A family was awoken in the dead of night when a confused kangaroo bounded in through a window and left their home smeared with blood in its panic to escape.
The hapless marsupial – since named Norman Bates – came crashing through the glass of a bedroom in the house in Melbourne’s Deer Park district on Saturday night, leaving each room “looking like a scene from Psycho”.
A team from Five Freedoms Animal Rescue were called to the house, where they sedated and treated the kangaroo for his injuries.
Expert Manfred Zabinskas explained: “In a panic, he hopped around the house and smashed the lounge window in his attempt to escape.
“With numerous lacerations from the broken glass, he left each room looking like a scene from Psycho. Eventually, he became exhausted and collapsed at the base of the toilet.”
Norman Bates has been stitched back together by vets and is in the care of the rescue centre while he recovers.
Zabinskas added: “Kangaroos are increasingly caught up in suburban areas as we continue to build new shopping centres, industrial zones and housing estates into the ever-diminishing areas that are traditionally home to kangaroo mobs.
“Poor Norman was not all that far from open fields but took a wrong turn and couldn’t find his way home. With a barrier of houses, fences and closed gates, he saw the window as his only passage out.”
He also praised the family for taking the trouble to call the animal rescue services, instead of just allowing Norman to flee with his injuries.