3x29: Someone Living In My Crawlspace?

[00:00:05] My name is Andrew Tate and this is season 3 episode 29 of Let's Not Meet, A True Horror Podcast. Hi everyone and welcome to the season 3 finale of Let's Not Meet, A True Horror Podcast.

[00:00:28] Joining me on this episode are Sapphire Sendalo of Stories with Sapphire, Shelby Scott from Scare You To Sleep, and Sorinarnia from Knife Point Horror. Three of my favorite podcasters. Now, this is an audio excerpt from the live stream episode that we did over at twitch.tv

[00:00:47] forward slash Let's Not Meet streams and if you want to view the video you can head over there and click on the video section of my profile. It should be up for a couple of weeks. After that, it will be available on the Patreon to download.

[00:01:00] Now throughout the episode there will be varying degrees of audio simply because we all produced these live videos separately but I did my very best in post-production to create a cohesive episode and listening experience for all of you. So now enjoy the live presentation of

[00:01:15] Let's Not Meet featuring Sapphire Sendalo, Shelby Scott, and Sorinarnia. So my part of the story starts in 2009. I was a junior in high school. I lived in a small town in Ohio. In the fall, I started to date my first real boyfriend, John.

[00:01:47] John was a senior and many of his friends were dating my friends and he's well-liked and funny at school. I'm thrilled about the relationship, especially because my strict parents seem to like John as well. He's pretty quiet around them, but always polite and appreciative of their presence.

[00:02:06] Since it's a small town, John lived literally down the street and we hung out all of the time. My parents were actually getting divorced at the time, so I liked spending time at his place more than mine.

[00:02:18] John lived with Chris, a man who wasn't his biological dad, but someone he had lived with since around the age of 13 and often called Dad. Chris was an adolescent kid. He was a very quiet kid.

[00:02:31] Chris was an adolescent counselor who knew John because he had been in foster care and he had taken John in. Chris was an amazing human who was fun to be around and it was just the two of them and their pug Murphy at the house.

[00:02:51] I didn't know much about John's childhood at first other than it had clearly been rough enough for him to be involved with children's services. Anyways, we spent a lot of time together and always had such a good time with Chris as well.

[00:03:07] Eventually, John confided in me that he often had suicidal thoughts. I was shook by this and told Chris about it as well. We continued to date and I did my best to support him.

[00:03:20] So the next year, I'm a senior and John is graduated, but he's not really doing anything. He didn't go to college and his plans to join the military weren't working out. So he's just living with Chris and working a part-time job that my dad had gotten for him.

[00:03:37] I've always been into school and extracurriculars and I felt John was holding me back. Our relationship was going downhill in many ways, but I was scared that if I broke it off with John, he might actually kill himself. He had threatened to do so when I tried.

[00:03:55] In May of 2011, I graduated high school and decided that I had to leave the relationship behind. I was having my own depression issues and John was having a detrimental effect on my mental health.

[00:04:08] I finally told him that we had to break up and he needed to stop contacting me, threatening self-harm. I mostly cut off contact and a couple of months later, I got an apartment with a friend about 30 minutes away from home and beside the college that I was attending.

[00:04:24] One Friday night, April 2012, I'm in my hometown to see a friend and I pass John's house where I see police cars everywhere. I'm shocked and I assume that John must have attempted suicide so I immediately call our mutual friend Kyle.

[00:04:41] Kyle has no clue what's going on with John and he says that John had hung out at his house the day before. Kyle says that John seemed like he was in a good mood, especially because he was driving Chris's Beamer at the time, which he loved to do.

[00:04:56] Anyways, Kyle is actually chilling at my apartment with my roommate. This is normal as he had a crush on her. So I just keep driving that way. When I get to my place, Kyle hasn't heard anything but my mom calls me with the scoop.

[00:05:13] She's friends with cop's wives. Small town stuff. It turns out that John murdered Chris and was on the run somewhere. Someone had called for a wellness check after not hearing from Chris for a while and the cops found his body at home.

[00:05:30] I was shocked and a little scared, as were Kyle and my roommate, so we all decided to stay at my roommate's parents' house for the night. By morning, the cops had luckily found and arrested John.

[00:05:43] He had taken the Beamer so it was easily spotted at a run-down motel about 15 miles from his home, about 12 miles from our apartment. When the details came out about the whole thing, it was even more horrifying. It was a brutal homicide

[00:06:00] and it had occurred days before the body was found, which means that John was just hanging out at Kyle's house between committing this act and getting arrested. Just nonchalantly playing video games, telling jokes to Kyle's little sister and acting like everything was fine.

[00:06:17] Meanwhile, he had stuffed Chris's body in their freezer at home. It's insane to think about how someone could be such a psychopath. And there was really no explanation given. John initially tried to plead insanity, but he was eventually deemed incompetent and then pleaded guilty.

[00:06:37] He got 30 to life in prison. I have obviously told this story from my perspective, but the person who really matters in all of this, of course, is the victim. Chris was truly a saint of a human being.

[00:06:51] He had been my role model for so many years and you just wonder how something so horrific could happen to someone so good and at the hands of someone that they had given everything to. Someone that they had loved, trusted, and seen as a son.

[00:07:06] It's horrifying. Chris spent his life advocating for kids like John and the local center he worked at is actually named after him now. I often wonder about the why of it all.

[00:07:19] Chris and John got along almost all of the time and though John clearly had mental health issues, no one thought that he would hurt anyone but himself. But clearly something was very wrong with John that we missed.

[00:07:34] They say hindsight is 20-20 and I can definitely look back and think of a few strange instances with John. Sneaky, manipulative, and angry. He eventually showed all of those traits, but I was lucky enough not to experience any violence at his hands.

[00:07:53] I wish I could say the same for Chris. I'm thankful for the time that I did spend with him and the positive impact that he had on my life during that time.

[00:08:02] I know he had a positive effect on so many other lives as well and may he rest in peace. Hey everyone, okay my dogs are Um ignore my dogs that are yelling in the background Hey everyone, my name is Sapphire Sindalo.

[00:08:36] I am the creator and former host of the Something Scary web series and podcast and i'm a panelist on Paranormal Caught on Camera on the Travel Channel. My current project is the Stories with Sapphire podcast where I share my personal exploration of paranormal and

[00:08:52] supernatural phenomena through stories, interviews, poems, and art. Season two is premiering this Wednesday, and I'd love for you to check it out. Everything you need to know about the show is over at storieswithsapphire.com. That's Sapphire with two b's.

[00:09:13] I've been doing my one hour of outdoor exercise at night because I find it more relaxing. My neighborhood is very quiet and i'm lucky to live in a nice area that i've always considered really safe.

[00:09:26] I used to walk at night even before lockdown because I live right next to a canal, so there are lots of nice paths that are super pretty at night when everything is all lit up by the moon.

[00:09:37] Anyway, I was walking last night and decided to go to the shop first because I was hungry and then detour back to my usual route along the canal. When I was walking, I heard two guys speaking loudly in German. I live in England

[00:09:52] so it was a bit unusual but not anything I thought twice about. They looked around 30 years old, they were pretty tall, and they had these caps on which I remember because they had matching designs that I thought were funny. They started sounding really close behind me

[00:10:09] and when I glanced back to look at them, they started jeering, which confirmed that they were looking at me and it kind of freaked me out so I sped walked towards the shop.

[00:10:20] But I had to come to a stop at the road. I wasn't planning on getting hit by a car. They caught up with me but didn't stop at the road for the lights to change. They just walked across and went into the store I was headed for.

[00:10:32] So I shrugged off my hunger and decided to just go to the canal for my walk. I stopped thinking about the men very soon after, chalking it up to me being a generally anxious person.

[00:10:44] I don't particularly like walking past strangers at night and I'm self-conscious enough as it is without them talking to or about me. Anyway, I completed my walk and I headed back home. So let me describe where I was. On my right there was the water itself.

[00:11:02] I was walking on the path and to my left there's a short fence that separated me from a big drop that goes straight onto the main road. Next to that is a row of houses. In front of me is a railway bridge.

[00:11:16] I had my earphones in and my music was pretty loud, but I thought I heard someone shouting so I took one earphone out and listened. But apart from the passing cars on the road below me, it was pretty silent. That's when I see two men

[00:11:32] heading towards the bridge and I immediately recognized them. It was the two guys who had jeered at me before with their matching caps. I stopped walking as my anxiety flooded back

[00:11:45] and I considered calling somebody because I irrationally thought that if I'm on the phone when they walk past me, maybe they won't bother me. But despite the fact I've been standing frozen for what felt like ages, nobody came out from under the bridge. I waited,

[00:12:02] staring at the bridge for a while in complete confusion because there's no way they could have just vanished. I can see through to the other side of the bridge, so I knew they didn't turn around and walk away or anything.

[00:12:16] But they certainly hadn't walked through because no one passed me. After a few moments, I started to think I hallucinated them or something. I have no history of hallucinations, but I couldn't explain it any other way.

[00:12:30] I started slowly walking towards the mouth of the bridge and just as I'm about to step in, I see it. The shadow of one of the men cast across the wall. My blood literally ran cold as I realized what was going on.

[00:12:49] They were waiting for me at the other side of the bridge, but they must have been hidden behind the abutment so I wouldn't see them. My mind went to a million different places panicking about what they would do if I walked under that bridge.

[00:13:05] I was convinced they'd just follow me. If I stayed where I was and phoned for help, I was certain they'd come out to see what was going on and I'd be trapped. I did the only thing I could think to do.

[00:13:18] I quietly ran to the fence that separated the canal path from the drop to the main road and climbed it. It was only about thigh height and on the other side there was a small space before the wall and drop itself.

[00:13:32] I waited for a couple of moments for all the cars to pass and thankfully I live in a quiet area so the road was empty soon. I managed to navigate myself so I could lower myself off of the drop without A.

[00:13:45] making much noise or B. hurting myself too much. And the moment my feet hit the road, I raced to the side where the houses were and sped walked down that path as fast as I could without making noise.

[00:13:57] Only glancing back when I was nearing the end of the road. The men were still there next to the bridge. I could see that they were looking through the bridge to see where I had gone. I felt sick and terrified, but I made it home.

[00:14:16] I don't know what they wanted. I don't know who they were or if they'll be there again, but I do know I'm not going to be walking at night for a very long time. Strangers under the bridge, let's not meet.

[00:14:41] Hi everyone, I'm Shelby from Scare You to Sleep. Um, I'm so flattered to have been asked to be a part of this. Thank you so much Andy for asking me. Um, so here is the story that Andy wanted me to read to you. It's called

[00:14:55] Someone Living in My Corral Space? Okay. First let me say I debated about posting this here because I may be overreacting about a few weird things that happened in the last couple weeks here at my house. But then I decided to go ahead and post it anyway

[00:15:14] and see what y'all think. And please tell me if i'm overreacting. I won't be offended at all if anyone tells me I'm being silly. First off, our house has a basement slash crawl space, crawl space, crawl space,

[00:15:29] that's only accessible from outside through a door directly underneath my bedroom window and about 10 feet from the bottom of the steps leading up to the back deck. It's a fairly large space, dirt floor and concrete walls,

[00:15:44] clean and plenty big enough for a grown man to stand up in. Until recently it was half full of junk, mostly from our kitchen reno like paint cans and equipment and extra floor tiles and such and had a padlock on it.

[00:15:58] We asked our yard guy to do some extra work that included cleaning it completely out and when it was empty, we didn't bother putting the lock back on it. It has a sliding bolt on it that kept keeps it closed in addition to the little

[00:16:11] loop thingy that you put the padlock on. So we just slid in the bolt and called it good. There was absolutely nothing in it. So no point in locking it. A couple weeks ago, my boyfriend was out on the back deck emptying the recycling bins and

[00:16:26] noticed the door open. Someone would have had to open it. The sliding bolt is a bit rusty and wouldn't easily come open and certainly wouldn't have opened on its own. He went and checked it out. Nobody there. Still completely empty.

[00:16:44] He thinks, well, okay, someone was poking around and didn't find anything interesting. But he did tell me about it and reminded me to keep the doors locked when he isn't home.

[00:16:55] A few days after that, I had the dog outside and he ran straight to the door and started sniffing and scratching at it and I noticed that it was slightly open again. I opened it and went inside and walked around. Nobody there.

[00:17:10] Let me add here that we have a lot of trees and wildlife on our property, including raccoons and groundhogs, in addition to tons of squirrels. We have one huge oak tree that overhangs the roof covering the master bedroom,

[00:17:25] so it's nothing unusual to hear squirrels and other animals on the roof with their little pattering feet and scratching sounds. Yesterday I was here alone, laying in bed reading a book. The house completely silent. Usually the dog will lay in bed with me, but he was fidgety acting.

[00:17:44] He was pacing and just acting weird. I was hearing the usual late afternoon squirrels or whatever on the roof, but then I hear a noise that is clearly the crawlspace door creaking. It's directly underneath the window to my right.

[00:18:02] So I stand up and creep over to the window, crack the shades a tiny bit to peek out, and I see a guy starting up the steps to the back deck, having just exited the crawlspace.

[00:18:16] I immediately said, oh fuck no, drop the shades and headed up the hall directly to the door he was heading for to confront him. At that same moment my dog went nuts, barking and beat me to the door, but he was nowhere in sight when I got there.

[00:18:32] He was wearing a ball cap so I couldn't even have said what color his hair was. I'm guessing my dog scared him away. But what the fuck was he doing walking up on my porch in broad daylight with someone

[00:18:46] obviously home if he hadn't planned on knocking on the door? And no one would knock on that door anyway. People come to the front door to knock, not walk all the way out back in the trees to the backyard.

[00:19:00] I waited a few moments, minutes, waited a few minutes, then got my pepper spray out of my purse and went to investigate. Sure enough, the crawlspace door was open again. No one inside. When my boyfriend got home, he put the padlock back on it,

[00:19:17] then he got my gun out of the safe where it's been for years and insisted I keep it under the mattress on my side of the bed. I only agreed to that after he loaded it with rat shot because I don't think I could shoot a human being.

[00:19:30] Not even in self-defense. And rat shot won't do much more than scare someone with the noise of the gunshot. He was highly pissed at me that I went by myself into the basement to check things out. But I'm more angry than frightened.

[00:19:45] I don't know if I'm overreacting. That just because someone had been inside the basement a few times, I automatically assumed that the man I saw was responsible and meant harm. I'm fairly certain he did come from there though.

[00:19:59] Because I definitely heard the door open just seconds before I saw him on the steps. With it locked up now though, if someone had been routinely in and out, that will stop. Like I said, I just don't know if I'm freaking out over nothing.

[00:20:14] I'm keeping my doors locked. Just in case. Creepy. Thank you again, Andrew for having me on. Bye everybody. I'm so excited to be here and happy season finale. Yay! Bye guys! This occurred in 2017 and is 100% true. Due to a multitude of factors,

[00:20:48] including a recent death of a close friend, I was unbearably depressed at this time in my life. For that reason, my family flew across the country to visit me in LA where I live. We thought it would be nice to visit Catalina Island.

[00:21:05] When we arrived, it became apparent to us that it was the off-season. It was late November. The weather was cold and as a result, the island was nearly empty. Besides locals and a few straggling tourists such as ourselves.

[00:21:19] Our first priority was to ditch our luggage so we could explore the island. So we immediately checked into our motel. Though that word hardly does the place justice. I call it a motel because all the doors to the rooms exited to the outside.

[00:21:34] But in actuality, our room was one of 20 to 30 quaint guest house looking buildings arranged in a sort of horseshoe shape or on the walkway with rooms on either side of the path. The entrance to the motel was essentially one of the points of the horseshoe.

[00:21:50] And if you walked dead straight, you'd reach the room we were given. Essentially on the corner before you have to go right to go further into the horseshoe. So from our room, one path led back to the street, the other further into the secluded maze of rooms.

[00:22:06] Stay with me. After a day of exploring and having just finished dinner, it was time for the cold dark walk back to the room. Catalina Island is a decent distance from the mainland. And let me just say it gets dark. Similarly dark was my headspace

[00:22:26] after the dinner conversation took a left-hand turn and my overwhelming depression got the best of me. I pulled my black hoodie tighter over my freezing ears and walked ahead of my parents to the hotel room telling them I just needed to go to sleep.

[00:22:42] And I did immediately. Depression sometimes makes that easy. I was already losing consciousness as they entered after me, drifting off without so much as a good night. I then woke up to my mom saying my name, a harsh whisper.

[00:23:03] The room had two beds, my parents' bed closer to the door and mine further into the room. My mom's voice cut through the silence again. She sounded concerned for me. I didn't blame her considering my mental state at the time. Groggy, I rolled over. What? I asked.

[00:23:24] As my eyes adjusted to the dim moonlight coming into the curtains, I saw her turn to face me. She was surprised to see me in my bed. Her eyes got wide. If I was in my bed, who was she talking to?

[00:23:43] We both looked back to where she was previously looking to see a hooded figure in all black standing over their bed. I know this is Let's Not Meet and you're reading this knowing a creepy thing is going to happen. It's in the title. But understand how

[00:24:04] horrifically startling it is to be on an island in the middle of the ocean and wake up to see a hooded stranger looming over you. This moment seemed to last forever.

[00:24:17] Life isn't like movies where characters unleash a blood-curdling scream. Sometimes the only thing that comes out is something panicked and guttural. My mom's words became low and severe. She said my dad's name in a dire voice I've never heard her use before.

[00:24:33] Then the hooded figure did something so bizarre and unsettling. It didn't advance towards us, but instead crouched in the corner near where it stood. The way it crouched was so absolutely unexpected even in regards to this already unexpected situation that it terrified me. It seemed animalistic.

[00:24:56] I knew two things. The hooded figure had been standing over us sleeping and it wasn't acting in any sort of way I could understand. As opposed to the infinite moment of this figure standing over us mere seconds ago,

[00:25:11] the series of events that unfolded when my hulking ex-military dad woke up happened in an instant. Suddenly we were out the door not knowing which way the intruder went. My mom was screaming, get him, get him!

[00:25:24] My dad was running down one path of a horseshoe further into the motel shouting through sheer adrenaline, I'm going to fucking kill you! I ran down the other path towards the street. When I got there not a sign of the intruder.

[00:25:43] But it became suspiciously quiet behind me. I ran back to the room to find my dad quietly walking back, his head low. He gets really close to me and I hear him say, it's a fucking kid. The explanation?

[00:26:03] Some young teen tall and lanky as I am in my 20s wearing all black including a black hoodie went into the wrong room, our room. The one time my parents just so happened to forget to lock the door.

[00:26:19] My mom woke up when he entered and seeing a tall person in a black hoodie thought he was me, assumedly leaving the room in a depressive episode. And when the hooded figure crouched, that was him realizing his mistake and panicking. He was scared of us.

[00:26:40] As I got back to the room my mom walked out and hugged this kid. He was now crying his eyes out. I would be too if a massive ex-soldier was sprinting after me with murder in his eyes. So to the now traumatized kid from Catalina Island,

[00:27:03] I look forward to reading your Let's Not Meet of this same event from your perspective. Let's Not Meet of this same event Last night it was around 11 30 p.m. And everyone in my house had gone to sleep already.

[00:27:30] Right now it's just me, my mom and my brother living on our house because my dad still has to go to work and he doesn't want to risk exposing us to COVID-19. So he sleeps in our second home, which is a few minutes away.

[00:27:44] I'm a 21 year old girl and I'm home from college. So I'm staying in my childhood bedroom on the second floor. My window is directly above the part of my backyard where my dad keeps the trash cans to collect rainwater.

[00:27:58] It hasn't rained in the last couple of days. So the trash cans are pretty much empty. There are three trash cans directly under my window. All the lights in the house were off except my bedside lamp.

[00:28:12] I was in my bed texting some friends when I heard a faint screech outside my window. I stopped what I was doing and immediately turned off my lamp. Then I listened again, trying to figure out if it was a cat or a child that I just heard.

[00:28:30] I didn't hear anything. So I chalked it up to being my imagination. But I was on edge as I've never heard a sound like that before. I kept my lamp off though, as I don't have any curtains. I only have vertical shutters and light definitely bleeds through.

[00:28:49] A few more minutes pass and I hear another noise. But this time it sounds like a child's laughter. I froze because I've read stories on Reddit about how people will try to lure unsuspecting victims by playing tapes of babies crying.

[00:29:07] But I never thought it could happen to me. And I know my immediate neighbors on both sides have young children and I wonder if maybe one of them somehow got out of their house.

[00:29:18] My window faces the neighbor to the right of my house and our houses are relatively close together. I know they have a toddler. They also have a giant pit bull who spends some nights outside in their backyard.

[00:29:29] There's maybe 10 feet of space between our houses and we share a fence. So I get out of bed and cautiously walk over to my window. First, I only open my shutter just a sliver as I don't want to be seen if there is someone outside.

[00:29:46] I can't see anything. But I heard the noise a little more clearly now. It's definitely a child's laughter and it sounds close. So I open my shutter completely trying to see who's making that noise. By this time it's almost midnight. But I don't see anyone.

[00:30:05] I keep hearing the laughter though. I try to look into my neighbor's yard but I don't see anything and I don't think their dog is out. I'm really creeped out now so I just go back to my bed and try to get to sleep.

[00:30:20] I've laid in my bed for maybe five minutes and I finally hear a noise outside my window again. I don't know how to describe it but the hairs on my arm and my neck are standing up just as I'm typing this. First, I heard a thud.

[00:30:38] Then it sounded like someone was directly below my window moving the trash cans. I told myself it was probably my neighbor's dog moving around. But I knew it couldn't have been because whenever he's outside he barks. Plus I didn't see him when I looked out the window.

[00:30:55] A few moments pass and I breathe a sigh of relief and relax a little bit. Then I heard a clunk or maybe a knock at my window and I got up again. I was so scared that I couldn't move. I prayed that it was just my imagination.

[00:31:14] Then I heard a louder clunk and I ran out of my room to my mom and told her exactly what happened. My mom turned on all the lights and came to my room and looked out my window. But we didn't see anyone.

[00:31:27] Then she double-checked all of our doors to make sure that they were locked and told me to sleep with her that night. So I moved all of my blankets and pillows to my mom's room and I slept there.

[00:31:38] And today when I woke up, I had already forgotten about the events of last night. I was in my room getting dressed. I was standing in front of my mirror and I saw something was being reflected on my carpet under my window seal.

[00:31:56] I bent down to investigate and realized it was glass. I had a few picture frames by the window and thought one of them must have knocked down when my mom and I looked out the window last night.

[00:32:09] So I look at each picture frame, trying to see which one broke. I scan through the frames once, then I feel my heart drop. I scan through them again to make sure I didn't miss anything the first time. All of my frames are intact and accounted for.

[00:32:28] I slowly reach for my shutters and pull them open. More pieces of glass fall at my feet. And I feel sick. My window is partially broken. My window is partially broken. I scream and my mom comes and I show her my window.

[00:32:48] My mom asked how this could have happened as my window wasn't broken when we looked at it last night. And there's nothing in my backyard that could have caused that.

[00:32:59] My room is on the side of my house, on the second floor, and there are no trees on that side of my house. No trees in my neighbor's yard on that side either. There were also no dead animals or blood, which would signal an animal crashing into

[00:33:16] my window. We don't have a security system or any security cameras. Plus, my dad can't even stay the night with us. I don't want to be afraid to sleep in my own room. So whoever broke my window, let's never meet again.

[00:33:46] Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast. This week you have heard my personal experience with a murderer by reddit user TheCatMom, men under the bridge by reddit user TileCass.

[00:33:58] I heard a child laughing moments before a knock at the window by reddit user ScallopsAndStripes, someone living in my crawlspace by reddit user LuckyEmpress. And finally, I woke up to a hooded figure standing over me by reddit user DK325.

[00:34:15] Thanks to Sapphire Sandalo, Shelby Scott and Sora Narnia for joining me this week on the season three finale of Let's Not Meet. I'll see you guys next week for the season four premiere of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast.