4x19: Neighbor Man

[00:00:00] This podcast contains adult language and content. If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Enjoy the show. First of all, I want to apologize for any grammar or language mistakes. English isn't my first language.

[00:00:27] To really understand the story, or maybe how it happened, you need to know a few things. I live in Belgium, and at the time of these events in 2018, I lived at home with my parents, siblings, and my sweet dog.

[00:00:43] Looking back now, maybe my dog was a bit too sweet. Also important to note that my family is all over the place. Everybody is always busy doing something. Everyone has a different rhythm, and some days we live next to each other instead of with each other.

[00:01:03] So that's why at the time I didn't really know who was home and who wasn't. We do love each other though. So in 2018, it was a school night. I woke up to some noises in my room. I was confused and looked at my phone. It was around 3am.

[00:01:23] You know that feeling that you get when you wake up very abruptly and you don't know if you're dreaming or awake? That's the kind of feeling that I had.

[00:01:35] There's a streetlight right outside my window, so even though the curtains were closed, I could still make out some silhouettes and figures. As I had just woken up, I assumed that the silhouette that I saw in my room was my older brother. I wasn't really thinking.

[00:01:53] I was sleep drunk, as you could call it, and I started asking him what he was doing. But he didn't really react. I saw him walking towards my jewelry and asked him again what he was doing. My brother didn't respond.

[00:02:12] I was still laying in bed and I began to feel angry because I had school the next day and I had to get up early. As you do with irritating siblings, I started cursing him out. Yope, get the fuck out! I have school tomorrow.

[00:02:26] Yope is the name of my brother. This time, he looked at me, but again didn't say anything. He started to walk towards my handbag and started looking through it, taking things out. At this point, I was just angry at my brother and finally got out of bed.

[00:02:48] Mind you, the lights are still off. I walked towards him again. What the fuck are you doing? Get out! And I physically started pushing him slightly towards the door. Then he spoke. Where is the money? Where is the money?

[00:03:08] He said it in this very strange, almost fake accent. I seriously started laughing. I still thought that it was my brother. Okay, I don't know if you're drunk or you're just being an asshole, but get out!

[00:03:23] By this time, we were almost out the door and I was still pushing him out. He left and I closed the door. Finally, I thought as I went back to bed, but I started feeling unsettled. I got nervous and scared and started thinking it over.

[00:03:44] Didn't I smell cigarettes? Jope doesn't smoke. Why would he act so strange? So, just to be sure, I texted my brother. Where are you? His answer made my heart sink. I just left the gym. Home in a minute.

[00:04:05] I immediately called him and frantically explained that someone was just in my room. I started crying. I was panicking and asking him what to do. He said to call the police and stay in my room.

[00:04:19] As the gym was very close to our home, my brother got there pretty quickly. I was still upstairs on the phone with the police when I heard him yell a whole lot of cursing and, Get out!

[00:04:34] At that point, I was in the upstairs hallway because my sister woke up and was standing there as well. My father fell asleep downstairs on the couch so when he heard my brother's scream he immediately woke up and knew that something was wrong.

[00:04:50] He went to the downstairs hallway and saw my brother chasing the intruder. At this point, they were already at the front door. My brother managed to take a backpack from the intruder but sadly he got away and fled. My brother did get a good look at him though.

[00:05:10] So, the police came and I was actually in shock. All this time my mother was asleep because she's on strong sleep meds. She woke up during the chase when my sister and I were standing in the hallway. I was crying and she came up to us.

[00:05:27] I frantically told her what had happened and she said, Ah little one, that was a very bad dream. That's one of the things I still laugh about today. While we were talking to the police, we had to describe the person.

[00:05:43] I told them exactly what happened and how he looked. Due to the street light, I could see the clothes that he was wearing. He had a hood on so I didn't see his face and when I was close, he turned his back towards me.

[00:05:58] So, I'm telling the police lady about his black pants and green hoodie and she abruptly stopped me. Green? Your brother said light gray. That's the second time my heart dropped to my knees. There were two guys, not one. Both my brother and I were 100% sure what we saw.

[00:06:19] So there had to be two guys. They took a few iPads, phones, and wallets but luckily my brother took the backpack where there were a lot more valuables that they didn't get away with.

[00:06:32] But the burglars were kind of stupid because we had location services on all our Apple devices and they were still running. A day later when we saw the location, my brother jumped out of his car with my father while on the phone with the police.

[00:06:48] Really, my brother is a badass. Going to the gym at night, he's in the military and chasing the intruder through the house, I wouldn't fuck with him. They waited for the police and they went to the house where the location of our device was found. One guy.

[00:07:06] He was crying and covered in his own piss and puke. They arrested him and he confessed. He said he was high on drugs and it was the first time he ever did anything like that. He was very panicky and crying the whole time.

[00:07:21] My brother recognized him as the intruder that he chased. So that meant that the guy who was in my room was still out there. The guy snitched on the other guy but he was nowhere to be found.

[00:07:31] We all just went on with our lives but I was really scarred. I slept with my lights on for more than a year and every time I would be awake past 3am, I just wouldn't sleep. The intruder they caught went to jail for a year.

[00:07:49] He was a first-time offender and he's now in a rehab program. He sent us a letter or two with our consent and we kind of feel bad for him. He was traumatized as well. But how could we have let him go?

[00:08:05] Half a year ago we heard that the second man was taken into custody. Though I was finally over it. I mean, it wasn't as bad as the beginning but of course I still got scared sometimes. But now they finally caught the man that was in my room.

[00:08:21] What we found out was unsettling by the least. While the dude that pissed himself didn't have a record before this happened, the dude that was in my room was a very experienced criminal. He had multiple possession charges, theft, drunk driving and worst of all, assault and attempted homicide.

[00:08:41] The man I talked to, cursed out and pushed out of my room at 3am was very dangerous and I'm very happy to be alive. I'm around 18 years old at the time of this story, sitting in my bedroom and no bullshit, watching The Purge for the first time.

[00:09:14] My bedroom window only had one latch out of the two that was locked because I would smoke out of it at night being too afraid to go outside alone around 1am. So during the movie, I kept hearing this light scratching

[00:09:30] and I thought it was probably another cat under the house. After about 5 minutes I pause the movie and I hear it again but this time it's a little louder. Getting kind of creeped out, I reach under my curtain

[00:09:46] and push the unlocked side of my window down to lock it. Looking back, the fact that one part of my window was fucking pried open should have alarmed me. I sit back down and I hear a loud slam coming from my bathroom.

[00:10:06] I run out to go check and the blinds have fallen off. I ran straight to my parents bedroom and my dad immediately knew something was wrong. He gets up in all of his manly glory with a 45 and his tight white undies

[00:10:23] and runs out the back door to search the yard. He didn't see anyone and we decided to call the cops in the morning. My nephew was staying overnight and we figured there was no point in freaking out. So the next day we take a look around.

[00:10:39] My window had scratch marks from a fucking crowbar and the ledge was dented as if someone was trying to actually pry my window open. Whoever it was wore socks on their hands to try to push up the glass because there weren't handprints, they were just long and dry.

[00:11:01] Mind you, my window was very dirty so you could easily see it. We lived in a very small town in Louisiana so the police chief who knew my parents came to the house for a formal report.

[00:11:13] He kept insisting that it was either a friend or maybe a boyfriend who couldn't get in touch with me. One, after he got to the house, he said, that it was either a friend or maybe a boyfriend who couldn't get in touch with me.

[00:11:29] One, everyone I know knew that my dad was well armed and did not play that shit. Two, my cell is always on and I always answer, especially for friends at one in the morning. Three, that's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard.

[00:11:46] Friends don't wear socks on their hands and try to jimmy your window open, at least not without calling your name first. We never did find out who it was or what they wanted. What still scares me, even ten years later, is that the house was not quiet.

[00:12:07] The TV and a lamp or two were on in the living room. The bathroom light was on and my bedroom was still very well lit since I was watching a horror movie. Yet this person still tried to get in through two different windows.

[00:12:20] The worst part is that if our bathroom window wasn't so shitty, they would have made it in. To keep it open, my mom would use an old broom handle to hold it up and unless there's something keeping it up, it almost immediately slams back down,

[00:12:36] which is most likely why the blinds came down and I heard a loud slam. It may just be me, but I'm pretty sure whoever it was wanted something from our house so badly that they didn't care who was inside or if they were awake.

[00:12:51] If I would have opened that curtain before locking my window, it would have either scared them off or motivated them more to get in if their face was seen. So to the creepy fuck that didn't make it in, let's not meet. Let's go back to 2007 or 2008.

[00:13:19] I was 16 when this began, 18 or 19 when it finally went to court. Picture a Norman Rockwell-esque suburban family. Parents, three kids, a yard, and a dog in blink-and-you'll-miss-it USA. One random day, a neighbor man has a mild dispute with his neighbor.

[00:13:41] As a total warranted response, the neighbor man takes every hose he has and floods their yard. Solid decisions lead to solid consequences, so naturally he was fined for water waste. My parents run the water in small-town USA and because neighbor man lived a block from us,

[00:14:03] he decided to drive over to the water district shouting that he is an acquaintance of my parent. Second solid decision of many to come by neighbor man. Absolutely no one takes kindly to name-dropping, folks, so tuck that gem away under life facts.

[00:14:23] My parent comes in and tells him that even if his kids did this, they would have the same repercussions. Gracefully glossing over the fact that other than maybe driving by, none of us have actually interacted with neighbor man.

[00:14:37] Neighbor man repeats the name of the man working the front desk as well as my parent's name and claims that it's now personal and storms out. My family members and I began to see neighbor man at random places constantly. The DMV, the grocery store, our respective jobs.

[00:14:58] Apparently when your cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs and your parents pay for your house, you have all kinds of time to stalk. It went from random sightings while out and about to phone calls, the cliche 90s type of call. The breathing, the hangups, and I can see you variety.

[00:15:16] At this point, neighbor man was more of an annoyance than scary. But as I have stated, when you underestimate crazy, you lose every time. Neighbor man began parking across from our house, staying from 6pm to 4am, literally just sitting in his car blasting music, staring at the house.

[00:15:39] This fool must have had the determination and bladder of a racehorse because what the fuck, who sits there for 10ish hours? His music was trash too, maybe he was a masochist and into self-harm seeing how he would suffer through shitty music and a full bladder.

[00:16:00] I doubt anyone with a semi-rational concept of social interaction could fathom why. This went from a 3-4 times a week thing to a nightly occurrence.

[00:16:10] Imagine being a 16 year old female that doesn't even feel comfortable enough to change in her own room because of the prospect of him seeing through the blinds somehow. Trying to sleep knowing that he's out there. We were prisoners in our own home. He began to get bolder though.

[00:16:28] He drove his car up onto the sidewalk at my sibling and her partner while they were on the sidewalk out in front coming home from a date. They both had to physically jump out of the way to avoid being hit as he was speeding.

[00:16:42] He made lewd gestures at me when I brought my dog out for a walk and was waiting for my sibling to come out and join us on the walk. It was so bad that I ended up crying and going inside.

[00:16:55] This had been going on for a year at this point. The cops always said the same thing, there's nothing we can do unless there's a threat made against you or someone is harmed. My parents confronted the neighbor man in the street after the incident.

[00:17:12] To which neighbor man called the cops and they came asking us why we were harassing and threatening him. I will never understand why the system waits until you're a victim rather than preventing someone from being victimized. Almost two years in and it's Christmas time.

[00:17:30] One of my parents had a brain aneurysm. Fortunately they made it through without any lingering effects which is extremely rare. I convinced my other parent who had been living at the hospital with their sick partner to come home and take a shower and eat.

[00:17:46] About 9pm we get a knock at the door. A random man in ratty clothes holding a Christmas present says that he's there to deliver it to my family. He calls us by name. We ask who sent him and he says that he can't say.

[00:18:02] We ask who he works for and he shoves the gift at my parent and leaves. We're obviously uncomfortable to open it. My parent decides they need to know what it is and opens the present.

[00:18:16] Inside was a 17 page document of the grounds on why the neighbor man is suing the parent that was currently in the hospital. Even I could tell it was fake with grammatical errors and typos.

[00:18:30] The neighbor man took the time to sit and type this up himself thinking it would scare us. The document and fake details he put did not.

[00:18:40] The fact that this 40 something year old man was so fixated on our family that he sat and typed a 17 page fake document did scare us though.

[00:18:50] Things progress and neighbor man began pacing in front of his car and pretending to have phone calls where he talked about pushing my parents down the stairs or knowing where the kids went to school and work. How easy it would be to access us at any time.

[00:19:11] At the time I worked a closing shift that let me off around 1am. He would be parked next to my car and follow me home.

[00:19:22] One night I even tried to take random roads and he still stayed right behind me pulling up to the house with neighbor man parked across the street. Think neighborhood streets with maybe 5 feet between the car parked on one side and one on the other.

[00:19:38] I would be getting out and running to my door. It was a nightmare. We were all exhausted from not only the aneurysm scare but also living looking over our shoulders. My parents friend told her friend who is the DA about the situation.

[00:19:56] She called and came over to take a look at our case on pro bono. Testifying was a wild ride. We had to put it in official statements prior to being called to the stand.

[00:20:08] We were not allowed to be in the room when a family member was testifying nor were we allowed to talk in the halls as we waited our turn. Imagine reliving 2 years of traumatic experiences, being cross examined where you are made out to be a liar

[00:20:25] and then not being able to have your family comfort or support you afterwards. It was not ideal. There was enough to put him away for over a year and a half as well as grant a felony restraining order. He moved while he was still incarcerated.

[00:20:41] My sister passed while he was in prison and he immediately tried to sue her estate. She was 21 at her death. He did this when he was released.

[00:20:53] He claimed that her testimony from him running his car at her and her partner was false and the only reason he was locked up. This was not the case as there were harassment and stalking charges.

[00:21:05] He also said that the money people donated to a GoFundMe for her accident was something he was entitled to. There's so many more details but this was already long enough so, Neighborman, let's never meet again. You made us prisoners in our own home for years.

[00:21:22] Clearly you are still the same and have not learned a thing from your time locked up. This happened years ago when I was about 17. I'm 30 now and a male for context. When I was a teenager, I lived in Marin County, a quiet suburb just north of San Francisco.

[00:21:49] However, most of my buddies lived in San Francisco and most nights of the week I could be found riding my bicycle back and forth across the Golden Gate Bridge. I enjoyed those long bicycle rides at night.

[00:22:03] I'd often be high as a kite, iPod with my favorite playlist, passing by weirdos and street urchins or admiring the desolate beauty of the bay. One of my favorite places to ride my bike was through the Presidio.

[00:22:19] The Presidio is the last neighborhood you pass in San Francisco before making your way onto the Golden Gate Bridge. It's famous for its old, beautiful military housing, an old airfield and hangars that have been converted into a seaside park and enormous eucalyptus trees and forests.

[00:22:40] At night it's dead quiet and the only people you can see out are late-night Chinese fishermen on the pier down by the water or people flying down the freeway into the city.

[00:22:53] Anyways, this one night I was coming back from hanging out with some friends and riding my bike through the Presidio on my way home.

[00:23:01] I was leisurely gliding down the hills when I noticed a single older black car, something like an Oldsmobile, coming up a road perpendicular to the one that I was coming down.

[00:23:13] As I got closer, the black Oldsmobile took a left, blinding me for a moment with its lights as it passed. I didn't think much of it at the time.

[00:23:24] Here and there you might see a couple cruising to make out by the bridge or a car full of kids going to smoke a joint at the old pet cemetery beneath the highway overpass.

[00:23:36] A few minutes later I had mostly climbed the hill that took you closer to the entrance of the bridge and looked down on Crissy Field.

[00:23:47] This road is dark with barely any lights and I was enjoying looking down towards the water to my right when I heard a car coming from behind me.

[00:23:57] I looked behind me and I saw the same old black Oldsmobile, maybe 20 yards behind me with its lights off, strangely driving at a slow crawl. I tried to wave them past, but the car just kept rolling slowly behind me.

[00:24:18] It was too dark to see who might be driving. The fact that the car had its headlights off almost immediately struck me as a red flag, as well as its obvious slow trailing behind me.

[00:24:33] I gave it a few more yards and tried to wave it past again but nothing. Spooked, I made a sharp left on my bicycle and began bombing down the hill in the opposite direction of the Oldsmobile.

[00:24:47] This route would take me back deeper into a more secluded wooded area by the cemetery and air hangers.

[00:24:55] For a moment I felt relieved until I heard a screeching car and I glanced behind me to see the black Oldsmobile, lights still off, passing behind the trees coming down the same hill as me.

[00:25:11] The Oldsmobile had to have made an extremely unusual U-turn, especially considering how narrow the roads are in the Presidio. Terrified now, I began pedaling faster away from the Oldsmobile, but as I picked up pace so did the Oldsmobile and it quickly began gaining on my tail.

[00:25:34] Using all my strength I pedaled as fast as I could up a small hill and jumped off my bike, throwing it off the edge of the road to the left into some bushes and quickly jumped off the road to hide.

[00:25:48] Hanging off the road on the side of the hill, hidden in ivy, I was just below the road. I looked up but I couldn't see anything, but I could hear the black Oldsmobile pass.

[00:26:02] I waited a few minutes later and I heard the car slowly approaching, no indication from headlights. Then it passed by, but it did this again and again and again for nearly 20 minutes. I hid in the bushes as I heard this Oldsmobile pass back and forth overhead.

[00:26:27] Finally I mustered the courage to get back on my bicycle and ride as fast as I possibly could ride back to the bridge. In the darkness, listening to myself pant, it felt like forever but I finally could see the glaring bright lights of the Golden Gate Bridge.

[00:26:44] But then, again I hear the car. I look behind me and I see the Oldsmobile again trailing me. I fucking smashed and made it to the parking lot of the bridge toll.

[00:26:57] I rode up to the pedestrian sidewalk next to the toll and got off my bike under the light and chain-smoked for a while. I never saw the car pass onto the bridge, nor did I see it again once I made it to Marin.

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