twenty three.
“I was living alone in my first apartment and had been there for almost a year. I recently had a neighbor who seemed a bit shady, but he minded his own business, so I minded my own business. One night, all the lights were off because there was no overhead light (for some reason), and I was lying in bed doing nothing, staring at the ceiling…. I started to hear some loud noises, but my neighbor often had male visitors over and would have sex quite loudly, so I thought maybe he just had a visitor. Suddenly, I heard footsteps coming from inside the apartment, but it was dark so I couldn’t see anything.”
“The footsteps were getting closer and closer and it was clear that he was in my apartment. Someone was stumbling around, trying to figure out where to go in the dark. I heard the sound of someone touching the wall, flicking a switch to turn on the light, and then I saw a shadow standing at the entrance to my room. I had never felt so frozen before. A stranger was walking around my apartment in the dark. I immediately thought that he might find me and maybe hurt me. So I started to worry with myself, would I just hurt him if I let him know that someone was home, or would I scare him? All of a sudden, I yelled “hey!” pretty loudly and he froze. I kept saying “what are you doing? can you go out again?” I spoke in a low voice, not thinking that it would come naturally. He immediately started apologizing, turning around and trying to find the exit in the dark and saying “oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone lived here.” And he kept fumbling around, and I replied in a weirdly friendly way, “Oh, it’s okay. It’s okay.”
When he went outside, I stopped breathing and internally panicked, I ran to the front door and realized it was unlocked. I ran back to my room and saw two shadows on the wall and heard men laughing. … I didn’t hear exactly what they were saying, but the man in my apartment seemed a bit nervous and confused and said, “I thought no one was here. I told you no one was here.” The neighbor laughed and they went into his apartment. I started crying because I was prepared to get hurt and I called my dad and panicked (he panicked on my behalf).
The next day, I contacted the housing agency and told them what had happened, that indeed my door was unlocked, but that my neighbors had sent friends into my apartment after finding out I lived there. They wrote back and said they were sorry about the situation but were very perplexed that we had neighbors there as no one was supposed to be living in that apartment at the time. I then panicked, wondering who this guy and his friends were. My housing company was just as confused, but instead of trying to figure out who he was or why he was there, they decided to just stay there. I have never felt more unsafe in my apartment since then, or ever.”
