if they can open the door at night.

One night there's a group of guys hanging around looking at our property. We don't think much of it because they leave in about ten minutes. Next day a guy shows up and just walks into our fabrication shop in broad daylight looking around. Never has this happened before. Our boss intervenes immediately:

Boss: "Can I help you?"

Guy: "OH SHIT Uh hey there, a-are you guys hiring..?"

Boss: "No. You have five seconds to fuck off."

Guy leaves in a mad dash. We called the cops and they find him walking down the street 5 minutes later. Turns out the gang was planning on robbing our facility while we were on holiday leave and they'd assigned him to scout out the interior.

13. ZonaEshe's friend's ex came to their apartment.

I live in an apartment unit right next door to the office. They installed a new security camera for their door which covers a part of mine as well shortly after I moved in.

The office manager knocked on my door a few days after the install and asked me to come look at something. She pulled up footage of the night before that showed a guy pacing in front of my door for six hours! He even left for a couple minutes and came back with something he tried to stick in my door frame a few times. I was asleep the whole time and heard nothing.

Turned out to be a recent ex of a friend of mine. I'd only met him once. Still have no idea how he knew where I lived unless he followed her to my place once as we live close by each other. Cops called, reports filed, they eventually found him. He had been on a pretty bad drug bend since their breakup from what I heard and has no recollection of being there. Meth is a helluva drug.

14. CarlSpencer watched two women fail at a home invasion.

When I was a poor college student my wealthy cousin and his wife went on vacation and offered to let me house-sit to give me a break from my 3 slovenly roommates. They live a few towns over in a very nice house with a huge front lawn and a fancy, tall iron fence and double gates. The fence and gates are about 11 feet high. You have to have a remote to open the gates. That first night I slept so well! I breakfasted like a king and then drove to school. I got back around 5, made a supper fit for a king, and settled down to write an Econ paper.

My cousin has a warning system for when someone drives turns off the road and comes up to the gate. There's a chiming sound and you can look at screens in a couple of different rooms to see who it is so that you can buzz them in. I was deep into my paper when I heard the chime. I was confused at first and checks my 'phone before I realized what it was. I looked from the sofa and could see a movement on the security screen. I stood up and got closer and had a clear view of two women getting out of a white car.

One tried to squeeze between two bars of the gate (impossible) and then the other woman tried to boost her over the top of the gate (hilarious). The top one fell and even from the house I could heard swearing. I was about to press the intercom button and ask WTF was their problem but I was chuckling at their antics and so just watched silently. They peered at the house intently from between the bars like a couple of jailbirds for a while. The skinnier one actually stripped down to her bra and panties and tried to squeeze through the bars again. No dice. Butt and boobs were not allowing that to happen. More swearing.

Then as the skinny one got dressed again, the bigger one went back to her trunk and got out a fucking tire iron. As soon as she started fucking with the hinges of the gate I was on 911. The cops took too long and the women left. I showed the cops the video but they couldn't get a license plate number. When my cousin and his wife returned the next week I told them what happened and we watched the tape. He said that he had no idea who the women were but his wife looked pissed. I packed up, thanked them for my "vacation" and left.

She divorced him that Summer.

15. Archshangz is now scared of themselves.

I put up a camera in my room to record myself when that was a whole fad. I saw myself kicking and crying in my sleep, legitimate tears and also muttering something. I saw myself reach and grab my hair when I curled into a ball. I don’t even remember having a nightmare or anything that night. Definitely a reason to be afraid of myself.

16. SpreadTheSlug saw a video of a man who loved himself some doorbell action.

I saw this one video of some guy in California that went to this house and spent 2 hours licking their security camera/ doorbell - disappeared for a bit and then came back to resume the licking of the camera for another hour or so.

17. captainwizeazz's ghost let themselves out.

I woke up one morning and my front door was wide open. Scared the shit out of me but couldn't figure it out as nothing was missing. Went back and looked at my camera and it turns out at around 4am the door just swings open for no reason. Never figured out why.

18. crashlanding87's neighbors are now worried.

So I'm sitting in my living room at night, just recently moved into my new flat. I'm in a basement flat, own entrance, in a little townhouse on the edge of town. Quiet area, lots of trees, cheap rent and like no public transport or cell reception. I'm living alone for the first time.

I'd just set up the security cameras and hooked them up to a new monitor (the old one was ancient and gigantic). Hadn't figured out where to put the monitor, I'd never had a security system before. It was (at the time) on my work desk, which was at the living room window.

I notice this slight yellow glow out the window out the corner of my eyes, slowly getting brighter. As it does, I notice on the camera that their's a huge ass shadow cast across my door (visible from camera, to the left of the window) that looks kinda animal but weird proportions. I quietly shit myself.

It sits there for while, like a good 10 minutes, moving just enough to make me wonder if I'm imagining it moving. There's a kind of whining/buzzing noise, but it's faint and I might be imagining it. I suddenly find religion.

Then all of a sudden there's a loud POP from inside my building, the glow goes instantly away, there's a sound like a really pissed cat and then really rapid footsteps. I'm in like full cardiac arrest at this point, bathing in my own urine, crying for my mum.

19. LuckyMitten's neighbor lost some flowers to a strange man.

My neighbour told me years ago that when she checked the footage from her security cams outside her front house she found a guy coming into in her yard picking her flowers and sticking them down the front of his underwear.

He was never seen again. Just once.

Flash forward a week or so: I haven't been eaten by a cat shadow monster, though i do have a sudden new interest in exorcisms. I meet the upstairs neighbours (older couple) when they're having trouble getting a large package up the stairs. They offer me tea as thanks. I notice their cat sitting in the window. Its movement reminds me of something, and after a while I realise it's the shadow monster.

I ask a few questions to round out the details. Turns out the neighbours had one of those lights-on-a-sensor which turn on when they detect movement. Cat jumps up to ledge, light turns on. But it was an eco light, so warmed up slow. It then went out. Loudly. I'm too embarrassed/relieved to recant the story, so I make my excuses, leaving the nice couple upstairs with the impression that their new downstairs neighbour is a weirdo who stares at cats, has a really keen interest in light bulbs, and a predilection for nervous laughter. They don't invite me up for tea anymore, but they do ask if I'm OK every time they see me.

20. polypagan's neighbor gassed their birds.

Smelled kerosene in my chicken house (not for first time) one morning. Reviewed cam footage. Good video of neighbor entering with kerosene can and pouring it on my birds. She hates me and my birds. Maybe just me.

People are sharing the weirdest things they've seen on their home security cameras.