Nine witnesses, confirmed livestock damage, and a read receipt — the paperwork exists, the response does not

A renter in Laredo, Texas, has documented what nine witnesses describe as a confirmed chupacabra presence beneath the front porch of a residential property at 412 Calle Mesquite, and has notified the property’s landlord via email on two separate occasions. The first email was sent on a Tuesday. The second was sent eleven days later. The second email was marked read at 9:47 in the morning. No response has been issued. The animal, or whatever classification ultimately applies, remains under the porch.

The tenant, Dolores Acuña, 34, works a swing shift at a regional distribution center and has lived at the property for three years without incident beyond a slow drain in the hall bathroom, which she also emailed about and which was also not addressed. She described the current situation as distinct from the drain situation. "I can hear it at night," she told me, standing on the front walk at what I would estimate was a deliberate distance from the porch steps. "It makes a sound like something wet being put down on a tile floor. I don’t know how else to say that." She said it twice and I wrote it down both times because she was right that there’s no better way to say it.

Community Notice

I took pictures. I sent the pictures. The email says read. That’s all I can tell you about what I’ve done.

— Dolores Acuña, Tenant, 412 Calle Mesquite

What Nine People Saw and When They Saw It

The nine witnesses include Acuña, her neighbor Reymundo Garza, two of Garza’s adult sons, a postal carrier named Leticia Fuentes who has requested a route reassignment and declined to comment further, and four individuals who were present on the evening of the 14th when what Garza described as "the thing" emerged partially from beneath the lattice skirting at the base of the porch, regarded the group for what everyone agreed was approximately four seconds, and retreated. Garza’s older son recorded eleven seconds of video on his phone. The first seven seconds are mostly porch. The last four seconds contain something I have now watched forty-three times on a laptop in a motel room off I-35 and cannot fully account for using the categories I normally use. For the record: it is not a coyote. It is not a dog. It is not a possum, or a javelina, or anything else on the standard misidentification list that I keep in the second notebook. The chupacabra classification is the one that holds.

I spoke by phone with the property management company, which operates under the name Suncrest Residential Holdings and is based in San Antonio. A woman who identified herself as a leasing coordinator named Amber told me that maintenance requests are handled on a tiered system and that the company "takes all resident concerns seriously." I asked her what tier a confirmed cryptid presence qualified as. She said she would need to escalate that and took my number. She has not called. I have been here four days and I have eaten at one diner, which I will not be adding to the list because the coffee was wrong in a way I can’t fully articulate but know immediately. I have added Amber’s non-call to the timeline on my office wall, which I will update when I return.

My grandmother always said there were things in this part of Texas that didn’t need your permission to be there. I believed her. I just didn’t think I’d be filing about it with the county.

— Reymundo Garza, Neighbor and Witness

Dolores Acuña is still living in the house. She has placed a motion-sensor light near the porch, which she paid for herself. She has stopped using the front entrance and goes in through the back. She is current on rent. She has not heard back from the landlord. The lease renews in April, and when I asked whether she planned to sign again she looked at the porch for a moment and then looked back at me and said she hadn’t decided. I told her I’d be in the area a few more days. She said to come back if I needed anything. I said I would. I meant it.