A ‘creepy madhouse’ at home of killers

REDLANDS, Calif. — He couldn’t resist taking a little peek inside the killers’ lair, so he just walked inside.

Seconds later, Chris Gribas, a carpenter, was in the middle of a bizarre media scrum, getting a firsthand look Friday at a California apartment authorities described a day earlier as a bombmaking factory.

“It was a madhouse,” Gribas said of the Redlands, Calif., townhouse where killers Syed Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik maintained their arsenal.

“I was really surprised they let people in there. I couldn’t believe it,” Gribas told the Daily News. “I was curious.”

Gribas, who is also a stagehand, lives a few blocks from the townhouse that became an active crime scene after Wednesday’s shooting in San Bernardino that left 14 dead and 21 wounded.

The FBI turned control over to landlord Doyle Miller, 81, on Thursday night. Miller let reporters in on Friday. “I couldn’t believe nobody was guarding the home. I walked by last night too, late, about 1 o’clock, and the FBI was gone,” Gribas said.

Miller removed the plywood covering the front door on Friday morning. Gribas (photo inset) watched a horde of reporters and TV crews rush in — and decided to follow. “It was very messy, like a tornado went through the place. I bet there was probably 70 or 75 people inside,” he said. “People were pushing and shoving.”

Gribas, 59, says he routinely walks the neighborhood as part of his daily workout. He paid particular attention to the townhouse occupied by terrorists Farook, 28, and Malik, 27, because the lights were frequently left on late into the night — especially in the garage.

He said the cluttered house — full of toys for the couple’s 6-month-old daughter, religious books and wall hangings, papers and pictures — gave him a bad vibe. “It was creepy, like we shouldn’t be in there,” he told The News. “It felt like a mausoleum.”