KUCHING: A possible housebreaking attempt was foiled by alert residents of Jalan Mendu who banded together armed with golf clubs, sticks and badminton rackets and scared off the would-be thief.

The incident took place around 11pm when a house owner at the residential area, which is located next to Kampung Manggis, heard noises coming from his car porch.

The young man then alerted his father who immediately switched on the lights outside.

To their surprise, the father and son saw a shirtless man with tattoos on his forearm crouching in the car porch and immediately shouted at him, prompting the intruder to dash to the back of their house.

The family immediately called the police and waited for patrol officers to arrive and search the compound of the house.

The intruder, however, was nowhere to be seen.

Barely 30 minutes later, police patrol officers at the scene received word that the intruder had been spotted on the roof of a nearby house.

They rushed over to investigate.

According to the owner, he was about to go to sleep when his house alarm was triggered.

Looking out the window, he saw a shirtless tattoed man squatting on the roof of his car porch.

The commotion attracted the attention of other residents who surrounded the house with the hope of catching the thief.

However, a meticulous search conducted by the police and residents failed to locate the suspect who somehow managed to escape.

Meanwhile, the residents claimed that house breaking incidents had been occurring quite frequently in their neighbourhood with no fewer than four houses being broken into over the past two weeks.

The last incident occurred last Friday which fortunately did not result in any substantial loss.

They believe a gang of up to four men were responsible for the break-ins as they claimed to have seen a number of suspicious characters loitering near their homes at night.