The new owners of 657 Boulevard in Westfield, New Jersey — otherwise known as “The Watcher” house, which recently drew renewed attention following the debut of a Netflix series — have called the police to their property dozens of times since moving there in 2019, according to a bombshell new report from the New York Post.
Westfield police have been summoned to the property 58 times since July 2019 for a variety of reasons, according to the New York Post report.
The infamous house was sold at a discount to Andrew and Allison Carr in 2019 for $959,000 from Derek and Maria Broaddus, the paper reported.
The house has been the subject of intense media attention starting with the New York Magazine story in 2018 that detailed the series of threatening letters sent to the Broaddus’s by a stalker who signed off as “The Watcher” and seemed to be watching the house and their children.
“657 Boulevard is anxious for you to move in. It has been years and years since the young blood ruled the hallways of the house. Have you found all of the secrets it holds yet? Will the young blood play in the basement?” one of the letters received by the Broadus’s read.
A Netflix original series titled “The Watcher” dramatizing the events reported in the article was released in October.
Once the Broadus family sold the home to the Carr’s, many observers wondered whether the chilling communications would continue.
Westfield police told the Post in October 2021 that the new owners have received no threatening communications.
But public records reviewed by the paper show that police have visited the property 58 times, including for two attempted burglaries through the home’s basement — drawing an eerie parallel to The Watcher’s fixation on the basement in their letters.
The first instance took place on Aug. 21, 2019, according to the report, when something tripped the homes burglar alarm. Cops arrived, found nothing and left.
The second instance happened on Oct. 16, 2019, when an alarm went off from the homes basement window. While police records recorded the incident as a “burglary” police once again recovered nothing suspicious when they visited the house.
No further incidents were recorded until May 30, 2020, when police were once again summoned to the house by the burglar alarm in the basement, but once again found nothing askew.
Things stayed relatively quiet since then — save for an unspecified medical incident and a carbon monoxide alarm setting off — until the home’s story was brought to the spotlight once more with the release of the Netflix series, drawing fans of the show to the property to gawk at the house.
Most calls to the police were made in the past month alone, according to the Post — concerning people lurking outside — not inside — the property to get a better look at the house.
Fans of the show — watchers, themselves — seem to be the biggest challenge the home’s current owners face, the most recent calls to police suggest. References to the original “Watcher” were nowhere to be found in the complaints.