KEY POINTS:
From her living room window Gabby Steyn saw at least six patrol cars milling around her quiet suburban street, Keating Rise, late yesterday morning.
Police officers were everywhere, door-knocking every house, "just asking for basic information", she told the Weekend Herald last night.
Two officers interviewed her, but as she answered their questions she noticed, out the large window, at least two more "snooping" around 17 Keating Rise.
The unfinished house, all windows and brick, its front yard raw clay and building debris, was being thoroughly inspected by the officers.
They were peering through windows, disappearing around the sides of the property. Other officers were interviewing builders on the neighbouring property.
About 3pm, a police van drove past her house, up the street, towards number 17.
Mrs Steyn went again to the living room window and saw black-clad officers swarming into the house.
Corricvale Way resident Dennis Cory was walking along the road minutes later when he saw a female St John officer carrying Xin Xin from the house.
"I happened to see a couple of plain police cars there and St John ambulance there. From a distance I saw them carrying the little girl out of the house. They put her in the back of the ambulance ... I went across to the policeman and said, 'Is this the [missing] child and they said, 'Yes this is the child'."
Mr Cory said Xin Xin was wearing a pink skirt or dress and had a white blanket around her upper body. She was cradled in the paramedic's arms and was not crying or upset.
"She seemed okay, she was just floppy, but appeared to be okay. She was obviously quite relaxed."
News of the rescue filled the Steyn house with a mixture of relief and confusion.
"I'm thinking, 'How could I not have seen anything?'" Mrs Steyn said. "That's what's getting to me. I wish we could have done more, because no child should have to go through that."
Mrs Steyn and her husband Ryno had repeatedly walked passed 17 Keating Rise in the past week.
On Tuesday, a friend of theirs reported seeing an Asian man inside the usually empty house, staring out at him as he walked past.
"He looked at [their friend] as if to say, 'What the hell are you staring at?'" she said. "But he didn't think anything of it."
Mr Steyn said: "You'd think we would have seen or heard something. But we saw nothing. Nothing at all. It's so frustrating."
Other neighbours the Weekend Herald spoke to last night had also not noticed any unusual activity in the quiet street in the past week - except for the police and media presence.
The news of Xin Xin's being found so close to their homes did not change their opinions of their neighbourhood, they said.
The Steyns are not so sure. Mrs Steyn said that since they moved into the street a month ago they had let their young children play happily on the street. Now they are more cautious.
Until the details of the kidnapping are made public, confirming whether it was a personal feud or a random act, they would remain "paranoid".
"You just don't know. You do start thinking, 'What about my children?'"
