Kota Kinabalu: An elderly woman was robbed in her double storey semi-detached house at Taman Yun Kiong in Luyang near Lintas here, on Tuesday, as her housemaid slept through the whole incident.

Eighty-four-year-old, Wong, said she was in the house with her housemaid who was asleep in a bedroom at the back portion of the house when she heard honking at the front door. Thinking it was her 15-year-old grandson coming home from school, she immediately opened the front door only to find two men believed to be Chinese in their 20s, standing there.

"They said they were here to fix a faulty light but I told them that they have the wrong house because my son would usually do all the repairs at home but they insisted and started to come into the house," she said, describing them as wearing long-sleeved shirts with caps and speaking in the Hakka dialect.

She said the moment they stepped in, one of them drew out a machete and told her that they just wanted whatever valuables she had and that they didn't intend to harm her.

"One of them told me to sit and keep quiet, while the other went upstairs to search for valuables," said Wong who was clearly shaken when met at the scene.

She said the incident happened at about 2pm and the culprits made off with valuables estimated to be more than RM10,000 in what she described as a small white vehicle.

"I didn't shout for help to alert my housemaid because I was afraid.

I'm 84-years-old and I'm still very shocked by the whole incident but also grateful that nobody was harmed," she said, adding that she immediately alerted her 50-year-old son who works in Damai after the incident.

It was believed that Wong lived in the house with her son and family.

"I came to the media because I want people to be aware of their surroundings and not to open the front door before identifying who is at the door," she said.