Russell Lea death: Annette Kiss narrowly escaped her home when it was destroyed in an inferno – but five weeks later she was allegedly murdered in a shocking bloodbath by a housemate she’d only just met

A mother-of-two who was allegedly murdered by her new flatmate had only moved into the sharehouse because her former home had burnt down five weeks earlier.

Benjamin Art, 42, allegedly murdered Annette Kiss, 53, at the home they briefly shared in Russell Lea, in Sydney’s west, on Thursday morning using a sword, a meat cleaver, and a claw foot hammer.

Police allege he ran into the house brandishing weapons, yelled at his four housemates to sit down, and started showing Ms Kiss texts from an unknown sender on his phone.

‘You’re trying to set me up, who you got to try and kill me? Who’s the chick texting me?’ he allegedly yelled.

‘You’re trying to set me up or get me killed, now you’re trying to kill me.’

Art allegedly held Ms Kiss by the neck before he grabbed the cleaver, while another female housemate tried to stop the alleged attack with a chair before she fled and called police.

On Friday, a neighbour told Daily Mail Australia the surviving housemates are ‘too traumatised’ to return to the home and collect their things.

Benjamin Art (pictured) has been charged over the alleged violent murder of his housemate

She also said Ms Kiss was a mobile dog groomer with two children who had only moved into the property five weeks earlier because her former home went up in flames when a lithium battery from an e-bike exploded.

According to the local, Art lived in a shed at the front of the property, away from the main house, and Ms Kiss would often stand out the front and burn items in a fire drum after 8pm.

‘Our house would fill up with smoke, I asked her to stop with the burning and offered her our bins and she got a bit sh***y in an “I can do what I want”, type attitude,’ she said. 

‘She was with some unsavoury characters so I backed off a bit and she continued to burn stuff – and I’m talking huge flames each night over the last three weeks.’

The neighbour said she didn’t know what Ms Kiss was burning.

Art was an out-of-work brick-layer who had only lived at the property for two weeks prior to the alleged murder.

NSW Police released a photo of Annette Kiss on Friday afternoon (pictured)

Pictured: Police at the crime scene on Friday, after Benjamin Art allegedly murdered Annette Kiss

When police arrived at the house, they allegedly found him lying on Ms Kiss’ body with a sword.

Another neighbour who saw the arrest said Art was ‘filthy, wearing trackie-dacks’.

‘His feet were black dirty, he was flailing around like a seal on a rock – swearing like a sailor,’ he said.

He was represented by solicitor Javid Faiz in Parramatta Bail Court on Friday. He did not apply for bail but it was formally refused.

‘My client understands the seriousness of the matter,’ Mr Faiz said outside court, according to the Daily Telegraph.

‘He’s instructed me not to make a release application today.’

His matter will return to Burwood Local Court on August 22.

Superintendent Christine McDonald said on Thursday that Art did not have a violent history, and said he was not in a romantic relationship with Ms Kiss.