← Scary Stories and Rain
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- [00:00]
Host
Welcome to episode 137 jumping in bloody Puddles. I really hope you enjoy. And if you want to get rid of all of the ads, don't forget you can subscribe for just $2.99 a month and that will get rid of all of them. Like I always say, I highly recommend it if you use this podcast to sleep or relax. Also, if you're not following the podcast on Spotify, please do that. It really helps me out a lot. Last thing, I have a new podcast called Scary Stories and Fire. So if you like these kinds of stories and you'd like to switch up the background, check it out. The link is in the description. Have a great night and thank you for listening. 70,000 people are here and Bob Dylan is the reason for it. Inspired by the true story. For anyone who's gonna hold your attention on stage, you have to kind of be a freak. Are you a freak? Hope so. And starring Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan. He defied everyone. Turn it down he loud to change everything. Make some no BD Timothy Chalamet Edward Norton Elle Fanny Monica Barbara A complete unknown now playing only in peters Rudy Bar under 1790 minute without parrot this episode is brought to you by US Cellular. Don't sacrifice a great experience for a great deal. Now with US Cellular Prepaid, you'll get a new Samsung Galaxy A15.5G free without the hidden fees you get with other prepaid providers so you can use U.S. cellular's nationwide 5G coverage without sacrificing anything. Terms apply. Visit uscellular.com for details.
- [01:32]
Sponsor
This episode is brought to you by United Airlines. When you want to make the most of your vacation, book with United. They're an airline that cares about your travels as much as you do. United is transforming the flying experience with Bluetooth connectivity, screens, power at every seat, and bigger overhead bins to help fit everyone's bag. And with their app, you can skip the bag check line, get live updates and more. Change the way you fly. Book your next trip today@united.com it was.
- [02:05]
Host
Summer of 2007 and my best friend and his girlfriend suggested that I get a date and we all go to some local hot pots, which are natural hot springs located deep in a nearby canyon not too far from where we lived in Utah. Supposedly, these hot pots were awesome. Super quick and easy to get to, just a short hike from where you park your car off the main road running through the canyon. It must have been around 7pm that day when we parked the truck in Spanish Fork Canyon and set off on the trail that led to the natural hot springs. I don't know where my friend got his bad information, but it was definitely not a super quick and easy hike to the hot pots. More like a difficult hike that took over an hour on a very narrow path where we had to walk single file the whole time and occasionally over some treacherous spots where one bad step would send you cascading down the mountain. It seemed like it would never end and we would never get to those hot springs. But after wearing ourselves out and not being adequately prepared, we finally made it. The sun was setting as we finally reached the clearing where the natural pools were dug out from the ground. It was later than we expected, but we figured it would be fun to soak in the hot water underneath the stars. We were so deep in the canyon at this point that the stars in the sky were brighter than any other time I have ever seen them in my life. No light pollution at all. We had probably been there for about 30 minutes and had the entire area to ourselves, just having a great time telling jokes and making each other laugh. The only light was from the stars and the only sounds were from us. The quiet was almost eerie. Suddenly we started to hear twigs snapping in the direction we came from. There was only one way in and out from the hot pots. That super narrow trail that we hiked in on, which ended at the pools. Soon we could make out the outline of a figure in the dark. Someone with a flashlight coming down the trailhead to the pools that we were swimming in. I was in a great mood up to this point and since this person's arrival had taken us all by surprise, I yelled out to them once I was confident that they would be able to hear me to try and break the ice from any awkwardness and also partly as a defense mechanism from the nervousness I was feeling all of a sudden. Hey, you here to join the party? Silence. The person keeps walking towards us and doesn't say a word. Immediately alarm bells are going off in my head. My gut is telling me that something is not right here. I try to ignore how I'm feeling and make a joke to our group about that person being a weirdo for not answering. But now everyone is on edge. As the person begins to get closer, we can start to make out a little more than what we had been able to see before. It's definitely a man above average size, dressed head to toe in black. This guy was wearing a hoodie and long pants in the middle of the summer in Utah. Who does that we notice he's also wearing a black backpack. Before he gets to the clearing and turns off his flashlight, he continues walking towards us. Now there are half a dozen hot pots scattered around this clearing. There is no one else around except us. He has his pick of any one of them to swim in, but no, he walks directly towards ours and sits down about six feet from where we were soaking. My friend has a lantern, so he hops up to the side of the pool and grabs it and turns it on. Wait, what was this stranger just doing before we turned the lantern on? Was he ruffling through his bag looking for something? One of us says something to him. Once again, no response. My friend temporarily turns off the lantern. I assume it's because the battery is low and he doesn't want to wear it out. But once the light is out, the stranger in black unzips his backpack again and starts frantically looking through it again. My friend immediately turns the lantern back on. The stranger quickly stops and zips the backpack back up, acting like nothing is happening. My friend notices that the stranger appears to be Hispanic, and so he greets him in Spanish. This clearly takes the stranger off guard and he mumbles a response. My friend asks how he's doing. What is he up to tonight? Did he come for a swim? At least that's what I assume from his tone. I don't speak spiritual Spanish, so I don't know exactly what the stranger's responses were, but they were very brief and not friendly. After asking a few more questions to the guy, my friend turns to me and our dates in the pool and says very quietly but dead serious, we need to go right now. Immediately, we start getting out of the pool and drying off with our towels. The stranger asks my friend a question in Spanish, something like, oh, where are you guys going so quickly? And I surmise my friend is playing it off very calmly and like it's no big deal. Again, he turns to us as we're getting our things together and putting on our shoes. Maybe not going as fast as we could. We do not have time. Grab your stuff. We're going now. We don't ask questions. We grab our things and start practically running towards the trailhead as a group. As we look back, we see the stranger in black getting his things together, getting up and starting to follow us. At this point, there is no illusion of what is happening. This guy has bad intentions and is chasing after us on this narrow trail back to our vehicle. We know we've got an hour or more ahead of us until we're back to the safety of our vehicle and we don't have anything to defend ourselves with at all. We're still wet. We got a head start on him, which was a big help. I took the lantern and took the lead of the group. We got into a single file line and locked hands with each other, knowing that we needed to keep moving as fast as we could, but not too fast or we could literally fall to our deaths. The girls were behind me with my friend at the back who was giving us updates as to where the stranger in black was and telling us to move faster. He picked up the biggest, sharpest rock he could find and was prepared to attack this guy if he had to. I'm sure you can imagine the emotions that were running through all of us at that time. The girls are sobbing, trying to keep pace with me up front. I am yelling back to them, watch out for this, Watch out for that. As we are making our way in the darkness as fast as we can, I am telling myself to stay calm so I don't scare the girls any more than they already are, while also feeling an overwhelming sense of dread that I don't want to die so young. I am only 19. After what feels like an eternity, we finally see the main canyon road and our truck. We all run towards it as my friend unlocks it and we all get inside. We are all in shock at this point and just start shaking uncontrollably. I tell my friend to start the truck and start driving so that we can get out of there and never come back. I asked my friend, the one who was speaking Spanish to the stranger, why did you tell us to get out of there so quickly? My friend answered that he purposely had been turning the lantern on and off because he noticed when he did, the stranger was searching in his bag for something and when it came back on, the stranger closed it up fast and acted like he hadn't just been looking for something. That was when he tried speaking in Spanish to get a feel for what was going on with the guy. My friend said that he was asking the stranger some questions in Spanish like where are your friends? And the stranger answered, no friends. And other short answers to basic questions that gave my friend the absolute creeps. Once the stranger asked my friend something about the girls who were with us. That was when he told us that we needed to get out of there. Apparently he was able to see the stranger following us almost the entire way out of the trail, but dropped off towards the end when he couldn't keep pace. With us? What was that stranger doing in the middle of the dark canyon by himself dressed all in black? What did he have in his bag that he was trying to get to that he didn't want us to see? And what would have happened to us if he would have caught up to our group on the trail that night? This happened to me and my sister in April of 2020. My sister at the time was 13 and I was 14. My sister also has the tendency to overreact in a situation and makes it worse than it already could be. This information will make sense later in the story. It was about 6pm at night and our mom had gone to see her friends and wouldn't be back until very late. Our older sister was at our dad's so the only people that were home were me, my sister and our little brother who was 10 at the time. My sister and I decided to take our dog on a walk around the primary school down the road from our house. Let me tell you what the school school looks like for a better picture. We live in Australia so the school was a very typical public Australian school. It has two main ovals and many separate buildings for classrooms. It's not just one big building, it's many buildings kind of all over the place. We walked through the school to get to the oval so that we could let our dog run around. We were there for about 15 minutes when my sister gasped and grabbed my shoulder. Dude, I think I just saw someone, she said. I saw her eyes dart around the area desperately searching for the figure she saw. It was probably just a cleaner. If they ask what we're doing, we'll just tell them the truth. We were letting our dog run around, I said calmly. Like I said, my sister has a tendency to overreact, so I didn't take what she said with too much seriousness. But this was a big mistake. We continued to chill, looking at our phones, occasionally looking up to watch where our dog was. It was nearly 6:30 when I decided we should head home. I looked up to find our dog to see him staring at the building behind me. I stood up and looked around and saw that there was nothing unusual. I made an annoyed face and turned back around. We better get going before it gets dark. I said, grabbing our dog's lead and calling him over. I attached him to his lead and began leading him towards the exit. When my sister grabbed me again, I sighed. What? I said in annoyance. I turned around and saw her face of terror and she said, don't look now, but there's a man over there hiding behind the building. My stomach dropped. I didn't know if she was joking around with me. I didn't want to look in fear if he was there, notice and start coming towards us. Let's just go, I said slowly and began to walk past the building and hopefully out of sight of the man. But as soon as we were we sprinted all the way back home and practically broke the door handle trying to get in. We collapsed on the floor in exhaustion. Was there actually a guy there? I asked between breaths. Yes, he was hiding behind the building like I said, my sister responded. I then had a weird instinct in my gut that told me to lock up the house, so that's what I did. I quickly darted around the house and locked every door and possible entry as well as pulled down all the curtains over the windows so that no one could see in. I sat on the couch and turned to my sister and said, do you think maybe he was a teach? I got cut off by a knock on our front door. Our eyes widened and our mouths hung open. It couldn't have been our mom since she wasn't supposed to be back until at least 11 o'clock and even if she was early she had a key. Or if she didn't for some reason she would have called out. She wouldn't have knocked, and it wasn't our older sister because we didn't hear a car pull up outside, which we definitely would have and she also would have called out. Another knock came from the door. This time the person on the other side spoke. Hello, I have mail for you. My mouth dropped wider. Their voice didn't belong to anyone we knew and it was raspberry and husky, like they had lost their voice. It was then that our brother came out of his room and said loudly, who's at the door? Both me and my sister cringed on how loud it was, knowing whoever was at the door definitely heard him. The person at the door spoke again. Yeah, open the door. I have something for you. Our brother looked at us in confusion and we both shook our head and told him to get down. He crawled on the ground and tried to ask what was going on. I put my finger over my mouth and motioned for us to go to the kitchen. We all crawled our way to the kitchen and huddled in the corner. What do we do? My sister shakily asked. My brother at this point was crying from confusion and fright and me, being the oldest, felt I was in charge and had to decide what to do. I didn't think I could call the police because we weren't sure what this person's intentions were. All of a sudden, we heard the back door handle jiggle. I whipped my head towards it and put my hand over my mouth in shock. Our town was usually very safe, so for this to be happening was absolutely terrifying. I looked to grab my phone to call the police, but I couldn't find it. I then realized I left it on the couch. The bad thing about this was to get to the living room you have to pass the back door. And the back door has a glass window at the top allowing anyone to see in. I turned my head towards my sister and quietly asked, do you have your phone? My stomach dropped when she replied, no, it's on the charger by the tv. I breathed in deeply and crawled slowly towards the back door. The handle was still jiggling, almost like they were trying to unlock it. Luckily, the back door has a double lock, so I wasn't worried about that. I peered my head cautiously around the corner to look at the back door and that's when I saw him. His hair was matted and shoulder length, his eyes were dark and bloodshot and his skin was pale and yellow. He saw me and began to bang against the door, desperately trying to get in. I quickly got up and ran to the couch and grabbed my phone and dialed Triple zero. I told the operator that someone was attempting to break in and it was then that the man started yelling gibberish. The operator heard this and asked for our address so that he could send someone out. It was then that I heard a big crack. It was the door. He was ramming himself into it and the door was caving in quicker than I had ever moved before. I ran back to the kitchen and grabbed my sister and brother and ran with them to the bathroom and locked the door and told them to get down. I scolded myself for not grabbing some sort of weapon before I locked us in with no exit. If this man manages to get in. Then we heard the scariest sound. The door breaking in completely. He was in the house. He was still yelling and now running around the house opening every door, searching for us. Luckily, about two minutes after this, we heard police sirens and the man's yelling ceased. We hear him quickly run out of the house and then we hear the police shouting at him to get on the ground. And another police officer enters the house and calls out for us. I slowly open the door and peer out to a female police officer looking around. I walk towards her shakily and start breaking down in front of her. I usually don't like the police, but on this occasion I could never be more grateful for them. I hate to think what if we didn't go to the bathroom or if I looked towards him when we were at the school.
- [19:12]
Sponsor
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- [19:43]
Host
A pickup truck to get just about anything done? Look no further. The Chevy Silverado EV isn't just the most powerful Silverado ever with next level towing capability and technology. It also offers game changing versatility with the available multiflex midgate and tailgate. Which means Silverado EV helps you carry large, bulky and oddly shaped items up to nearly 11ft in length. Chevrolet together. Let's drive. Visit Chevrolet.com to learn more. So you're getting hungry. Really hungry. Head to Jack in the Box and pick up a Smash Jack. It's a juicy, delicious smashed burger topped with cheese, pickles, grilled onions and Boss sauce. And it's now available on Sourdough. The Smash Jack Only a Jack in the Box? Order one on the Jack app today. I was in high school when this all happened. This was back in 2016 and I had recently started walking home from school. I didn't live too far. It was only around a 20 to 30 minute walk depending on how much I wanted to go home that day. The school day had just ended and this was my fifth or sixth time walking home. I decided that I would go the long route instead of the shorter one that I normally take. Little did I know what I was walking into after getting out of the parking lot. There was a long road that led to a neighborhood just behind the school. On one side of the road there was the baseball field and on the other was a small factory looking place. You usually I would follow this road down into the neighborhood and cut through there until I reached the main road where I'd be roughly 15 minutes away from home. So I climbed up the side of the hill between the back road and the factory place and began my walk through. There were multiple buildings on each side of the path I was walking on. I had headphones on because it's what I usually did when I walked home, only this time since the only cars that would pose a threat, if any, would come from where I can see them. So instead of having one side in, I had both sides in, blaring loud enough to drown out any noise surrounding me. It was a joyful walk for the most part. I kept swapping between staring at the sky and the trees behind some of the smaller sized buildings. It was the middle of spring and I live in Michigan so I appreciate the small breeze and greenery when it finally rolls around. I had walked past one of the buildings, but it seemed off compared to the rest of them. This one had no windows and the outside of it was worn down like someone had been chipping away at it for a while with a chisel. I brushed it off like it was nothing and continued on walking. However, during the time that it took for the song I was currently listening to to swap to the next, I heard an extremely loud scream. I took my headphones off and let them rest around my neck. I stood confused for a few seconds, wondering if I was imagining things or if it was part of the song. After those few seconds, another scream filled my ears, only much louder than the one before. Now, if you ever hear something like this when you're walking somewhere, I advise you to stop what you're doing, find out where you're at, and call 911 to report it. Being the curious person person I was, and given I didn't have much to do that day, I decided to check it out and see if everything was okay. The screams sounded almost staged, but I couldn't be sure without checking it out for myself. I walked up to the building so I could look through the holes in the door. It looked old and had a fair bit of rust around it, so it was an average peephole, but more of a rusted away you need to replace this door kind of hole. I looked inside and what I saw made my stomach turn faster than I ever thought it could. Inside was a man. He was wearing all black and a mask that you probably could buy at a party store if I had to guess. There was also a woman who was on the floor. She had bruises and blood stains on her shirt. The man was holding a hammer that had blood covering the tip of it. I cannot go into detail of what I saw next, but it was the most destructive, disturbing thing I have ever seen. I had the sudden urge to throw up. I backed away from the door and threw up, only nothing came out because I hadn't eaten much that day. A Few seconds after that, I heard the sound of the man's shoes practically stomping on the floor inside the building and they were getting closer. I gathered my composure quickly and started to pull out my phone when the door swung open and the man stepped out. I pretended that I had been recording the entire thing to hopefully scare the guy into letting me live. If I told him I wouldn't tell anyone if he would let me go. He proceeded to slam the door shut. After a few minutes of us standing there staring at each other without muttering a single word. My heart was beating so fast that I was beginning to be distracted by it as well as the fear that this could be my last moment. After he slammed the door and went back inside, I took off running and immediately called 911. They stayed on the line with me until I got far enough away to feel safe telling them my location. A couple cop cars showed up roughly six, seven minutes later and I pointed them to the building. There were four of them. When they came back, nobody else was with them. The man had taken off during the short amount of time he had and must have taken the woman with him. They found some hair and blood on the floor. Floor. But other than that, it was as if the two were never there to begin with. The police never found the guy and I never saw any reports or articles about a missing woman or a woman that was killed. After that day, I never walked home again. I always either rode the bus or had one of my parents pick me up about half a year after that. I eventually transferred to an alternative high school that was much farther away from those buildings than my old school. I was 16 at the time and I am currently 20 going on 21 in August. And this incident has been with me ever since. I have always been skeptical about situations around me, but after that, I was never even close to the same again. I'm James McComb reporting live from home in my bathrobe and slippers. Tonight we're talking Dunkin Polar peppermint coffee. Gene's here with the latest. Gene, do you copy? The home with Duncan is where you want to be. Hablas espanol spries? Tu joi nos. If you've heard that sound from Babbel before, I bet you do. Babbel is the science backed language learning app that actually works with quick 10 minute lessons. Handcrafted by over 200 language experts, Babbel gets you on your way to speaking a new language in just a few weeks. With over 16 million subscriptions sold and a 20 day money back guarantee. Just start speaking another language with Babbel right now. Up to 55% off your Babbel subscription at babbel.com Spotify podcast spelled B A B B E L.com Spotify podcast rules and restrictions may apply. Oh such a clutch off season pickup Dave I was worried we'd bring back the same team. I meant Those blackout motorized shades lines.com made it crazy affordable to replace our old blinds. Hard to install. Easy? No, it's easy. I installed these and then got some for my mom. She talked to a design consultant for free and scheduled a professional measure and install hall of Fame son. They're the number one online retailer of custom window coverings in the world. Blinds.com is the goat shop. Up to 45% off select styles plus a free professional measure during the blinds.com year end blowout. Rules and restrictions may apply to start this story, I should mention my occupation. I am a 30 year old female journeyman electrician. I often work alone and in people's homes. So needless to say, I often find myself in rather interesting situations. I am 5 2£125. I am very aware of my limitations when it comes to physically dangerous situations. I served in the military so I have a rudimentary knowledge of hand to hand combat and I'm adept to trained and licensed to carry certain tools of self defense. I also have experience as a paramedic in a major city. Needless to say, I feel as prepared as someone my size and gender could possibly be for most situations. However, this situation triggered a visceral response so I thought I would share my experience with who I refer to as the man with the mannequin legs. It in the interest of privacy and simplicity, I will refer to him simply as John Doe. It's a Friday approximately a year ago. The time was 19:30 or 7:30pm for you not using a 24 time clock, I received a dispatch to an apartment complex several towns over. The dispatch was for a loss of power to a condo unit in one of the older lower income buildings. There are certain homes and buildings I go into which automatically trigger a certain amount of caution. Upon seeing the building, I had a gut feeling already that I would proceed with an air of caution. I immediately texted both my office manager, my boyfriend and my mother my GPS location with a message saying this is where I am. His name is John Doe. This is his address and unit number. If you don't hear from me every 20 minutes until I tell you I have left, please call me first, if I don't answer, please call the police. When I rang the bell, a gruff voice of a man who smokes far too many cigarettes forcefully inquires as to who is there. I answer, stating that I'm the electrician that was dispatched. He hits the buzzer and lets me in. I walk up the stairs and the first thing to hit me is the smell of the building. A building full of unwashed bodies, unemptied wet ashtrays and stale alcohol. He opened his door and the smell intensified. He wore grubby, unkempt, ill fitting clothing stained with fluids bodily or food in origin, his face thin and gaunt, unshaven, with dark heavy bags under his eyes. Entering the door I noticed a small table that was stacked with empty beer cans toting the can of beers. A plastic whiskey bottle went thunk off the toe of my steel toe boots and skidded across the floor. I look up at him, though on the skinny side, he was tall. I ask him for details regarding the loss of power and he explains that some things work while others don't. I won't bore you with the details, but in the end I had to see the panel. He leads me to his bedroom as I picked kick my way across a sea of discarded items. We passed the kitchen, the sink stacked high with plates, unwashed with rotting food precariously balanced atop one another like a perverse game of Jenga. Stepping over clothing, garbage and discarded alcohol containers, burn marks in the carpet from someone nodding off and dropping a lit cigarette, I enter his bedroom. A mattress with a tap, tattered blanket and no sheets or pillows, sits in the center. The furniture is all secondhand and distressed, broken in places, water stained as if it was saved from some unknown curb which was not sold during the estate sale. The top half of a naked dirty mannequin, appearing as if it were stolen from an abandoned storefront of a long dead store, lays in the bed. I trip over something as I'm making my way around the bed. Looking down, I see two things that make me take pause. The more alarming of the two happen to be a set of legs from the mannequin, carelessly hacked from the top half with what looks to be a very dull hacksaw, lines drawn at the natural human joints though it was a hard molded plastic. I also see a dimly flashing red light coming from the ankle ankle of my creepy host. It's a Department of Corrections GPS ankle monitor. I have to turn my back on him to make the repairs, which makes my hair stand on end. He watches me smoking a cigarette and sneaking to the living room often to take a swig from a brown paper bag. I make a few temporary repairs and tell him I'll have to come back to finish the rest of it. I take payment and leave. He watches me walk to my truck, following me to the apartment landing and to the main front door. I am almost running now and I jump into my work truck and lock the doors. I finally breathe. I finally feel safe until I see him in my mirror staring back at me from the rear section of my truck. Not threatening, just staring. I leave without finishing my paperwork and go a few blocks down. I stop and start shaking as the adrenaline slowly leaves my system. I reassure my family that I am safe and tell my boss that I cannot go back to that address. He offers to send me back with another person and my heart drops. I look for a reason not to. I quickly google John Doe and find out exactly why he was wearing an ankle monitor. He had just got out of prison. John Doe served two years in state prison after stalking a woman. When she threatened to report him, he broke into her home, demanded her to disrobe. When she refused, he told her he would kill her and threaten to dismember her. My heart leapt into my chest as I realized what this man may have truly been capable of. With the evidence of the mannequin staring me in the face, it appears his fantasy is alive. Well, needless to say, my company never sent any technician back to the man with the mannequin legs and I ended up with nothing more than a story. A story that shows no matter how prepared you may be for a situation, you never know exactly who you are dealing with. It was 2011 and I was fresh out of the Navy. I had decided to move back home to the family farm with my folks in Michigan until I could get established on my own. However, this was right after the market crash of 2008 and it took longer than anticipated to get back on my feet. So I ended up living with them for a while longer than originally planned and my mother had grown accustomed accustomed to having me around to help with mowing the lawn, raking the leaves and shoveling snow. So she specifically asked me to stay and help and so I agreed. Unfortunately, the farmhouse my parents owned and had been in the family for generations burned down and so they moved into town and were renting. They found a nice house for a reasonable amount and signed a lease. I initially moved with them but now there was no more farm to take care of so I started looking for a new place to live My mother again insisted on me staying with them and after discussing it with my significant other, it was decided that I would stay with the folks in order to save up money for the future. After living in the same house for a few years, we found out that the owner had mortgaged the house to heaven and back and it was being foreclosed on. Me and the folks found yet another house and lived there until the owner decided he he wanted to retire from being a landlord and so sold it off meaning no renewed lease and therefore they had to find a new place to live again. We ended up stuck in a little house in a bad neighborhood which had no front porch light. I was again considering leaving for a more stable living condition but at this point my long term girlfriend had become my fiance and I really needed to save up money for our future wedding and so I stayed. Several things happened around that little house on the bad street that eventually scared my parents to buying a new house. Some of these events were just the result of living in a bad neighborhood. For example, there was a house down the street that the cops raided a few times in the year that we lived on that street because they were running a brothel. A church on the street got broken into and robbed more than once. A house burned down by an arsonist. A woman was dragged out of her home by the sheriff after the homeowner reported her for lack of rental payments. A guy across the street was being arrested almost weekly for domestic violence. Another up the street got raided a couple times for selling drugs. All sorts of other crazy and drama on that street. But none of those things are really what convinced my parents to buy a new place and move. The following are those events. Shortly after moving into the new place, my parents went out to spend some time with friends one night and I was at home talking with my fiance over Skype as she was in Ireland at the time. It was a warm summer's evening in early September and the little house had no air conditioning so I had the front door open to let air in through the screen door and my bedroom door open so I wasn't roasting alive. From where I was sitting at my PC in my bedroom, I had a straight shot view out of my bedroom door to the front door. As my fiance and I talked, I heard what sounded like the latch to the front screen door. I looked toward the door but saw nothing. Assuming it was the wind rattling the screen door, I continued my conversation. Then I heard it again and I watched the door for a moment to see if I Could see the branches of the tree or the leaves blowing and swaying in the wind. There was no wind. So when I heard the latch jiggling a third time, I got up and went to investigate. And as I walked outside, there was a man walking off the side of the porch and away from the house. I called after him asking if there was something he needed, but he ignored me completely. As this was happening, my parents were arriving home and saw the man crossing our driveway at an angle that made it obvious he had been on our porch with me standing on the porch calling after him. He walked into the neighbor's house and disappeared from sight. My dad turned to me and asked, what's happening? What did the guy want? I proceeded to tell him about how I kept hearing the latch on the screen door. And when I attempted to investigate, I found this guy on our porch and bailing as quickly as possible. And when I asked what he needed, he ignored me and ran off. My dad then walked over to the neighbors to ask about the odd behavior. He wouldn't come to the door at first, but when he finally did, he claimed he was just looking to bum some cigarettes. My dad handed him a few, then asked why he hadn't just knocked and if he needed cigarettes, why did he run when asked what he wanted? I should note here that my dad had accidentally, accidentally left an almost full pack on his porch chair and it hadn't been bothered. So naturally we didn't believe him. And instead of answering my dad's questions, he just ran off into the house somewhere. My dad then found himself talking to an older couple and found out through the old couple that they owned the house next door and that the weird guy was their son who had just gotten out of prison for theft related crimes. He got caught. Caught about six weeks later breaking into another neighbor's house. The homeowner called the cops and he was found to have violated his parole and was sent back to jail. But that's not the end of the story. Shortly after the man next door tried to sneak into the house while I was still there. We started having an issue where someone had tried to get into the back door. We would come home from grocery shopping or something and the back gate would be open and the screen door on the back door would be swinging in the breeze. This went on for a while until one day we came home, found the back gate open again, and when we went to close the back screen door, there were tool marks on the door jamb like someone had been trying to jimmy the door open. We Found a small pry bar in the tall grass next to the back porch and we realized that the only reason to leave it there was if the corner culprits had dropped it while running away as quickly as possible. Say for example, if he needed to beat a hasty retreat over the back fence as the residents pulled up. At this point my dad had had enough of the guy who had been next door whoever was trying to get in through the back door, and so he decided some cameras would be useful and started to price things. He ended up getting some trail cams that could be plugged in to recharge, which motion activated as trail cams usually are and could be easily mounted. He put one up facing towards the back door where the camera could see through the window in the back door and he mounted the other where it could see out the front door. These cameras were about to prove they were worth it. We had been in the place a few months now and it was early March and we had had snow overnight. I awoke to find 4 inches in the driveway so I shoveled the snow out of the driveway real quick before heading off to work. My dad woke up about an hour later and also left for work, leaving my mother home alone. According to her, sometime during mid morning she was surprised by a knock at the door and when she answered there was a man there, stocky, around 57 with a goatee, offering snow removal services. My mother looked at the driveway and found it devoid of snow. Snow. When she looked back at the guy he looked like he was trying to peer around her into the house. She shut him down, telling him that she clearly didn't need snow removal and closed the door in his face. As she did, she heard him kick the screen door as if he was attempting to put his foot in the door as he insisted that he could do snow removal for just a nominal fee. She ignored him and he eventually wandered off. She told me and my dad about it later but there just wasn't much to the story. Some idiot offered snow removal to people who didn't need it. Not exactly the Amityville horror. So we kinda just brushed it off. A few weeks later in early April, my parents went on a cruise for my mother's birthday, leaving me alone in the house. I had been in the house alone for a few days when some guy showed up at around 8:30pm Pitch Black Night outside saying that he was from the gas company that provided our gas company with natural gas and he needed to come in and see our gas bills to make sure we were not Being overcharged, I was immediately wary of the man as he matched the description my mother had given me about the snow removal guy a month earlier. And it was 8:30pm the gas company closed at 5. It was possible people would be doing overtime, but for three and a half hours after closing, going door to door in the cold Michigan spring, it seemed unlikely. He was wearing an ID on a lanyard around his neck, but he kept his hands over the actual ID and he flashed it at me so fast that I couldn't really see it. To be honest, what I did see looked like that back of a Topps baseball card with the player's stats. Then he actually tried to push past me into the house, but I put my hand on his shoulder and pushed him back while telling him no. At the same time, he insisted that he was just making sure that we weren't being cheated and then pointed to the only other house on the street with no front porch light and said he had just come from over there and that he had managed to cut over 10% of their gas bills. I cut him off and told him that not only was it late, but it did not go over my head that his best and only example of his work was the only other poorly lit house with no front porch light, that I found it very suspicious that he actually expected me to show him private financial information on the gas bill, nor did I believe the gas company would have people out so late. I told him he needed to leave and he responded by trying to push past me again, again telling me it was fine and he was just there to help. I pushed him back again, more aggressively this time, and almost push him backward off the porch, firmly telling him no, I wasn't going to show him anything and that he needed to leave now. I told him that it was not okay that he repeatedly tried to enter the home without permission, nor was it fine that he repeatedly demanded to see private financial information. Then I looked him in the eyes and as confidently as possible possible told him that this intrusion felt more to me like he was casing the house for a burglary and I would be calling the cops immediately after closing the door. And then I warned him that I was former military and that I was armed, and that if I saw him around my house again that I would act accordingly. Now I am not a psycho. I had no real want to hurt anybody, but I needed him to know that I had the means, capability and willingness to defend myself and the home if necessary. He slowly walked off the porch as I closed the door and he started down the street. I watched him through the windows walk right past all the well lit houses of my neighbors. As he walked away, it occurred to me that he should have some sort of company vehicle. If he really was from the gas company as he claimed, there should be some sort of service truck or company car with a logo or rental tags. So I went out onto the front porch and looked up and down the street to find one. There was nothing. However, as I looked back toward him, he was signaling at someone who came from behind some bushes on a side street near the house, literally less than 10 yards away. The guy was taller and skinnier than his friend, like sickly and frail, skinny. But somehow he still had an aura of danger about him. The first guy made me feel slightly uneasy, but this guy made me feel chilled to the core. And he wore an oversized hooded sweater that in the darkness completely hid his facial features, giving him a look like the grim Reaper. He kept pointing at the house and his body language kept getting more and more forceful. I could tell he wanted to come back to the house for whatever reason, but the first guy didn't. And I couldn't help but wonder what their plan was that the accomplice wanted so much to complete. What would have happened if I had actually let this guy into the house? At this point, I followed through with my promise and pulled out my phone and called the police non emergency line and reported him. I was on the phone with the officer taking my statement when the fake gas guy and his friend turned and started pointing at the house. That's when they realized I was still watching them from the porch. Porch and the first guy began to run down the street. However, his accomplice just stood and looked in my direction as I spoke to the officer. I don't know how I know this as I couldn't see his face with that giant hood up in the dark of the night. But I could tell he was staring at me. And as I watched him, I realized I couldn't look away from him. I felt like I had just entered a battle of wills and if I looked away it would end badly for me. So I just stood there and watched him with chills dancing up and down my spine. After what felt like a small eternity, but what had to have been only several seconds of this staring contest, he looked away slowly and nonchalantly made his way back down the street to catch up with the fake gas guy. I realized I had been holding my breath and let out a long sigh. The officer was asking me if I was still on the line and it occurred to me that I had just dropped off mid conversation with the person on the other end. My knees felt weak and I needed to sit down, so I went inside and locked the door. The police promised to send a patrolman around and take a look for anything suspicious and told me to call back if they came back. I hung up the phone. I was alone in a bad neighborhood with a couple of random guys casing the house, one of which was clearly not right in the head. I went to bed with my weapon on my desk, ready to go, just in case I was woken up from a fitful sleep by my phone a couple hours later. The patrolman had caught the guys pulling the same shtick at another house with no porch light down the street. The creepy one was hiding around the corner of the house when the patrol car pulled up. I had to go in the next day to confirm they were the same people. While I never got a clear look at the accomplice's face, I was able to identify the person who knocked on my door. I read up on them in the paper a little while later. Apparently they were looking for victims to rob, or so they claimed. The accomplice apparently had several large knives on him when he was arrested, hidden underneath his giant hoodie, leading police to believe he at least had other plans than just burglary. When confronted with these questions, they took plea deals in exchange for confessions. The one with the knives got his parole revoked and found himself back in jail with an extra couple years tacked onto his original sentence. The door knocker got 30 days in the county jail, 100 days community service, $1,000 fine, and one year probation. When my parents got back from their cruise, I told them what happened and my mother rushed over to the trail cams she found early March and the pictures of the snow removal guy, and then went to the next day in question and found pictures of the gas company guy. They were the same guy, near as we can figure, because my dad and I worked long hours and were typically gone most of the day. The only person they had ever seen leaving and entering the house was my mother, who was a tiny old lady, so they assumed she lived alone. Then when he showed up late at night a couple weeks later, and instead of a lonely old lady, there was a 63 military vet telling him, no, you're not coming in. And it bungled up whatever they were planning. I'll tell you what, though, there was something about the accomplice that scared me. Maybe it was because he was hiding in the bushes the whole time me and his friend were having our exchange, or the fact that he kept his face hidden by an oversized hood. But before he ever even noticed me standing there, I could feel the danger emanating off him like warning bells going off in my head, and it felt like he just loathed my entire being and wanted me to suffer for simply existing. The way he stared at me from under the dark shadows of his hood was almost inhuman. I took some time off work, used up some of my savings, and went to Europe to see my fiance. I just needed to get away from that house for a while. While I was in Europe, my parents quickly bought up a house on the very edge of town, away from bad neighborhoods and moved into it. When I got back from vacation, I asked them why they decided to buy all of a sudden and they just told me that they never wanted to rent again after that housing.
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Narrator
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Host
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