I live alone.

Happily, I should add.

Like many women, I’ve cultivated a life that is independent, peaceful and entirely my own. I have a very loveable but very large dog who barks when something is there. I know my neighbours, to a reasonable, normal-person extent. I fastidiously lock my doors.

And, occasionally, I’ll leave shoes by the front porch that aren’t mine.

A very old pair of Birkenstocks, inadvertently left behind by an ex. A pair of men’s shoes.

Most women reading this will know exactly why.

Not because I am necessarily living in fear but because there are a thousand small calculations women make every day that are largely invisible to the men around us.

This week Channel Seven broke the story of an Adelaide woman who discovered a man allegedly living in her roof cavity. On investigation, it’s reported that bedding was found, along with food, crockery and drug paraphernalia.

The details of the story are extraordinary enough.

An older woman living alone in public housing reportedly raised concerns over a period of time, sensing something wasn’t right in her home. She noticed changes in her cat’s behaviour, roof noises that went beyond a potential possum intrusion, moved items around her home and the occasional toilet seat being left up, along with fresh contents.

Eventually, a man was discovered in the roof space above her.

It’s the sort of story I’d normally find myself watching on a Saturday night, tucked up on the couch with dumplings, reassuring myself that things like that don’t happen in real life.

Except, apparently, they do.

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What struck me wasn’t necessarily the story itself – although I suspect I’ll be sleeping a little more lightly for the next few weeks.

It was the reaction to it.

The Premier described the situation as “startling”.

That’s putting it mildly. Horrific feels much closer to the mark.

Speaking on ABC Radio, Housing Minister Nick Champion focused on process, timelines and the precise sequence of events. He reflected on the action taken on maintenance issues last week – while contesting her apparent repeated concerns to the Housing Trust which weren’t documented – and explained how anyone in her position should phone the police.

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It was important to note, he laboured at one point, that the man didn’t fall through the roof. He made a bang.

Which, by the woman’s interview, is true.

It is also entirely beside the point.

In that moment, the gap became obvious and that interview told its own story.

A senior male politician’s voice responding to an experience that many women could imagine with uncomfortable ease.

When I heard about it, I wasn’t wondering whether the man had fallen through the roof or how exactly he came to be discovered.

I was thinking about what it must have felt like to lie awake at night convinced something was wrong in your own home. To, as the woman put it, being made to “feel like you’re stupid” when you raise concerns over and over again.

And then discover you were right.

The bone-chilling realisation that there is a stranger in your home, uninvited.

This case is particularly confronting because it sits at the intersection of several realities.

An older woman.

Living alone.

In public housing.

Raising concerns about her own safety.

None of those things define her. None make her weak. She may not even consider herself vulnerable.

They do, however, shape how a person experiences safety, risk and the consequences of not being believed when something feels wrong.

That is why so many women immediately understood this story in a way the Minister and some of our senior politicians may not have.

We hold our keys between our fingers while walking to the car.

We text our friends when we get home alright.

We keep an eye on our drinks.

We take our headphones off on an evening run.

And yes, some of us leave an old pair of men’s shoes by the front door.

Most of these habits have become so routine we barely notice them anymore.

We are constantly navigating the tension between trusting our instincts and questioning ourselves.

Most of us have, at one point or another, convinced ourselves we were imagining things because the alternative felt too ridiculous.

By the time we say something is wrong, we’ve usually spent hours trying to convince ourselves it isn’t.

This woman’s story is so confronting because that ridiculous alternative turned out to be very real.

State governments spend a great deal of time talking about community safety. Often that conversation focuses on crime statistics, policing resources and policy responses.

But safety is not experienced through statistics. It is experienced through people.

And if the State Government and its agencies are unable to act – and at the very least listen or advise a course of action – in response to the concerns of an older woman living at the sharp end of housing insecurity and social disadvantage, then the safety rhetoric begins to ring hollow.

Politicians will often say that empathy matters. Most would genuinely believe they possess it. The challenge is that empathy only counts if people can see it.

That is where the response to this story felt off-key.

Not because the facts were unimportant.

Not because the process doesn’t matter.

But because the instinct seemed to be to defend the system before acknowledging the experience of the woman at the centre of it.

The question was never whether there was a bang.

The question was why a woman had to be proven right before anyone took her seriously.

Chelsey Potter is a former Liberal staffer, an advocate for safe political workplaces and a proponent of increased women’s representation in parliaments. She has run campaigns for both independent and Liberal women candidates.