Natascha Kampusch: 'Wasn’t it enough that I was kidnapped?'

After being held captive in it for eight and a half years Natascha Kampusch now owns the house of horrors that was her prison and says she won't sell it for fear it will be made a 'theme park'.

She did however grant Sunday Night a look inside the house.

The Austrian woman discovered her kidnapper Wolfgang Priklopil had left his home to her after he committed suicide following her escape 10 years ago.

It is not surprising when you consider Natascha, now 28, orchestrated her escape by feigning love for Prikopil over a long period of time, despite his constant abuse.

The escape captured the world's media but not everyone bought Natascha's survival story — her mental fortitude caused some to doubt her claims — and over the years those doubts have continued to plague her.

"Wasn’t it enough that I was kidnapped? Wasn’t it enough? They want an ongoing story. They have no conscience.," she told Sunday Night.

"[It makes me] Angry. Angry. "

It is this ongoing public scrutiny that makes Natascha so protective of her past, and so reluctant to sell the house that was her prison.

"It’s important because I don’t want to have false people in this house."

"I don’t want to have a kind of theme park in here."

Many people believe she should destroy the house that reminds her of so much pain, but the law prevents her from doing it.

"I’m not allowed because there are many bureaucratic hurdles."

"I think it's not, not easy to go there. It's, I'm emotional."

Natascha's life changed forever when she decided to walk alone to school on March 2, 1998, after an argument with her mother.

"He grabbed me by the waist and threw me into the open door into his delivery van, everything happened in one fell swoop,"

"The moment the delivery van door closed behind me I was well aware of the fact that I had been kidnapped, and that I would probably die."

Priklopil had planned for this moment for a long time, painstakingly digging a dungeon below his house to keep his prisoner.

Natascha was locked in the custom built five-metre-square cellar by the unmarried IT specialist.

Its walls were half a metre thick and it was sealed by a steel and concrete door weighing 150 kilos.

He kept an immaculate façade that never aroused suspicion even when police questioned him.

During a nationwide search, police received a tip off about a man with a white van and an unhealthy interest in young girls.

While Natascha lay imprisoned under the house investigators came over to interview Wolfgang Priklopil, who charmed them into believing he had nothing to do with her disappearance.

But behind the façade was a sadistic control freak who relentlessly abused her and forced her to be his slave.

"He had this problem with cleaning," she said.

"That was very important to him [to clean]."

In her dungeon alone for days on end she developed techniques which allowed her to survive.

"I think I had this kind of hope, and, I had this kind of strength in it."

"The secret of my survival was that I forgave the perpetrator and to very strength and to have this hope that maybe I can free myself in the future.

Eventually, Priklopil began bringing Natascha upstairs, and forced her to sleep in his bed.

During the day he used her as a domestic slave and abused her or withheld food as punishment.

"He gave me one carrot or something for two days or more."

But incredibly Natascha had the strength to forge a long-term plot against him.

"He had two parts in his personality, I call the one part the dark side, and the other part the bright side, and it was like a schizophrenic personality maybe?"

"He was, was this inconspicuous and polite person on one side, and the other side, the dark side, he were an brutal person

She pretended to fall in love with her captor and, in return, he began making concessions.

Under constant watch, Natascha was sometimes allowed out into the garden.

And, on August 23, 2006, Priklopil left the gate unlocked while he went to answer the phone.

Natascha ran for her life.

Wolfgang Priklopil was never brought to justice. He committed suicide by throwing himself under a train before police could arrest him.

Natascha showed incredible strength in the years following her escape, being interviewed by media just weeks after she was freed.

She says she understood her kidnapper and even saw his as a victim.

"A normal man wouldn't be able to do this, he had, I'm sure he had.... problems, and, with, with himself, and with his personality, and, he was a victim too I think."

Ten years on, she still cleans the house from top to bottom… everything except the dungeon which has now been filled in.