Knife-wielding creep attempts to rob sleeping man

New York City police are hoping that disturbing footage they've released of a burglar with a knife between his teeth attempting to ransack a home in the dead of night while a middle-aged man slept inside will lead to an arrest.

Hidden camera captured the chilling incident, which happened in Flushing, Queens at around 2:30am on Wednesday.

It shows the thief, wearing a beanie with a pom-pom and emblazoned with the word "diamond", creeping through the house looking for goods to steal.

When the brazen invader gets to the 42-year-old homeowner's bedroom, he drops onto his hands and knees and puts a knife with what looks to be an eight-centimetre blade between his teeth.

At a tortuous pace the prowler somehow spots a Samsung S6 phone on a credenza barely more than a metre away from the bed.

But for all his stealth, the crook blew it at the critical moment – as he tried to swipe the phone, the owner stirred and spooked the creep, who bolted out of the house.

The reader will have little trouble imagining the crawling sensation the resident must have felt upon reviewing the footage, not to mention how discomfiting it is to consider that the would-be thief remains at large.

Crime rates in Flushing, which has a population of around 220,000, are quite high, with around 30,000 property-related incidents reported every year.