Couple find two men living in their garden shed

A couple were shocked to discover two Eastern European men – believed to be Polish – had set up home at the bottom of their garden. Leo and Mary Hatchett, who live on Margetts Road, Kempston, had no idea that the pair were sleeping in the small shed and using the garden as a toilet, or how long they had been there. While Mr Hatchett was at the back of the house on March 19 he looked up and saw the men and one of them tried to hide behind a tree.

“I asked them what they were doing there and after speaking to each other in an Eastern European language one of them said they were looking for scrap” said Mr Hatchett. “Then they ran off.” On closer inspection, the Hatchetts found a knife, fork and spoon in the shed where they believe the men had been living.

They also think that the duo may have tried to catch their daughter’s pet rabbit Flopsy to eat because on one occasion they had found the hutch open and the animal at one end as if trying to protect itself.



After discovering the men in the garden, the couple contacted the police and their landlord to explain what had happened. They put up a fence panel to prevent them getting in again but on Saturday their eight-year-old daughter was playing in the garden and she saw one of the same men looking into her wendy house.

Mr Hatchett said: “He said he was looking for his friend and said ‘no trouble’. “That’s when it stopped being funny.” The couple have put a lock on the wendy house to prevent the men from getting in there and their landlord has put in a six-foot high gate down the side of the house to keep them out. They have also nailed the door of the sheds shut to ensure they don’t come back to sleep there.

A Bedfordshire police spokesman confirmed that they had received a call on March 19 with reports of two men acting suspiciously around a resident’s shed in Margetts Road, Kempston. They said: “We attended and following police inquiries, it was established that two males appeared to have been sleeping in the shed. No offences were identified as no permanent damage was caused to the shed and there were no signs of forced entry.”