© Hernando County Sheriff’s OfficeSome of Nickcole Dykema’s vast collection of bladed weapons
Coming home to slashed window screens and air conditioner is enough to make anyone feel on edge. Especially when it turns out that a neighbor is armed to the teeth with more than 3,700 machetes, swords and knives hanging on her walls.
Those who live near Nickcole Dykema's mobile home in Brooksville, Florida say that she has been terrorizing the neighborhood for years.
"I was just petrified all the time," next-door neighbor Dorothy Clagg told WTSP.
"She had a habit of banging on the inside of her house all the time on the walls, and screaming and hollering."Paula Deford, another neighbor, caught Dykema on her home security system slicing through the window screens and slashing into her air conditioner with a large knife.
"She cut all the screens on these windows in one incident," Deford told WTSP. There was also a second, similar incident.
And that's what brought police to Dykema's door: The 47-year-old isn't supposed to have any knives. It's a violation of her probation. She was arrested after being caught shoplifting at Dollar Tree in December, stealing chef knives with a sword down her pants and dagger around her waist.
Comment: How convenient.