This happened just last summer. I live by myself in what I would describe as a typical apartment; I have one bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a living room, pretty much. It's inside of a building in a fairly large apartment complex.
One night, I worked sort of late into the night at my job. I was really tired from the long day, and I pretty much just arrived home, took a quick shower, and went to bed. That was around midnight.
However, I woke up at roughly 4:00 in the morning. Obviously, I wanted to get more sleep, but I was wide awake. I was also very thirsty and felt dehydrated.
Sometimes, mostly in the summer, I wake up in the night because of dehydration, and obviously, on this night I had worked late and not been able to drink as much. Usually, I drink some water and feel better immediately, and then go right back to sleep. But some of the times when I wake up, I'm wide awake and can't go back to sleep right away, and this was one of those times.
So, what I usually do when that happens is get up and go into the living room and watch TV until I get sleepy again. That might be 15 or 30 minutes, usually. So, that was what I did on this night.
I got out of bed, drank some water, immediately felt better, and then sat on the couch and turned on the TV. My couch is to the right of the front door to the apartment, about 20 feet away. I remember that when I sat down, I glanced over and happened to notice that my door was actually unlocked.
I realized that I somehow had forgotten to lock it. Normally, I always remember, but I guess I forget sometimes. I went over and locked the door and then went back to the couch.
I started watching TV and waited for myself to feel sleepy again. I was flipping around the channels for maybe 5 minutes when suddenly I heard a noise. Obviously, it was very quiet other than the noise from the TV, but the sound I heard was somebody trying to open the front door to my apartment.
I really couldn't believe it, and I had no idea who it could be. I sat and listened but didn't hear anything else. Then, after a moment, I got up and walked over to the door.
I looked out of the peephole, but nobody was there. Then I opened up my apartment door and looked into the hallway. That's when I saw him.
There was a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt walking away from me down the hallway. He was mostly looking down at the ground, and then he went to another door and tried opening it, but this one was also locked. I watched him go to another door and try that one as well.
Apparently, he hadn't noticed me opening the door. I didn't know who this guy was, but he was seemingly trying to get into any apartment. As he reached the end of the hallway, he suddenly looked behind him, and then he saw me.
When he did, I quickly closed the door. I was afraid that he would come back, but he didn't. Soon after, I went back to bed.
I'm really glad that I woke up when I did that night and locked my door, or who knows what could have happened. One time, I was home by myself and watching TV. I was very relaxed, sitting on the couch in the living room and just enjoying a movie.
The volume was kind of loud on the TV, and I was having some popcorn. To that point, I had been home for several hours, and it was a good night. As the movie went on, I remember that there was a really quiet part.
Just during that, I thought I heard the sound of something coming from the other room. It got my attention, and I was slightly concerned for a moment until I realized it was probably just my cat; he was always moving around the house, so I didn't pay it much thought. Several minutes later, though, at another quiet spot in the movie, I heard the sound from the other room again.
It just didn't really sound like my cat, but what else could it be? I looked around and then saw that my cat was sleeping on the living room floor in the same room as me. That made me realize that the sound I heard in the other room was not the cat.
I got a bad feeling, wondering what it could be. I paused the movie and listened closely. When I did, though, I stopped hearing anything for about a minute or two.
Then I heard something again; it sounded like somebody was quietly walking through the kitchen farther away. I couldn't see that area of the house from where I was. I stayed where I was on the couch, wondering if I should call the police or what.
For several minutes, though, I didn't hear anything more, so at that point, I was wondering if I had gone crazy or if a person was actually in my house. I hadn't heard anything in a while, so I decided to just go to my kitchen and look. When I walked over there, things were still quiet.
Then, as I reached the end of the living room, I heard somebody walking again. Whoever was in my house quickly made their way to the basement door and then opened it. As I looked into the room, I just barely saw the door closing and then heard someone going down the stairs.
This confirmed to me that an intruder was in my house and they were now going into my basement. I sprinted out of the room. Then I ran to.
. . the other staircase and went up to where my bedroom was.
I locked myself in the room and then called the police from my cell phone. They said that they would send someone over right away and that it would be about 10 minutes. I felt better, but I would not be able to feel completely safe until the police were there and the person was out of my house.
As I was in my bedroom waiting, after maybe 2 or 3 minutes, I heard the sound of someone walking on the main level of the house. I didn't know if this was the person leaving or what, but the fact that I was hearing them at all worried me. I hoped that they would have just stayed in the basement and the cops could find them there.
Then I heard the footsteps reach the bottom of the staircase. Whoever was there then began walking up. Now I was really worried.
They slowly walked up the stairs, and then it was like they made a beeline for my bedroom door. They went right up to it and then tried opening the door, which thankfully had a lock on it. When this happened, I desperately wanted the police to get there now, but they weren't there yet.
The person walked away from the door and then back downstairs. I felt slightly better, but they still didn't leave. I heard them just walking around all over the main floor for several minutes until at last the police arrived.
The cops entered the house, and within seconds I heard multiple voices. After a while, when it was safe, I went downstairs. I saw that there were several officers there.
They had found a man inside my house, who I did not know. I was told that he was likely trying to rob my place. Luckily, he hadn't done any damage or anything.
How he got inside of the house, I do not know. I'm really grateful that I came out of that situation all right. The scariest part to me is that the guy went up to my bedroom when I was in it.
This is something that took place back when I was a kid. I believe I was about 10 years old, and at the time I lived with my parents and older sister. We lived in a normal two-story house in a pretty populated but generally safe neighborhood.
So it was a Saturday morning, and I was up early. I don't remember why I woke up early, if I had planned to or if I just happened to. It was like 7:00 a.
m. , though, and nobody else in the house was awake yet. This was before smartphones and streaming services and all that, so my favorite thing to do was watch TV.
I remember that I went downstairs into the living room and turned on the TV. I was watching some kids' shows in the living room and just relaxing and enjoying it. The sun had literally just risen as well.
So probably 30 minutes into my watching TV, there was a knock on the front door. Being a kid, when I heard it, I got scared. I had no intentions of answering or even looking to see who it was.
I stayed on the couch and did not have a view of the front door area from where I was. After maybe 30 seconds to a minute, there was another knock. I had hoped that the person would just go away.
After the second knock, though, I didn't hear anything for a couple of minutes. My curiosity got the better of me, and I got up from the couch and walked over to the front door. I carefully approached and then looked out of the window next to the door to the front step.
There was a man standing there. I would have expected whoever it was to be gone by now. I jumped back upon seeing him, and I didn't think that he saw me.
I ran out of the room and back towards the living room. At that point, I remember hearing the man attempting to open the front door, which was locked. I had no idea who he was or what he wanted, but it really creeped me out now that he was trying to get inside.
I was about to run upstairs and wake everybody up when I thought that maybe I heard the guy walking away. I slowly and quietly went back over to the front of the house, just close enough to look outside this time. It seemed as though the man was gone because I didn't see him.
I went closer and looked out of the window and still didn't see the guy. I realized that he probably walked away after realizing that nobody was going to answer the door and that he couldn't get inside. That made me feel a little better, and I went back into the living room.
I really didn't want to wake everybody up, and I figured that they would be getting up soon on their own anyways, so I watched TV in the living room for a while longer. However, I was once again interrupted. This time, I heard another knock on the front door.
It was much quieter than before, though, but still obvious enough because of how quiet things were. This knock was steady and did not stop. It was a constant soft knocking that went on for at least 30 seconds straight.
I just sat there at first, not knowing what to do. Then I stood up and was trying to decide whether I would run upstairs or go and look to see who was there at the door. I figured that it was probably the same guy, but obviously, I didn't know for sure.
I ended up just standing there in the living room, though, and not really moving. The knocking finally stopped. I waited another 30 seconds or so and then walked to the front end of the house again.
As soon as I got near the front door, I could see the same man was standing there. Then, he moved to the side window right next to the door and looked through it right at me. He was clearly seeing me, and the guy was waving me over.
When I saw that, I turned around and ran for the stairs. I went upstairs and woke up everyone. When we all went back downstairs, though, the man was gone and he did not return.
Nobody knew who he was. After I described him to my parents as best as I could, they still had no idea who it could be. I'm really glad that he didn't get into the house and that I didn't answer the door.
I'm not sure what he wanted because he certainly didn't seem like a door-to-door salesman or anything, and the time, with it being just after 7 a. m. , is a bit early for that sort of stuff.
I'm just glad that I never saw him again. Not too long ago, I was watching YouTube videos with my girlfriend. We were at my apartment just hanging out at night.
I have an apartment that's not the greatest; it's on the first floor, and I have a little patio that goes outside from the living room through a sliding glass door. Overall, it's fine, though. So, like I said, my girlfriend was over, and we were just sitting on the couch watching TV.
We watch YouTube or whatever all the time. It was probably like 9:00 p. m.
or so. Suddenly, the screen went black for a moment and then we were seeing some random phone screen. We were both very confused at first but soon realized that someone must have connected their phone to my TV by mistake.
There's a lot of apartment units close by, so you can connect to other people's devices if you really want to. We were seeing the phone screen of whoever this was going through their apps. I figured they would disconnect after realizing they were connected to my TV and not their own, and I expected the screen to return to what we were doing.
In the meantime, though, I was kind of interested to see what this person was doing, so I didn't bother to get up and turn off the TV or anything. The person then went into the photos app on their phone, and they started scrolling through them one at a time. It didn't take me long to see myself among these photos.
There were pictures taken straight from my social media pages, such as Facebook and Instagram—just screenshots of them. Then there were pictures of my girlfriend as well, all kinds of pictures of both of us from both my Facebook and her Facebook. The more this went on, the more confused and creeped out we were.
There were probably 10 photos of each of us, and this went on for several minutes. My girlfriend and I were talking to each other in disbelief, wondering who this was and what they were doing. Then, just like that, their phone disconnected, my TV returned to its home screen, and I was left wondering what on Earth had just happened.
But less than 5 minutes later, as my girlfriend and I were talking to each other, trying to figure out what was going on, there was suddenly a knock at my apartment door. I rarely get anybody knocking on the door, so as soon as it happened, we both stopped talking. Instantly, after a moment, I got up and walked over to see who was there.
When I got there, I didn't see anybody. I was even more paranoid now; I figured whoever had connected to the TV had just knocked on my door. We were very confused and eventually sat back down on the couch and tried to forget about it.
We went on the YouTube app again and tried to play a video to take our mind off of things. Meanwhile, my sliding glass door in the room was mostly covered by blinds, but there was about 2 feet at the end that weren't closed all the way. A few minutes into watching YouTube again, I saw something out of the corner of my eye.
You couldn't really see anything outside with some light being on in the apartment and it being dark out, but I did notice that someone was really close to the window in the opening of the blinds. I looked closer, and the person came closer. Then I realized that there was a man wearing a black ski mask with his face right on the other side of the glass looking in.
My girlfriend noticed him just after me and screamed. She got up and ran out of the room as I stood up and backed away in shock. Then, very quickly, the masked man turned and ran off into the night.
I went over and closed the blinds entirely. Then I made sure that every door and window was covered and locked and all that. I was very paranoid for the rest of the night, but nothing else happened.
Since then, there have been no other occurrences like that. It could have just been an elaborate prank, but that was a little bit far to be taking things in my mind, and I also have no idea who would do that kind of prank to us. My girlfriend and I still get a little bit worried that something like that might happen again when we're at my place at night, and we also have no clue who it was that could have done it.
I'm just hoping that they don't return. Years ago now, but it's something that I will never forget. I lived with a roommate at the time, and we both rented this one house.
It was a somewhat small house in a pretty typical residential neighborhood. I don’t live there anymore and have since moved out, but one night I found myself home alone as my roommate went out of town. I was sitting in the living room and watching NCIS on TV when, out of nowhere, I heard my phone vibrating, indicating that I had received a text.
I picked it up and looked at it to see that I had a text from an unknown number. The text said, "I also like NCIS. " I was very confused at first, not knowing who sent that to me or what they were talking about.
Then I realized that possibly someone was spying on me. My TV was in the living room, and it faced the front window, so if you looked inside from the outside, you could see what was on TV. I quickly looked behind me to the street out front.
At first, I didn't really see anything suspicious, but I soon realized that there was a car parked across on the other side of the street. It was not uncommon for cars to be parked on the street, but I didn't recognize this one at all. I moved closer to the window and looked, but I really couldn't tell if anybody was inside of it or not.
So I closed the curtains completely, which covered the windows and would not allow anybody to see in. Meanwhile, I texted the number back, asking who it was. Several minutes later, I got a reply.
The new text said, "I'm not allowed to watch anymore. " I once again asked who it was, but they did not reply to me. A while later, I looked out of the window again, and the car was still there.
Then I got another text; it said, "I saw you looking at me. What do you want? " I didn't know what to say, and I didn't reply, but I was very worried now.
They texted again within another minute and said, "Why don't you come outside? " This one was enough for me to block the number, and I did. A while later, I looked out of the window again, and this time the car was gone.
I looked out several more times that night, but did not see the car again. The rest of the time that I lived in that house, nothing strange like that happened again, and I also didn't see the car either. I still wonder about it, though.
Who was that that was texting me, and how did they get my number? Also, what would have happened if I had gone outside?
