A Melbourne woman working alone on Monday afternoon was confronted by an “aggressive serial pest” who was captured on doorbell camera footage telling her to “lock the door and jump in a lake” after she refused a service.
Mikaela Borg was at work at about 3.45pm when the man, dressed in yellow high-vis, approached her at her warehouse in Melbourne’s west.
She says he was trying to sell her an unsolicited service, but his approach left her in tears.
“I am terrified to be in my own workplace,” she said.
Speaking to news.com.au after a video documenting her experience went viral, the entrepreneur said she was shocked by how many others had identical stories about the same man.
“I am absolutely overwhelmed by the amount of people who have experienced this exact same issue with this man spanning across many years. He must be stopped,” she said.
Have you encountered this man? Email rohan.smith1@news.com.au
In the video, Ms Borg says she was targeted by the “aggressive” salesman who walked into her warehouse, tried to enter a private, upstairs area and would not leave.
“Yesterday an incident happened at my warehouse,” she said through tears.
“This man walked in while I was alone and refused to leave. He offered me a discounted … service and when I told him I was not interested and asked him to leave he became very aggressive and tried to go upstairs into my office area.
“He started verbally abusing me. Once I finally got him to leave, he sat out the front and was harassing me.
“The reason why I am making this video is because this man is a well-known serial pest.”
Speaking to news.com.au, Ms Borg said she was packing orders in the back of the warehouse alone “when I heard someone walk through our door which I thought was my partner returning after leaving around an hour before”.
The man, she says, “walked straight past our reception, through our curtains that lead to our warehouse and straight towards me”.
“He asked me if I wanted a car service and when I said ‘no’ and asked who he was he asked to go upstairs into my private office area,” she said.
“I told him there was nobody else here and that he needed to leave which is when he became aggressive, raising his voice and asking me why I’m so rude. He said he wasn’t leaving until he checked upstairs.
“After repeated times of asking him to leave and finally getting him back to the front of the warehouse, he started going upstairs while yelling and swearing at me.
“The last thing I said to him was ‘you can’t walk into people’s warehouses like this’ and he told me to jump into a lake and repeatedly rang our bell.”
News.com.au approached Victoria Police for comment. A police spokesperson said a 46-year-old man from Mernda was “interviewed and released pending summons”.
“Police have interviewed a man following a report of trespass at a business on 11 May,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
“It is alleged a man entered a warehouse and aggressively touted a business service about 3.40pm. When the offer was declined by the sole occupant of the premises, the man became aggressive and refused to leave after being told to. The man eventually left the premises.”
News.com.au has been sent vision of the interaction, as well as a second video — which you can watch above — showing him screaming and swearing at another group of people.
On social media, Ms Borg shared screenshots of messages she had been sent by dozens of individuals.
One of them read: “He barged into our office in the past and was extremely aggressive.”
Another read: “I’m absolutely certain this is the same cretin that came into my office in Melbourne a few weeks ago, walking into offices and trying to intimidate people. He terrified a group of women he cornered in their office and I ended up dragging him out.”
A third message read: “This guy came into our office … was politely declined despite his aggressive attitude. Then he ignored all protocol and just walked through to our warehouse to harass our other employees.”
“Today he did this to multiple people in one area,” Ms Borg said.
“After finding out his name, a quick Google search shows that this is a repetitive pattern that he has been doing for over 12 years and has put multiple people in fear of danger in their own workplace.
“He is currently working for [businesses] around Melbourne. Despite these companies knowing exactly what he is like, he is still working for them.
“I’m hoping that by making this video people are aware of this man and if they are approached by him they do not engage or that they ring the police immediately.”
News.com.au has tracked down a number of online threads accusing the same man of similar behaviour in Victoria and Western Australia. In total, the conversations — posted at different periods during the last 12 months — drew more than 1000 comments.
Ms Borg’s video was shared more than 5000 times and received more than 3000 comments.
Former AFLW star-turned-commentator Abbey Holmes was among those to reach out to her.
“Oh god the fear in your voice is heartbreaking. I hope you’re OK,” she wrote.
Another woman wrote that she had been confronted by the same person on the same night.
“OMG this happened to us last night,” she wrote.
“He walked straight in … Thank goodness we had men around, he walked back out fairly quick.”
In March this year, a different Melbourne community bonded together to issue public warnings about a different man, one they said was approaching women and girls in public and making disparaging remarks about their outfits.
The man is accused of approaching females in cafes, on the street and on public transport around North Melbourne and telling them their “pants are too tight” and their “skirt or shorts are too short”.
Posters were erected around North Melbourne urging members of the public to stay vigilant.
News.com.au spoke to a handful of young women from the area who described the interactions as sexual harassment and who were genuinely worried the behaviour could escalate.
The situation was so serious that a local primary school had reportedly warned parents about the man approaching children.
In one particularly alarming incident, the man allegedly approached a father who was dropping his daughter off at a local kindergarten before telling him the child’s shorts were too short.
A Victoria Police spokesperson told news.com.au that police are “aware of reports of a male approaching people in the North Melbourne area making unsolicited comments”, but said “the man has been spoken to by police and released pending further enquiries to determine if offences have occurred”.
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