I'll choose to be anonymous with this because it's pretty embarrassing and also putting my name out there tied to this is likely a horrible idea. There was a Craigslist ad posted in 2017 by a guy named Jackson. He was advertising free lodging for a girl who would watch over his house and clean.
Basically an au pair or nanny without having to watch any kids. I'll just be honest that I kind of lost the will to do a lot when I was 21. I had zero relationship with my parents or sister and I only had a handful of friends who I could trust.
I dropped out of college my first year. Part of the reason my parents hated me for a while and I was working a dead-end job at a vape shop. I'd like to just refer to this period as my attitude era and when I saw Jackson's Craigslist ad, it really caught my attention.
It had like 10 pictures of his house. It looked like a modest middle-class house, slightly old-fashioned honestly, but I was into that. The pictures weren't what got my attention the most though.
It was the fact that free living was offered for a nanny type position. No background check required. I didn't even ask my family or friends their opinion on this post before I just decided to reply to it.
Like I said, I wasn't exactly talking to my parents or sister at the time anyway. I texted the number on the ad and this Jackson guy responded within a few minutes. I expressed interest in the listing and just asked some basic questions.
He had an answer to everything that honestly made me feel more interested, but he asked pretty early on in the conversation what my gender was. When I said female, it almost seemed as though his responses got longer. I honestly didn't care.
Most people tend to prefer having a female housekeeper or nanny anyway. I was still interested. Anything that got me out of my parents' house.
He said he wouldn't be home most of the time during the day, but he wanted to come home to a clean house and that he also wouldn't mind coming home to a cooked meal from time to time after work. Honestly, I was cool with that, too. If it meant free housing, hell yeah, cook some food.
Beats standing in the wage cage at the vape shop. Plus, he also said he'd pay for the groceries. It was sounding almost too good to be true.
He suggested I come by later that day to check the place out and see if it's a fit. I said okay. A few hours later, I was on my way in my crappy little Civic to the guy's house.
It was in a perfectly normal side of town. The block actually seemed pretty calm and peaceful. The neighboring houses had flowers and decorations outside suggesting the neighbors were normal, too.
Good start so far. I went to ring the bell and when the door opened, I was greeted by a man larger and honestly older than I had pictured. I had pictured this regular 45-year-old dad-looking guy.
Instead, it was a man maybe 60 years old, 6 ft tall, gray beard and a little overweight. He greeted me with a smile and went in for a hug even though we had just met and honestly, the amount that he left made me feel pretty at ease. He showed me around the house.
It was a two-story house. The first floor was your basic kitchen, dining room and living room setup. >> [music] >> Then the upstairs was four bedrooms and a bathroom.
He only showed me the guest room that I'd be using and the bathroom upstairs though. The other doors stayed closed. He said if I ever needed to use the office across the hall, I was welcome to.
Down the hall was his room and another room that he didn't explain. I was surprised to hear there was only one bathroom. Then there was the basement.
He said it was unfinished and that he doesn't use it for anything other than working out and doing laundry. That was the end of the tour. He didn't show me the backyard that day.
I told him I wanted the job and he told me I was hired. Two days later, I came back with my stuff. I told my parents I got an apartment when they asked where I was going.
I didn't explain anything more. The first night there was when I noticed the cameras. No, they weren't hidden.
At least I don't think they were supposed to be. They were just small black cameras mounted up in the corners of the living room and the kitchen. It made perfectly normal sense to me.
He was letting basically a stranger live in his house. It wasn't that crazy that he'd want some security. Still, I wish he had mentioned it.
That was the first time I felt even slightly weird about the situation. If you can't tell, I really wanted this to work out. That night when I went to bed, I noticed how much noisier the house felt than when we toured it.
I could hear the wood floors creaking every once in a while. At one point, I swear I heard what sounded like a door closing somewhere downstairs. I checked my phone and it was around 1:30 in the morning.
Again, I came up with a reason for this in my head. When you're laying in silence trying to sleep, you pick up on more sounds than you would when occupied by something during the day. Plus, every old house makes sounds like that.
The next morning, he was already gone like he said he would be. He had left a note on the counter with a list of things he wanted done. It was normal stuff.
He wanted me to do his laundry, vacuum the floors, wipe down the kitchen and stuff like that. I tried to just focus on the fact that I wasn't standing behind a vape counter all day anymore. I did his laundry first, then I cleaned the floors and wiped everything down.
After that, I went back upstairs and started setting up the bedroom more like my own space. I unpacked my clothes, set up my laptop on a small desk and put a few personal things around just to make it feel less temporary. I remember thinking maybe this could actually work out.
I was actually being positive. After I finished everything, I just relaxed for a while and watched YouTube videos on my laptop. Not hearing my parents yelling downstairs or having one of them burst through my bedroom door barking orders at me was a breath of fresh air.
The first week actually went pretty normal. At night when he got home, we would talk a little like about basic stuff. It never really got deep.
He asked about where I grew up, what I wanted to do eventually, stuff like that. I cooked dinner a few nights in a row and he seemed to appreciate it. I started thinking maybe I just overreacted about the cameras and the weird feeling, but it didn't all stay happy and peachy.
One night, I made pasta with chicken and some vegetables. I tried my best, but I'm not some housewife type star chef. I was some young, angsty goth girl.
When he got home, he looked tired and irritated. He took one bite and his whole face changed. He said it tasted bland.
I said sorry and offered to add some seasoning or make something else, but he just kind of snapped. He said something like if I was going to be living there for free, the least I could do was learn how to cook something edible. He pushed the plate away and stood up.
Then he told me to clean up the mess I made in his kitchen before he walked away toward his bedroom. It caught me completely off guard. It wasn't even just what he said.
It was how fast his personality seemed to change. He had seemed so easygoing before that. I cleaned everything up quietly and hoped that he had just had a bad day and nothing more.
Everyone has bad days. The next morning, I actually apologized to him. I didn't even really think I did anything wrong, but I wanted to keep things smooth.
I told him I was sorry about dinner and I'd try harder. He just laughed like it was nothing. Then he said something that made everything weird.
He said maybe I could make it up to him by cleaning the house in my underwear that day. He said it with a smile like it was supposed to be funny. I remember just kind of freezing for a second because I didn't know how to respond.
I told him I wasn't comfortable with that to put it lightly. He just laughed again and said he was joking and told me to relax and then he went to bed. I remember standing there after he left feeling really unsettled.
It was the first time I really thought maybe there was something off about him beyond just being moody. That was the first time I texted one of my close friends about what was going on. I told her about the living situation and what he said.
She immediately told me I was insane for staying there. She told me to leave as soon as possible. I didn't want to though.
As weird as it was getting, I still felt like I had more control over my life there than I did living with my parents. Going back there felt like failing again. The next Monday, I was leaving the house to go buy groceries with some money he had left for me.
As I was driving, a car behind me started laying on the horn. I thought I did something wrong driving, but it kept following me. I pulled over because I started getting scared that something was really wrong.
The car pulled up behind me and a girl got out. She looked around my age. She walked up to my window and asked if I was living at that house.
When I said yes, she immediately told me I needed to stay away from that man. Apparently, Jackson wasn't even his real name. She said she was the girl who had the same arrangement before me.
She told me she eventually realized he had cameras watching her constantly. She said she started noticing he knew things he shouldn't know. She said when she tried to leave, he made it very difficult and kept asking questions about where she was going and when she was coming back.
Then she told me one night she woke up and saw him leaving her bedroom. That part made me physically sick. Then she told me the worst part.
She said he didn't even have a job. She said he lied about going to work every day and she eventually realized he was still somewhere inside the house most days. I just sat there trying to process it.
Every little weird thing suddenly started making sense. I asked her leave without causing problems. She told me to act completely normal, to start slowly taking important things out so he wouldn't notice.
She said when I leave, I should make it look like [music] I was just running errands. She told me not to confront him and not to let him know I knew anything. After she left, I just sat in my car for a few minutes trying to calm down before going back.
When I walked back into the house, it felt completely different. felt like I was being watched even more than before. That night, I checked the room carefully like she suggested.
She was right. After a few minutes of looking around, I noticed something small on the top shelf of the closet. It was pushed away into the corner.
When I moved a box, I saw a tiny black lens pointing outward through a small drilled hole. I just slowly put the box back like I didn't see it. Needless to say, I didn't sleep at all that night.
I looked at the darkness of the room wondering what I'd gotten myself into. And honestly, I'm glad I didn't fall asleep that night because at some random crazy hour in the night, I heard my door creak open and I flipped to my side and looked at the door. It was Jackson.
He noticed me look at him and he apologized for waking me and closed the door. What the actual was that weirdo planning on doing? I needed to get out of there.
The next morning, I started my plan. Every day, I would bring one small bag of stuff to my car. Just normal things and nothing obvious.
Three days later, I left while he was at work and I never came back. Though, if what that girl told me were true, who knows where he actually was. Maybe in the house somewhere.
He texted me later asking where I was. I told him I decided to move back home and thanked him for the opportunity. He kept texting asking why and saying I should at least come talk to him in person.
I never responded again. About a week later, I noticed something that still bothers me. I got an email notification saying someone had tried to log into one of my old accounts.
The login attempt was from the same town his house was in. I changed everything after that. I don't know what his real intentions were and honestly, I don't want to know.
Nothing technically happened to me, but I really believe if I stayed longer, something eventually would have. If you ever see deals like that offering free housing from strangers online, just remember, nothing like that is ever really free. I hired her sometime around the beginning of last fall.
I work long hours and live alone in a two-floor house I bought a couple years ago. It's pretty small and yet still more space than I really need. And I started realizing I was falling behind on keeping it clean.
Maybe I needed a girlfriend to keep the place clean at the time. No matter how much I told myself I'd get to cleaning the house, I never seemed to be able to. One night after work, I was just scrolling Craigslist and other similar sites and saw a listing for house cleaning.
It was just a simple post saying independent cleaner, cash only, flexible schedule. I figured, why not? Maybe this was what I needed.
I emailed and she responded the next morning. She said she usually did apartments, but was fine doing houses, too. We agreed on a day she could come by while I was at work.
She asked a few normal questions like how big the house was and if there were pets. >> [music] >> I told her no pets, relatively small house, and that I lived alone. Looking back, I wish I hadn't mentioned that last part so casually.
She came the following Thursday. I met her quickly before leaving for work. And yes, before you ask, I hid anything of value in my lockable closet before leaving.
She looked to be maybe 38. She seemed very quiet. She didn't really make eye contact much, but I just figured she was shy.
I showed her around quickly, all the rooms I wanted her to clean upstairs and downstairs. I told her she didn't need to worry about my office room. She asked where I usually keep the cleaning supplies and I showed her the laundry room.
She asked if she could come regularly every couple weeks. I said maybe. I wanted to see how this first time went.
Before I left, she asked what time I usually got home from work. I told her around 6:00 or sometimes closer to 7:00 depending on traffic. At the time, that didn't seem weird since she probably just didn't want to still be there.
When I got home that night, the place honestly looked great. The floors and counters were shiny and everything smelled like cleaning products. I paid her what we agreed and she left.
Nothing seemed wrong. For about a week, everything was good. Then, it started.
Maybe six nights later, I woke up around 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. I'm not a great sleeper, so this wasn't unusual. What was unusual was I thought I heard a soft thump from downstairs.
It sounded like maybe something settling or one of those random house noises you hear at night. Put simply, I ignored it as most people do when they hear these sounds. A couple nights later, I woke up again and this time, I heard what sounded like a cabinet door closing.
Again, I just assumed I was half asleep and imagining things. I didn't go check. I definitely wasn't going to go walk around dark house at 3:00 in the morning over something that was probably nothing.
I wish I did. Over the next week, I started noticing small things that felt slightly off, but not enough to really alarm me. One morning, a kitchen cabinet was open a few inches.
I figured maybe I left it that way. Another time, a chair at my dining room table seemed pulled out slightly. Again, I assumed I must have done it without thinking.
One Saturday [music] morning, I noticed the downstairs bathroom hand towel felt damp. Stuff like that kept happening. Small things that you could always explain away if you want to.
Then the nighttime sounds kept happening. Always soft enough to explain away. Once it sounded like a single slow footstep, but I convinced myself it was probably the wood floors adjusting.
I started sleeping with my bedroom door shut instead of cracked open like I usually did. I didn't really want to admit I was getting uneasy, but I was. One night, I woke up and was almost sure I heard movement right outside my bedroom, like pressure being shifted in the floor.
I still didn't get up. I just stared at my door waiting to see if the handle would move. Yes, I was starting to get that paranoid.
But nothing happened and eventually, I fell back asleep. The next morning, I felt stupid for even being scared. I checked the house and everything looked normal.
Around this time, I texted the cleaner again about coming back since overall, she did a good job and I figured maybe I was just stressed from work. She came again another weekday while I was at work. It was the same routine.
I left the back door unlocked for her. When I got home, everything looked clean again. She asked if I wanted to schedule something regular.
I told her maybe once a month. Anything more than that seemed like a waste of money to me. About a week after that second cleaning, I started noticing food seemed to be disappearing slightly faster than it should.
Like I lost my mind one night swearing to myself that there was at least one more yogurt cup in the fridge the previous night and now it was gone. Bread slices seemed lower than I remembered, too. I still was trying to explain these things away, though.
But one morning, [music] I found a glass in the sink that I was almost positive I hadn't used. I lived alone and was single at the time, so there really wasn't anyone else it could have been. At one point, I wondered if maybe I was doing these things half asleep and not remembering.
I even Googled stuff about sleepwalking. Things really changed one night when I woke up and clearly heard slow footsteps downstairs. I know what footsteps sound like compared to house settling noises.
These were steps. I grabbed my phone and stopped to listen for a sec. After maybe 10 seconds, I heard what sounded like something lightly bump into a wall.
I didn't go downstairs. I know some people might think that sounds stupid, but fear really does make you freeze sometimes instead of act. Or maybe I was picking flight over fight before even confronting the situation.
I just stayed in bed sitting up for half an hour not hearing anything again and finally convincing myself it was nothing. And looking back, I look at myself as a coward for that. Morning came and that day, I checked all the doors and windows.
Everything was locked. I even checked my basement even though I never heard anything from there. Clear.
A few days later, I noticed something that really bothered me. In my kitchen junk drawer where I keep random things like batteries and takeout menus, I also kept two spare house keys on a small ring. One of them was gone.
I got goosebumps when I considered the obvious possibility, but I kept telling myself, "No, it's not possible. " I searched the whole house, but I couldn't find it. The cleaner had been alone in the house twice for several hours each time.
I started locking my bedroom door at night after that. About four nights later, I decided to test something. I left for work like normal, but after driving a few blocks, I circled back and parked on the next street over.
I walked back quietly and went in through my back door. I stayed upstairs and just waited. Around 11:00 in the morning, I heard something.
The sound of my front door unlocking. I heard very soft footsteps come inside. I moved to where I could see part of the downstairs through the stair railing.
It looked like her, the cleaner. She just walked in like she lived here. She didn't even have cleaning supplies.
She went into my kitchen, opened the fridge, took out a drink, and sat at my table. She sat there quietly for a few minutes. >> [music] >> Then she walked slowly around my living room looking at things.
She picked up a framed photo of me and my brother and just stared at it. Then she walked toward the stairs. I backed up as quietly as I could into my bedroom and shut the door without making any noise.
I honestly didn't know what to do. I didn't want her to know I was home yet. After maybe a minute, I heard her walk halfway up the stairs and then stop.
I could see her shadow under my door. She just stood there not moving as if she knew I was at the door. It felt like at least a full minute.
With my mind racing, I decided it was now or never to confront her. I flung the door open and I was not expecting her to actually already be standing mere feet away from the door, already looking at it, but now looking at me. But I quickly realized, now that I had a closer look, it wasn't the same lady.
It was another Hispanic lady, yes, but her build, hair, and face were all different. There was something so bone-chilling about her face. She had this blank, nearly angry, hateful look on her face.
I didn't say anything and neither did she. We just stood there for a few seconds before she slowly turned and walked back down the stairs like nothing happened. I heard my front door open and close a few seconds later.
My heart was pounding and I was shaking. I think I was genuinely too nervous and shook to move or say a word. I waited maybe 5 minutes before even moving.
Dialing 911 was almost difficult with how shaky my fingers were. The police came and I explained everything. I explained there were two different women.
I gave them the phone number and email of the cleaning lady and any other info I could provide. The original cleaning lady stopped responding completely after that day. I replaced every lock in the house that same day.
Like literally right after the cops left, I went straight to Ace Hardware. What still bothers me is the officer asking me if I had given anyone else a key, to which I told him no. He just said sometimes people like that don't work alone.
I never hired another cleaner again. It's crazy to think that 2008 was almost 20 years ago, but here we are. For anybody who's too young to remember, the early 2000s were sort of like the wild west for the internet in many ways.
Back in 2008, I was in my early 20s and honestly, I was a bit reckless. I was way too trusting and I was the king of saying things like that could never happen to me. I just never really had that sense of urgency or anxiety that others had.
That is until one spring evening when I experienced for myself first hand that downright evil individuals really exist in the world. Facebook had just started to blow up, but most people I knew were still rocking MySpace. Social media was a thing, but not like today.
We had all heard horror stories about the internet, but nobody I knew actually cared or more accurately, we were all just incredibly ignorant. I bring all this up because perhaps the most insane thing about the internet at the time was a little website called Craigslist. Now, I know Craigslist is still around, but it's nothing compared to what it was back in the early 2000s.
We didn't have websites like Marketplace, so if you wanted something, you went to Craigslist. We could find and purchase anything from small trinkets to vehicles and everything in between. You could even find work or odd jobs for some extra cash.
I had heard from friends who used Craigslist all the time that it was the greatest website ever. They swore by it. I never had any interest in visiting the website until my life started to unravel a bit in the spring of 2008.
I was living with my girlfriend and with almost no notice, she dumped me and threw me out of the house. Thankfully, I wasn't living on the street or anything like that because I had friends who would let me crash at their place. I spent the immediate days after the breakup trying to find my own apartment, but it was proving harder than I thought on my $7 an hour salary.
One of my friends, whom I had previously mentioned, who swore by Craigslist, told me to check it out for possible houses or even rooms for rent. I may have been reckless and ignorant, but surprisingly, that was a hard pass for me. I don't know why, I just didn't love the idea for some reason.
However, I did start looking for furniture and items to eventually fill my place whenever I had a place to fill since she kept everything after the breakup. At first, it was like a treasure chest of goods. >> [music] >> I could finally see why people loved Craigslist.
I literally could find anything I needed. I was finding deals left and right. My buddy had a massive garage that he allowed me to store my recently purchased furniture in until I found my own place.
One afternoon, I was looking for a love seat or a small couch to store in the garage. I found a post from a guy named Keith who was selling a whole sectional for $45. He had a picture with the posting and it was a smaller sectional sofa that could fit in most living rooms.
Not to mention, it looked like it was in great shape. The price seemed too good to be true, but as I said, I was ignorant and I just saw a cool couch and a low price tag. I messaged Keith and to my surprise, he messaged me back almost right away and told me the couch was still available.
He seemed friendly and trustworthy. Well, as trustworthy as anyone can be over messaging on the internet. He told me that he had gotten a new job in another state and he was just trying to sell, hence the low price.
The reason seemed good enough to me, so we exchanged numbers and set up a time to meet that evening. A meet up that would go on to traumatize me for years and open my eyes to the horror that exists even in our own backyards. I pulled up to the house around 9:00 p.
m. that night. Probably a red flag for most, but not for me at the time.
He told me he had some other work arrangement, so he couldn't meet until that time. It didn't seem weird to me. The house was dark and not just because it was dark outside.
Everything looked desolate. It was a very run-down street with almost no [music] street lamps. There were several houses on the block and they were all just as dark and decrepit as Keith's house.
I tried calling Keith several times with the number he gave me, but I just kept getting one of those automated responses that the number is no longer in service. Just as I was about to drive away, my phone buzzed. It was a weird number with a different area code.
I answered and I was greeted with a friendly and somewhat unnerving voice. His voice was deep and almost erratic. He called me fella and started apologizing about the phone business.
He told me that he broke his phone a little while ago and he was calling me on his work phone. I was definitely a little weirded out, but not scared or uneasy. I was honestly more annoyed than anything.
I realize hindsight is 20/20, but at the time, when you're in these kinds of situations, your brain is just kind of working differently. I wasn't thinking about the worst, I was thinking about that couch. He told me to meet him around the backside of the residence and he would unlock the back door for me.
I didn't even question it for 1 second. I made my way to the back and couldn't believe that it was still so dark. I figured this guy would turn on some kind of light for me.
I got to the back door and just stood there for a moment. I didn't know if he just wanted me to walk inside or if he was coming outside to get me. I decided to call him again on what he said was his work cell.
Instead of hearing the ring in my ear, I hear a generic ringtone coming from behind me. Not in the house, but from the bushes in the backyard. I hate to even say this, but this is the first time I finally felt some kind of feeling that something might not be right.
Keith ran out from the bushes waving his ringing flip phone and with that strange voice, he told me that he was getting rid of some old food and he was just coming out to greet me. He said that he didn't mean to alarm me. He claimed that he liked to feed the squirrels and whatever other animals lived in those bushes.
I told him it was fine and that I just wanted to see the couch so I could be on my way. In a cheerful voice, he said, "Of course. " He skipped by me, almost stumbling as he passed me.
We got to the back door and it looked like he was struggling to open it. When he told me to meet him in the back, I just assumed that he was going to be opening it from the inside of the house. I didn't expect him to be trying to open the door from the outside.
This was the first time I got a good look at Keith. At least as good a look as I could get in the limited light. He was older, but not old.
I would say maybe late 50s. He was really skinny and had long white hair that was pulled back in a nasty ponytail. Worst of all, he smelled like a dirty ashtray full of cigarette butts.
He pulled away from the door a little bit and asked if I could help him get the door open. He said sometimes the door would stick and he was embarrassed that he couldn't get it open. He told me to just use my shoulder and push the door as hard as I could.
At this point, I knew something was wrong, but I was already in the moment and was just kind of going with the flow. I grabbed the doorknob and lowered my shoulder into the door. It didn't stick at all.
In fact, as I lowered my shoulder to push it open, someone from the other side opened the door. I had so much momentum now that I lost my balance and fell to the floor. When I hit the ground, I heard Keith yell, "Now!
" In the dark room, two other people emerged from each side and held me on the ground. I started to squirm, but it didn't matter. One of the guys holding me down was huge.
Keith started to kick my face. One of the worst parts of all of this was the sheer darkness of the situation. I couldn't see anything and that made everything feel so much worse.
I could feel my body starting to get weak from Keith kicking me. He told the other guy to grab the tape and I heard the sound of tape ripping. I couldn't even imagine what they planned on doing.
What happened next is probably the closest thing to a miracle that has ever happened to me. During the struggle of me falling and being held down, I accidentally dialed my friend, the friend that I had been living with since the breakup. The sounds of him yelling hello were coming through the phone loud and clear.
I decided to yell, "I'm in the back of the house. Come and help me. " Clearly a bluff.
I was alone, but I wasn't sure if these guys knew that. I was hopefully trying to scare them into thinking I had someone else in the car with me. The big guy eased his grip and looked at Keith, who had stopped kicking for a brief second.
That second was all I needed. I was able to free myself and I ran out the door and back to my car. I could hear them chasing me, but I didn't look back.
I shut the car door and locked it immediately before starting it. Just as I was peeling away, I saw the big guy clearly for the first time. He was bald and had one of those patchy beards.
His eyes were the worst part. They were dark and looked lifeless. He was trying to open the door even as I was driving away.
I just kept driving. I drove for hours before I went back to my friend's house. I was scared that somehow those guys were going to follow me and I didn't want them to know where I was staying.
I called my friend back and told him everything. I eventually called the authorities, but it was too late. The post was gone and apparently the cell phone was some sort of track phone and Keith ditched it.
I gave them the best description I could, but as far as I know, Keith and those two other guys are still out there in the world. What scares me every time I think about that night is when I think about their intention. This wasn't just a robbery.
He lured me in with a $45 deal. Whatever these monsters wanted, it wasn't just money. It was so much worse.
I start going down a rabbit hole in my mind thinking about what could have happened if I hadn't somehow escaped. As I wrote this story, I'm well aware of the stupid choices I made along the way. I'm just so thankful I'm here to tell it.
