The panic room fad originated from the upsurge in violent home invasions following the apocalyptic madness of 2000. The major 24-hour news channels began reporting exclusively home invasions by dark individuals in hoods or masks, who by all accounts simply swelled from the depths of surrounding seemingly harmless bogs, dells, and sewers. The televisions rattled and screeched almost non-stop with telephone-call recordings consisting of nothing but faint cries for help, prayers, moans, gasping, screaming, and finally silence as the last, slender copper lifeline to the outside world was brutally sliced. The 24-hour-a-day frenzy ceased as fast as it began, as break-ins became so commonplace that the news stopped reporting them.