A woman was trapped under the kitchen floor in this Essendon home. Credit:Alexandra Laskie Metropolitan Fire Brigade Commander Roger Chitty said the woman was "extremely dehydrated and incoherent". "We weren't able to make conversation with her," Commander Chitty said. "But she was very fortunate to be conscious and in the state she was in, considering how long she'd been under the house." The average overnight low in Melbourne over the past week has hovered around a chilly seven degrees.

Neighbours say the house has been vacant for years. Credit:Alexandra Laskie Commander Chittysaid the amount of furniture inside the house made for a difficult rescue operation. Flooring joists and bearers had to be stabilised so as not to collapse on the young woman, who was found lodged in a small space in the centre of the house under the kitchen. The woman was taken to hospital suffering from exposure to cold. Credit:Alexandra Laskie He said it appeared someone lived at the house, but there was no one home while the rescue was underway.

"There was furniture in the house, quite a lot, paintings on the walls, tables and chairs, couches, so it certainly wasn't a vacant house," he said. Commander Chitty said the rescue was one of the more "unusual" operations he had been involved in. Neighbour Janis, who did not give her surname, said she saw a blonde woman picking fence palings off the rear boundary of the property, on the corner of Miller and Violet streets, a week ago. "Last Sunday, about midday, I saw this lady coming up the street looking in, and then she went down the laneway," Janis told Fairfax Media.

"She pulled a couple [of fence palings] off, they were lying near that shed. I assumed she was trying to get in. "I was in my bedroom when I saw her. My partner came in and I said, 'I don't know what she's doing' and he said, 'I reckon she's a squatter'." She described the woman as "quite well dressed", wearing jeans, a red T-shirt, a blue vest and a handbag Janis was adamant it was the same woman who was rescued from under the house. "Oh definitely," she said.

"The firefighter said she'd been there for four days, and I said, 'Mate, she's probably been there since Sunday because that's when I saw her'." Other neighbours said the house appeared to be vacant and had never appeared to be occupied by squatters. Another neighbour, Cathy, said she had never seen a light on inside the house. "We've never seen anyone come or go. The curtains are never open, it's really strange," she said. "My kids call it the Halloween house - they're terrified of it."

Neighbours Rhys Thomas and Rachel Bovey, who moved into the neighbourhood six months ago, said they had never seen anyone at the property. "We thought it was vacant, but these sorts of properties attract this kind of thing. This is one of the strangest things to happen anywhere I've ever lived," Mr Thomas said. The house is the only ramshackle property on well-kept Miller Street, with paint peeling from its walls and an overgrown garden. Another neighbour, who is believed to be a relative of the property owner, declined to comment. The rescued woman was taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital suffering from exposure.

A hospital spokeswoman said she was in a stable condition on Sunday afternoon. Police say they don't know why she was under the floor and are now investigating. "The exact circumstances surrounding the incident are yet to be determined," a Victoria Police spokeswoman said.