Video camera catches uninvited guest in Heights home

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A homeowner in the Heights is trying to track a woman down after she was caught on camera walking into their home uninvited in the middle of the day.

She was only inside for a minute and a half. Just that quickly, she walked out with the homeowner's work laptop and his sense of security. He's putting the video out there so enough people see her face that she won't be able to walk into another stranger's house again.

"I work from home typically. I left to go to a meeting for about two hours, accidentally left the front door unlocked," says L.J. Guillotte.

She walked into Guillotte's house calling out for a guy named Drew. When nobody answered, she made a phone call.

"She was on the phone with somebody named Drew, says 'the blue house right' then walks in there, and disappears off camera," Guillotte said.

Nobody named Drew lives here. Just Guillotte, his girlfriend Rachel, their cat, and two dogs.

"My barking dogs didn't do anything about it," he joked.

He went to send an email on his work laptop and it wasn't where he left it, he said. He called Rachel to see if she'd moved it and she hadn't. So he immediately checked the Nest Camera in their living room and saw the intruder.

She walked out with his work laptop in her purse.

"It was an old Dell that weighs about 15 pounds. I don't think anybody would buy it for $10. So she just essentially stole all my intellectual property that's worth nothing to anybody but me."

Five years worth of work out the door, much of that will have to be re-created. The silver lining: that's all she took.

"I had a smartwatch sitting on this table right here. She walked right by that," he said. "She walked in the office, unplugged the computer, put it in her purse, took off, and literally passed up everything in the house that's worth much more than that."

Guillotte says he thought for a second that maybe she really was at the wrong house, but he's pretty sure that's not what this was. HPD is investigating this as a burglary.

He hopes putting the video out will keep her from walking into anyone else's house.

"So what's next is I'm going to get a second camera to put outside," he said.

They'll also get automatic locks for the doors.