The Californian woman climbed out of her second-storey bedroom window early in the morning on Wednesday to hide from a man who broke into her home in Venice Beach, near Los Angeles.

"Once I saw him in the house, I knew that we both couldn't be there," Melora Rivera told CBS news. "I knew that I didn't want to have a confrontation with him of any sort, you know, not knowing what his intention was."

She hid under a window eave, wearing just the flannel shirt she had been sleeping in, and called the police.

A number of policemen arrived within minutes but were reportedly unsure whether Ms Rivera, perched on the roof, was herself the burglar.

"It was my biggest fear was that he was going to be forced by the cops to come hide in basically the same place I was hiding," Ms Rivera said.

A woman who took photos as the drama unfolded told NBC: "I'm zooming in and I'm snapping pictures of her - she's like on the phone - and then this head pops up from the other side of the roof behind her, this figure that was so scary."

The terrifying images of the incident have since gone viral on social media.

Asleep when he broke in, #venicebeach woman scrambles to her roof, but doesn't get far from her stalker. LIVE @ 7:30 pic.twitter.com/jh2HfKwU5P — KTLA 5 Morning News (@KTLAMorningNews) September 25, 2014

Los Angeles resident Melora Rivera had a role in the 2012 Whitney Houston film Sparkle.

The alleged intruder, identified as Christian Hicks, was taken into custody on suspicion of burglary.