Police: Stranger barges into home off Evergreen Hwy.; insists it was his house

A stranger barged into a home along the Columbia River and locked himself inside Wednesday night, claiming that the house was his, according to the Vancouver Police Department. A woman and her granddaughter hid from the man in a locked bedroom until police arrived.

Vancouver police Sgt. Mike Chylack said police received a report at about 5:25 p.m. of a man demanding to get inside a house that he claimed was his in the 11000 block of Southeast Evergreen Highway.

By the time police arrived, the man had left, Chylack said. About 25 minutes later the police received a call that a man was at a different home nearby, and that he had gained entry into the house after claiming to live there.

Police said a 72-year-old man who lives off Evergreen Boulevard near Ellsworth Street opened the door to the man, who demanded to get inside, knocked the homeowner to the ground, rushed in and locked the door behind him.

The homeowner’s wife and her granddaughter locked themselves in a bedroom of the home, Chylack said.

Officers arrived, broke through the house’s front door and arrested Irving Diaz-Rodriguez, 18, of Vancouver, on suspicion of first-degree burglary, Chylack said.

No one at either house knows him, Chylack said.

Chylack said no one was seriously injured, but the man who answered the door to the intruder did experience some shortness of breath.

Chylack said police don’t know what made Diaz-Rodriguez claim that he lived in either house.

“Obviously something wasn’t right because in both places it was the same thing: ‘This is my house,’ ” Chylack said.