[Music] [Music] [Applause] My girlfriend and I recently moved into our new house. It's honestly the home we've been dreaming of, the perfect fit for us. We have a cat named Bella whom we rescued together, so everything felt perfect when we first moved in.
The only downside at first was the house to our right. It looked abandoned as the owner had started renovating it but never finished. The layout of the houses is such that on our right there's a space for the entrance to our back garden and next to that is the abandoned house's entrance to its back garden.
There's no fence separating the two as the owner removed it to install a new one but never completed the job, leaving both back gardens with open access. Behind the abandoned house is another property separated by a fence. From what we could see, several young men lived there.
Occasionally, when we returned home, we'd see them cutting through the neighbor's back garden to reach the front of the street. We didn't think much of it at first. Maybe they knew the owner and had permission.
Fast forward to our first night in the new house. We were sitting in the back garden enjoying the space and looked up at the houses behind us just out of curiosity. That's when we noticed a man staring blankly at us from a window.
He wasn't hiding it. He made it very obvious. There was no expression on his face and the room was dark, which made the whole thing even more unsettling.
We assumed he was just curious about his new neighbors. But after half an hour of that blank stare, we decided to go inside. The next few days were normal.
I went to work and my fianceé continued unpacking. One night, we decided to sit in the garden again. It was dark, but we enjoyed looking at the stars and having deep conversations until we heard the makeshift wooden board fence being moved.
Three men appeared standing there staring at us. "Are you okay? " I asked, knowing they wouldn't leave unless I said something.
"The youngest looking one, around 29, was holding a big bag, and we had no idea what was inside. He offered us some stolen washing up tablets, which we declined. I made a joke about it because the situation felt so awkward.
He smiled and said, "Okay. " And then they left. What struck me was how they just let themselves into our garden without saying anything, like as if they had every right to be there.
We went back inside thinking it was a one-off, but it all started getting worse from there. They began helping themselves into our garden more often and acting in ways that were clearly meant to intimidate us. They would get into the next door house by lifting up the fence that separated the back gardens and walking through.
I forgot to mention, my girlfriend and I are both 20 years old, so of course the idea that they might be trying to intimidate us as two young women was the first thing that crossed our minds. One day, while I was cleaning the front room, two police officers came around the side of our house and entered the abandoned garden. They lifted up the fence and looked around for a few minutes before leaving without saying anything.
I thought it was strange, but continued with my day, assuming maybe the people next door were trouble. A few days later, the police knocked on our door. They explained that the house behind us was now vacant.
The men had been kicked out for antisocial behavior. Apparently, not just towards us, but with other neighbors, too. Honestly, we were relieved.
Even though they hadn't physically done anything yet, it meant they wouldn't get the chance to escalate things. We continued settling into the house. But one day while I was in the bath, I heard a loud bang outside.
I quickly got dressed and ran to find my girlfriend. I found her recording something from our spare bedroom window, which faces the garden of the now empty house. I asked what was going on, but she shushed me.
After a moment, she explained. A man we had never seen before pointed up at our bedroom window, and when she noticed him, he sprinted full speed toward our house. He tried our door handle on the way past, then ran back into the garden, threw the broken fence up, and started banging on all the windows of the empty house.
We called the police immediately. They came, watched the video, took a statement, and left. We were shaken.
Why would they try our door handle and then break into that house? What was he planning? A few nights later, while we were in bed, we heard whistling.
The kind of whistle men used to harass women. It was 2:16 a. m.
We listened quietly and then heard someone tapping on our window. Terrified, we checked the cameras, but for some reason, they didn't record anything. Whoever it was must have left shortly after because the noises stopped.
We were too scared to sleep. So, the next day, we went to my mom's and stayed the night. When we returned the following morning, we noticed our Ring doorbell had been removed and placed on the floor.
The SD card was gone. Someone had clearly come back and we knew who it was. Who else would do that?
We called the police again and they told us to keep all the doors and windows locked. The woman on the phone even said that the removal of the camera could be a sign that they were planning something, which terrified us even more. But at least she was honest.
The whistling, banging, and attempts to reenter the house continued for weeks. We made multiple police reports. They never tried our door again, so we hoped it was over.
But 3 weeks later, while in bed watching funny clips from our camera, we checked the live feed. That's when we saw a man outside wearing a black mask covering his mouth and nose with his hood up, standing in front of our garden with his arms spread wide like he was imitating Jesus on the cross. He stared up at our bedroom window with his head tilted.
We froze. At the time, we had moved the camera inside the house, so it didn't record. We were so shaken, we didn't even think to screen record.
He then spoke, but we couldn't hear what he said. Then he turned around, walked to the opposite side of the street, and just stood there staring at our house for about 30 minutes. We called the police again.
They said it wasn't illegal to stare at someone's property and dismissed the whole thing. Even when we told them what he did on our lawn, they made us feel like we were overreacting. We couldn't sleep for days.
Any noise outside terrified us, even normal ones. Then one night at 2:52 a. m.
, we got a notification. I woke my girlfriend and said, "Someone's outside. I know it.
Please check the camera. " She did, and there they were. Two masked men coming from the side of our house, shining flashlights into our windows.
One of them, the same man who had been harassing us, was holding what looked like a crowbar. Why us? What was the point of this?
For days on end, he would stand across the street, pointing, waving, or shouting things up at our window. Every time we looked, he would stare blankly at us. It was clearly meant to scare us, and it worked.
We kept contacting the police, but they've done very little. The harassment continues. We've got cameras now, and we record everything, but we feel powerless.
Just earlier today, he stood outside again, staring up at us. We got it on video and we're absolutely terrified, but we'll update if anything else happens. [Music] Let me preface this by saying I'm not crazy.
I know how this is going to sound, paranoid, unhinged, delusional, but I swear everything I'm about to tell you actually happened. It started with a face, or more accurately, faces that all looked just slightly off. 3 months ago, I ended a relationship with my ex, Caleb.
We'd been together almost 2 years, and the breakup was long overdue. Caleb wasn't violent or anything. He never hit me, but he was controlling and possessive in that low-key and calculating kind of way.
Perhaps the worst kind of way. He'd do things like track when I'm on my phone and quiz me on things I'd done that day to see if I'd give the same answer twice. After I left him, I changed my number, disabled my social media, and even moved apartments.
I thought I was in the clear. Then came the barista. It was a Tuesday morning.
I stopped by this little hole-in-the-wall coffee shop near my new place. I'd only been there once or twice. As I stepped up to the counter, the barista, a girl about my age, smiled at me.
But something about her expression made me pause. She tilted her head and said, "Good morning, sunshine. " I froze because that was Caleb's nickname for me.
It was not a common one. He used to say it sarcastically whenever I was upset, like, "What's wrong, sunshine? " He enjoyed pushing buttons.
I brushed it off. Maybe it was a coincidence. But then it happened again.
A few days later, I took a ride share to work. A different driver than usual. older guy, maybe in his 50s.
He kept glancing in the rearview mirror like he was trying to recognize me and then he asked me if I ever figured out what I was running from. He said it as casual as could be. I simply responded, "What?
" And he just chuckled and shook his head like I was in on some joke. Caleb said that to me once after I told him I needed time to figure myself out. He leaned in dead serious and asked, "Ever figure out what you're running from?
" Now, two strangers have repeated things he said word for word. It kept happening. A woman at the grocery store bumped into me and whispered, "You don't get to just disappear.
" A guy on the street said, "Still wearing your hair like that. " as he passed. Another one, someone who worked in my building, said, "You always like this song.
" while humming the exact tune Caleb used to play when we argued. It wasn't their faces that freaked me out. It was the way they looked at me, like they knew me, or at least thought they did.
They all had different faces, but their eyes all had the same expressions. I started thinking I was going crazy. I mean, what else could explain it, so I did something I wasn't proud of.
I contacted Caleb, not directly. I sent a message to his sister. I told her to tell him to stop.
I figured maybe he hired a private investigator. Maybe he was stalking me or pulling strings, telling people things about me. I just wanted it to stop.
She texted back the next day saying, "I don't know what you're talking about. Caleb's in rehab. He's been there for 6 weeks with no phone.
" I didn't believe her. I thought she was covering for him. That is until I saw a picture she posted of him on Facebook a week later looking pale and sunken in, holding one of those one day sober chips.
So, it couldn't be Caleb, or at least not directly. I couldn't shake the feeling that these strangers knew things they shouldn't, though. One night, I stayed late at work.
I didn't want to go home because my apartment didn't feel safe anymore. Not that anything bad happened inside of it. I just didn't like being alone.
Around 10 p. m. , I finally called it a night.
I walked the 10 minutes to my place, keeping my head down, headphones in, but no music playing. something I learned to do so I could still hear if someone was following me. When I turned the corner onto my block, I saw someone sitting on the stoop of the building across from mine.
A young man with his hoodie up but his head down. I almost ignored him until he spoke. He said, "Cold out tonight, huh, sunshine?
" I stopped walking. He didn't look at me. He just stared at the sidewalk like he was reading something on it.
I slowly walked past and didn't say a word. When I reached my building, I went upstairs and locked every bolt on the door. I sat on the couch for hours just listening to nothing.
Eventually, I fell asleep. The next morning, I woke up to find my doormat flipped over. That might not sound like a big deal, but I live alone, and the door to my unit is on the top floor.
You don't just accidentally walk by my place. The underside of my mat had something scribbled in pen. It said, "You can change your face too if you want, but I'll still recognize you.
" I didn't know what it meant, but I still threw up. That day, I booked a hotel for the weekend. I left my apartment without packing anything.
I didn't feel safe even grabbing clothes. I just needed to be somewhere crowded. The hotel clerk gave me a room on the fourth floor.
It was small, quiet, and kind of stuffy, but it felt safe. But only until around 2:00 a. m.
when someone knocked on my door. There were three slow knocks. I sat up in bed and waited.
They knocked again eventually. I peeked through the peepphole and it was a woman maybe in her 40s. Her face was totally blank and expressionless.
She was just staring straight at the door. She didn't say anything. So, I didn't make a sound and eventually she left.
It was one of the most disturbing things I'd ever seen. The next morning, I asked the front desk if someone had come by to my room. They said no one should have been up there, especially that late.
All the rooms on my floor were vacants. That's when it clicked. These weren't random people.
They were being sense and fed my details. They were given phrases Caleb used. But if it weren't Caleb, who would do it and why?
I thought about Caleb in rehab, about his obsession with control and making sure I was never fully gone. He didn't need to be the one knocking. He just needed to send others to do it.
So, I started digging and there was one conversation I remembered from months before the breakup. Caleb talking about a forum he was on. A place where people shared tactics.
He made it sound like it was for productivity or self-improvement. I don't remember the name of it. Honestly, I don't think he ever gave me the name, but in retrospect, it sounded like some creepy cultish role-play crap, except it's happening to me for real.
Someone, probably Caleb, had hired people to say his words and mimic his patterns so that even if he was out of my life, technically, I'd still be constantly reminded of him. It wasn't stalking in the traditional sense. It was psychological graffiti, like he was spraying himself onto strangers so I could never be sure who I was looking at.
I don't think it's about watching me, but rather about making sure I never stopped watching for him. I moved again and disappeared off social media again. I even dyed my hair.
I told friends not to tell anyone where I was. It worked until last week. I was walking home from the bookstore and a woman passed me on the street and said, "Still hiding behind books, sunshine.
" She didn't stop walking even just to look at me. I don't think this will ever stop. Maybe he paid some crazy underground service to do this to me for a year.
Who knows? Maybe he made it public. Maybe this is some sick underground game now.
Who can scare Sunshine the best? Who can get the closest without touching? I can't trust anyone's face anymore.
The constant paranoia is truly eating away at my mental health. [Music] My family is a group of home bodies that don't travel, so everyone was surprised when my aunt proposed a trip to one of Michigan's Great Lakes. We agreed, wanting to create new memories together.
My cousin booked a spacious Airbnb that could somehow accommodate all 18 of us, which felt like a miracle considering the price. The house sat right on the beach with gorgeous lake views that stretched for miles, almost like an ocean. Most of us claimed rooms in the main house, but because of our large group, some of us were placed in a second building directly behind it, a two-story garage with bedrooms upstairs.
My three cousins and I were assigned to sleep there. At first, we didn't think much of it. We spent most of the first day enjoying the hot tub, relaxing on the beach, and soaking in the scenery.
It wasn't until night that we entered the garage for real. The space was outdated and neglected with carpeted bathrooms that smelled like mold, stained bed linens, and a poorly secured latch on the door. Clearly, the cleaners focused on the main home and ignored the garage.
My cousins were grossed out and refused to sleep on the beds unless we wash the sheets, so I suggested we do laundry. The machines were small, so we could only do one set of bed sheets at a time, and it was obvious we'd be up late. We passed time upstairs, waiting for the first load.
My cousin Maria complained about how we got stuck with the worst place. And as she spoke, I started to feel uneasy, like something bad was coming. I've had this feeling before, a rare kind of intuition that usually ends in a nightmare or something worse.
I told my cousins to stay alert, and they listened, especially since we'd all experienced a break-in before when we lived in Detroit. Around midnight, the bell rang from the first floor, signaling the wash was done. I went downstairs alone, swapped the load into the dryer, and brought up the clean smelling sheets.
When my cousins saw how clean they were, they wanted their bedding washed, too. So, I kept going up and down between cycles doing everyone's sheets. At around 2:3,7 a.
m. , we were finally done. We made the beds, and we're too tired to stay up any longer.
My cousin Nikki insisted we leave the light on, and while they all fell asleep quickly, I stayed up doing some schoolwork on my phone. I'm a light sleeper, something that stuck with me since the break-in, and I remained hyper aware of my surroundings, even while half asleep. Then, around 3:00 a.
m. , a loud bang hit the garage door like someone had thrown their body against it. I sat up, startled, but my cousins didn't move.
I tried telling myself it was just wind, though the noise was too heavy for that. Still, I stayed quiet and tried to sleep. But then it happened again.
Same deafening crash. this time shaking the garage door. The building trembled from the impact.
I was fully awake now, watching the lamp lit room as my cousins continued to sleep. No animal or gust of wind could cause that. 20 minutes later, the third boom hit.
The garage shook again, and finally, two of my cousins bolted upright. I asked if they heard that, already knowing the answer. Nikki asked what that was, and I said, "I don't know, but this is the third time I'm hearing it.
We all agreed no wind could cause that sound. Nikki suggested texting her mom, my aunt, so we did. It was 4:11 a.
m. when she responded, realizing something serious must be going on. She woke my uncle who ran outside to check the property.
We stayed upstairs, too afraid to move until we heard knocking. It was my uncle at the door, and when we opened it, we saw him standing there with my dad and a few of our older male cousins. That's when I knew it was serious.
There was no wind, no one playing around. My uncle told us to grab our things that were going to the main house. Then he said there was someone on the property, and that's what made my heart sink.
I threw everything into my suitcase, and we all rushed out of the garage. Once inside the main house, most of the family woke up from the noise and commotion. We sat in the living room trying to piece it all together.
I told them about the first two loud crashes and my cousins confirmed the third. My aunt explained that when my uncle went out to investigate, she followed him. He shouted, "Hey," at someone standing behind the garage.
The door to the main house slammed behind her right then, and there was no wind to explain it. She feared someone might have slipped into the house, so she ran to wake my dad and cousins. After searching, no one else was found inside.
Then my uncle described what he saw. A man stood behind the garage, not hiding or moving, but staring like he wanted to be seen. When my uncle called out, the man didn't flinch.
He simply walked away and vanished. Not into the darkness, but into thin air. The leaves on the ground didn't crunch, and there were no footsteps left behind.
My uncle's not someone who makes up stories either. He's a serious, logical man, which made everything scarier. My brothers added that they found two jester cards, one in the main house and one in the garage.
The one in the garage was twisted and demonic looking. One cousin pointed out that jesters symbolize mockery and loud sounds happened around 3:00 a. m.
the so-called devil's hour. It was as if we were being taunted. My uncle had even checked for footprints, but saw only his and my cousins, not the man's.
Another cousin drove down the road during the incident to try and spot someone fleeing, but found no one. That day, no one returned to the garage. We squeezed into the main house, on floors, couches, anywhere there was room.
My mom gave up her bed so we could sleep more comfortably. On the second night, she slept on a couch by the large windows and woke around 4:00 a. m.
to footsteps on the porch. She didn't dare open her eyes. She was afraid of seeing someone looking in.
Then she heard someone trying the basement door. It had a weak lock and my brothers and male cousins were sleeping down there. The door rattled as someone tried to break in.
My mom rushed to the basement, but by the time she reached the beachside entrance, no one was there and all the boys were still fast asleep. That was our last night. Though we planned to stay until Tuesday, we left Monday instead.
On the way home, we couldn't stop talking about what had happened. When my mom found out I had been going downstairs alone during laundry, she theorized that someone might have been watching me and thought I was alone in the garage. The time between my last trip downstairs and us going to sleep lined up way too well with the banging sounds.
Theories started to form. Some of us thought it was a neighbor trying to scare us off. Others believed there was something paranormal, especially because of the jester cards.
My aunt pointed out that a normal person would have run when my uncle spotted them. But this man didn't run. He just watched and disappeared.
We contacted the Airbnb host who claimed she'd review the footage from the camera above the garage door, but we never heard back. It made us wonder, did she know the man? Was he a neighbor?
When we first arrived, my sister and cousin had walked the beach and passed a woman next door. She watched them coldly without friendliness or a greeting, just an unfriendly gaze. The house was in the middle of nowhere, and we understood how constant Airbnb guests might annoy locals, but we were respectful.
We didn't deserve what happened. This was our first family trip and hopefully not our last. Even after everything we went through.
