Mum who posts videos of house tidying says trolls called police for 'child neglect'
- 10 days ago
A content creator mum who posts house tidying videos says police were called to her home - by trolls who reported 'child neglect'.
Nicole Austin, 25, regularly posts videos of her house looking messy to highlight the realities of keeping the house tidy with four children.
But she says this quickly backfired when police officers showed up at her house to check on her children.
Trolls had apparently reported her for having a messy house - which they claimed was child neglect.
Nicole, a full-time content creator from Worthing, West Sussex, said: "It was traumatizing. It was horrific.
"I was so scared and so upset and so shaken.
"None of my children went to bed until gone 10pm on a school night because the police were in our house.
"They had to check our cupboards and fridge to make sure that we had food in the house.
"After all of that and having to speak to the kids - they were here for around two hours!"
Nicole has been creating content online since the beginning of March and has quickly amassed a 17.5k following.
With the trolling that comes with posting videos of your lives online, Nicole says she wasn't surprised when the police showed up at her door.
She said: "I kind of knew it was going to come but I didn't expect it so soon. I was taken aback a bit.
"Even though I expected it, it was still scary as you can imagine.
"I was just worried about what they would say or if it would escalate.
"I do content creation as a job so I was panicking that the police may ask me to stop."
After a strenuous two hour visit, the police determined that there was nothing in the report and apologized for turning up at night out of the blue.
Nicole said: "The police were quite reassuring but said they expected it might happen again, due to what we post online.
"They also said they would make sure they called ahead if they got another report, to avoid causing more worry to the kids."
This isn't the first time that a troll has reported Nicole.
The previous week, Nicole received a phone call from social services saying they had had a referral for child neglect.
She said: "We had some comments from trolls saying they were going to report us.
"We did reply to them to let them know that our house isn't always this messy and that the kids were fine.
"But days later, we got a call saying that social services had had a referral for child neglect.
"The social worker was great and told us that if we needed any help in the future that we could give them a call then they closed the case."
Police say they only comment if someone is charged with an offence.
Nicole Austin, 25, regularly posts videos of her house looking messy to highlight the realities of keeping the house tidy with four children.
But she says this quickly backfired when police officers showed up at her house to check on her children.
Trolls had apparently reported her for having a messy house - which they claimed was child neglect.
Nicole, a full-time content creator from Worthing, West Sussex, said: "It was traumatizing. It was horrific.
"I was so scared and so upset and so shaken.
"None of my children went to bed until gone 10pm on a school night because the police were in our house.
"They had to check our cupboards and fridge to make sure that we had food in the house.
"After all of that and having to speak to the kids - they were here for around two hours!"
Nicole has been creating content online since the beginning of March and has quickly amassed a 17.5k following.
With the trolling that comes with posting videos of your lives online, Nicole says she wasn't surprised when the police showed up at her door.
She said: "I kind of knew it was going to come but I didn't expect it so soon. I was taken aback a bit.
"Even though I expected it, it was still scary as you can imagine.
"I was just worried about what they would say or if it would escalate.
"I do content creation as a job so I was panicking that the police may ask me to stop."
After a strenuous two hour visit, the police determined that there was nothing in the report and apologized for turning up at night out of the blue.
Nicole said: "The police were quite reassuring but said they expected it might happen again, due to what we post online.
"They also said they would make sure they called ahead if they got another report, to avoid causing more worry to the kids."
This isn't the first time that a troll has reported Nicole.
The previous week, Nicole received a phone call from social services saying they had had a referral for child neglect.
She said: "We had some comments from trolls saying they were going to report us.
"We did reply to them to let them know that our house isn't always this messy and that the kids were fine.
"But days later, we got a call saying that social services had had a referral for child neglect.
"The social worker was great and told us that if we needed any help in the future that we could give them a call then they closed the case."
Police say they only comment if someone is charged with an offence.