Police were searching for a prison escapee, 23-year-old Shaun Primmer, when they swarmed the Lowanna Place home shortly before 7pm Friday. 

The man, who does not wish to be identified, said he heard noises outside and was about to open his front door when it, and the back door, burst in. 

“I’m lucky the door didn’t hit me in the face,” he told the Mercury from his front door, where a hand-written sign now shows the street number. 

“The police had a gun in my face and told me, ‘get the f-ck on the ground’. 

“There was about 10 that came in the house. 

“It scared the sh-t out of me – I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

“My wife’s still traumatised. Our baby was inside crying, my wife was asking to go get him. 

“It wasn’t even a minute, then they realised we’ve got the wrong house. Then they just all ran out the door. It was just chaos. I’ve never experience anything like that in my life.” 

The man said he saw a man - Primmer - arrested at the neighbouring home minutes later. 

The man said a senior police officer later returned and “couldn’t apologise enough” for the mishap.

But he said he and he wife had experienced trouble sleeping since. 

“Sorry aint good enough,” he said. “You wouldn’t think the police would get things like that wrong.” 

Lake Illawarra Local Area Command referred inquiries about the matter to a NSW Police media spokeswoman, who would not elaborate on incident, other than to say: “acting on information, police attended a home on Lowanna Place at Unanderra to locate a male escapee”. 

Primmer was serving the final weeks of a five-month jail sentence for driving and theft offences when he allegedly escaped from the Unanderra Reintegration Centre, a minimum security facility, in between checks late Thursday night and early Monday morning. 

He has since been charged in relation to the alleged escape.