Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast - 14x12: The Leprechaun Impersonator Almost Kidnapped Us!

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

Stories in this episode: The Leprechaun Impersonator Almost Kidnapped Us| MamboNo5 (0:41) He Wasn't The Electricity Guy. | jakeinthesky (8:35) The Peeping Tom Reality | sabur2332 (13:34) On the Other Side of the Treehouse Door | AuziAuzborn (21:32) Jane in the Fog | Tralocor (26:30) The Hellfire Club | queenoftheharpies420 (34:10) Don't Touch The Grass | PugLife2018 (37:11) Extended Patreon Content: Stalked at Soccer Practice | Kim Stalker at the Waterpark | lifeguard_brett They Said They Were Friends of My Parents | Cathy The Neighbor | tuff_luvh Due to periodic changes in ad placement, time stamps are estimates and are not always accurate. Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/84WXQud4gE Follow: - Twitch - https://twitch.tv/crypticcounty - Website - https://letsnotmeetpodcast.com/ - Patreon - https://patreon.com/letsnotmeetpodcast - Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsnotmeetcast/ - TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@crypticcounty Check out the other Cryptic County podcasts like Odd Trails, Cryptic Encounters, and the Old Time Radiocast at CrypticCountyPodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts!    Get access to extended, ad-free episodes of Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast with bonus stories every week at a higher bitrate along with a bunch of other great exclusive material and merch at patreon.com/letsnotmeetpodcast. This podcast would not be possible to continue at this rate without the help of the support of the legendary LNM Patrons. Come join the family! New Draft Kings Casino players can get FIVE HUNDRED CASINO SPINS ON A FEATURED GAME! Just sign up with code MEET and wager a minimum of five dollars to receive FIVE HUNDRED CASINO SPINS ON A FEATURED GAME! All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors. Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast is not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online. To submit your story to the show, send it to [e-mail].    

When you want a bet on sports, played on a field or ice or courts, Bet Rivers is the place. Over, under, money, lines, same game, polys, it's all fine. You put a smile on your face. Bet on the sports you love with Bet Rivers Sportsbook. Take a chance! Must be 19 plus, available in Ontario only. Please play responsibly.

If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. At BetMGM, Ontario's best casino action is just a click away. Play thrilling games like premium blackjack pro, the dazzling MGM grand emerald nights, or try to score in Gretzky Gold Lucky Tap. It's all here at BetMGM. Visit betmgm.com for language and content. Listener discretion is advised. If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com.

Enjoy the show. This all happened a long time ago, so bear with me please. Before writing this out, I verified this completely true story with my family. Granted, this is something that we'd all like to forget. But here it is, all the same. I grew up in a small town in New England. The area is basically in the middle of a few different game refuges, and is surrounded by farms, fields, forests, and mountains, as far as the eye can see. It's beautiful in the fall, but it can be annoyingly creepy at night.

Honestly, there's a local legend about a Blair Witch cabin on the trail near my house, and it's legitimately a popular pokey stop. But I digress. This all may seem irrelevant, but what you need to understand is that crime wasn't something that would ordinarily occur. In fact, it didn't really occur at all. There were occasional car break-ins or thefts, but whoever was behind it usually ended up turning themselves in when people

filed police reports. I guess they figured they'd get in more trouble with their mothers than the authorities if they didn't turn themselves in. It was just that kind of town. We all felt safe, generally speaking. My mom was always overly cautious, though. She would walk my brother, sister, and me down to the end of the street while we waited for the bus to pick us up for school.

We didn't mind this much, as we always lived on a street that had literally no other kids. This neighborhood was and still is primarily where older people live. Living in this neighborhood was like having about nine extra sets of grandparents who often gave me and my siblings sweets and other goodies. So we really didn't play with any other kids on the regular. We normally just read books and entertained ourselves. So we quite liked having our mother to talk to

when we waited for the bus. My brother was about nine at the time and my sister was five, so I was seven. We were all very young. And not to sound completely narcissistic, but we essentially looked like the perfect set of children. My brother and I looked like twins, especially when we were all smiles, since we both had two front teeth missing. My sister, she was a perfect picture all on her own with rosy cheeks and a cheery sundress. She would actually be stopped occasionally when we were on vacation because tourists

wanted to take pictures with her since they thought that she was just a little toddler model. Anyways, one day, we headed out for our walk to the bus stop. We opened the side door of our house and saw this small pile of pennies on the doormat. We were thrilled. We thought that a leprechaun had come to give us coins. A family friend shared one of their family traditions with us the previous week.

My siblings and I were told that if you leave a potato on your doorstep on the eve of St. Patrick's Day, that a leprechaun will leave a stack of coins in exchange for his favorite meal. The whole idea of getting money, even if it was only a measly 27 cents, was very exciting for us. And we were all happy to take the coins. My mom didn't see a problem with it and assumed that our dad had left them there before he had left for work early that morning, so nobody was really suspecting anything at that time.

For the next couple of weeks, the piles of coins would keep showing up on our doorstep. But these piles slowly began to appear further down the driveway, until they started trailing down the street to where our bus usually stopped every morning. Eventually the piles of coins were just placed at the end of the street. At this point, my parents started to freak out. And rightly so. After my mom discovered that my dad hadn't been the one who was leaving the piles of coins, my parents began to ask our sweet elderly neighbors whether or not they were the ones leaving the coins out for us.

But every single one of them said no. We stopped taking the coins after that, but nobody was picking them up, which meant that the pile of coins grew and grew in size over the next few weeks. After this had been going on for about a month or so, the coins just stayed put. It was clear that these coins were intended for us, but we never knew who was doing this. You're probably wondering why my parents didn't call the police. According to my mom, my parents didn't want to cause them any trouble. But one day they did end up having to call.

We were all standing at the end of the road beside the ominous pile of coins when a gray sedan came out of nowhere from behind a tree line. It parked across the road from our street. We would have thought this was normal as many people parked there to take hikes, but the car didn't have any plates. The only way this vehicle could have been more nondescript would have been if it were painted camouflage. The clincher for us was the red scarf that we saw tied to the car's side mirror.

It was the same one that we had tied to our mailbox to let the driver know if we were sick or didn't need to be picked up for school that day. It had been stolen months ago. My parents called the police after seeing that car and an investigation took place, but nothing really came of it. Once the police were actively monitoring our house and neighborhood,

the coins stopped being left for us, and the gray sedan never came back. If my mother wasn't as careful as she was, we would have been kidnapped faster than you could blink. After talking about it more, we came to the conclusion that whoever this was, was likely after my baby sister, the one with the wide eyes and perfect apple-plum cheeks. She's a teenager now and can't remember any of this, but it's honestly terrifying to think about how she, my little sister, might have been taken from us forever.

The part that scares me the most about this, is that whoever this was, they just weren't your usual kidnapper. This person was patient. They waited for months and months to try and get their hands on us. They watched our house and our family for months, trying to find the perfect opportunity. They watched us walk to the end of the street every single morning for the bus. They knew when we were sick and not going to school. They knew how to try and reel us in. This asshole knew everything, and we'll never know how or who they were. Soon after, our dad thought that it would be a good idea to have all of us kids trained

in self-defense. My siblings and I have all been in training, and two of us are sporting second-degree black belts. Essentially, this means my tiny sister has been capable of throwing a grown man over her shoulder ever since the age of 11, if you could believe it. I don't really want to know where this douchebag is, but to all of the parents out there, don't let your kids fall for any tricks like this. My siblings and I almost certainly did.

So, to our creepy Leprechaun impersonator, if you're out there, let's not meet again for your own sake. This happened eight years ago, and I'm not really sure what to think about it. It was a Friday, and it had just hit 9 a.m. I was sitting in my living room with my two kids having a coffee. My house is the last on my street, and while there's an open field behind my house, it's very rare to see people walking by. I'll see a dog walker on occasion, but that's about it. As I was sitting in my living room, I was looking out at my front garden when a man walked by.

He was wearing dark trousers and a generic-looking high-vis coat. While he walked by, I noted that he was fixated on the windows and even looked up at the roof. I thought that it was a bit weird, but I didn't think too much more of it. About a minute or so later, he came by again, only this time he walked all the way into my garden. My house is detached, so you can walk the whole way around it. So he walked up my path and around the side of my house where my garage is. I then rushed to the kitchen, which is attached to the garage.

I heard him opening my side gate and then walking back into my garden, still looking up at the windows and the roof. Even though it was 9 a.m. in the safest suburban area, this guy really freaked me out. I didn't like that I was home alone with two young children, with some random man wandering around my yard looking for entry points. I was weirded out. I should also mention that I was still in my PJs as my kids and I were having a lazy morning watching DVDs, so I felt quite vulnerable.

I unlocked my back door, and as I cracked it open, he called out, "'It's alright.'" I replied, "'No, it's not. You're in my garden, and I don't know who you are.'" He said, "'I'm with NIE.'" NIE stands for Northern Ireland Electricity, but we don't even use NIE for our electricity supplier.

At that I simply closed and locked the door, went back to the living room, and phoned my husband, who was at work, to tell him about what just happened. I was a little freaked out, so my husband urged me to phone NIE and complain about their employee, who didn't come to our door to show ID

before walking around our property and checking out the house. I did exactly that. At first they were apologetic, but after gathering details about my location, they couldn't find any trace in their system indicating that any of their men were in the area. The girl that I spoke with told me that she would pass my complaint along to their superiors, who would be better able to figure out what was going on.

I got a call from them later that afternoon, and after a thorough search, they had no record of any workers or vans being in my area. Since I was never shown an ID, I couldn't provide them with a name. But since they completed their thorough search, they said they could confirm it was not one of their workers. So I have no idea who that man was or why he was walking around my property checking it out. But he wasn't from the electric company that he claimed to work for.

The Great Rewards Hunt is on, so join the adventure with DraftKings Casino. For fun seekers, follow the trail to huge jackbots, weekly bonuses, and exclusive games. But the excitement is only getting started because new players can get 500 casino spins on a featured game. Just sign up with Code Meet, M-E-E-T, and wager a minimum of $5 to receive 500 casino spins on a featured game. Only on the most rewarding place to play, DraftKings Casino. The crown is yours.

Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. Please play responsibly. 21 plus. Physically present in Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia only. Void in Connecticut and Ontario. Eligibility restrictions apply. New customers only. Non-withdrawable casino spins valid for featured game only and expire in 168 hours. See terms at casino.draftkings.com slash promos. Ends 427.25 at 1159 p.m. Eastern Time. I moved back in with my mom while I was going to college. My two younger teenage sisters were still living at home, so it was a household of women

aged 16, 18, and 20, plus my mom. My mom loves lace curtains, so while the living room had Venetian blinds, the windows in the dining room, which were adjacent to those in the living room, had lace curtains. The windows in the kitchen, which was just off of the living room, had lace curtains as well. From the seating in the living room, you can easily see a row of lace-curtained windows in the dining room that looked out into the backyard, which included a small cement stair

that led up to the back door and into the kitchen. All of this to say that if you were standing on the cement stair outside, you would easily be able to look through the windows and into the dining room or through the back door into the kitchen. I should also add that the backyard is entirely fenced in, and there is a gate leading into it at the end of the path

between the corner of the house and the garage. One night we were all sitting around in the living room talking, when my sister went to the kitchen to grab something to drink. The dog followed her, presumably needing to go to the bathroom, so my sister got as far as putting her hand on the knob when she saw a hooded figure in all black standing at the gate that leads to our backyard. This unknown person was only about ten feet away from her.

The sound of the knob, as she began to open the door, alerted this person to the fact that someone was there because he looked up and made eye contact with her for a bit before she hit the floor. The rest of us were alerted to something being wrong when she slowly waddled like a duck into the dining room to stay under the windows that lined the walkway between her and this person. She was frantically motioning to us, too afraid to talk, and she pointed towards the backyard. We all looked at the windows where she was pointing and actually saw this hooded head in the window.

This meant that after he noticed she saw him, he continued through the gate and walked around to brazenly peer at us through the windows. We then all quickly herded up the stairs and into the bathroom where we called the police. There was this frantic period of time before they showed up when we realized the doors weren't locked, especially since this meant he could very well be in the house with us. Once the police arrived, they searched both the house and the perimeter of the property, and they found nothing. After this, we felt very vulnerable, but we were assured that patrols would be increased around the area that night.

The rest of the night was uneventful. Into the following week or so, as far as we knew, things remained uneventful. But that was mostly because none of us had the nerve to look out our windows at night. We ended up putting more Venetian blinds in the dining room and on the window on the back door of the kitchen, but there were still lace curtains on the window that overlooked our porch in the backyard. Even so, after seeing this hooded figure, any nighttime trips into the kitchen were done via army crawls or low duck waddles for a good long time.

After a while I started thinking that this was pretty stupid, so I peeled myself off of the floor and told myself that since the incident was a week ago, I could just get on with my life, especially since it seemed to be one rare occurrence. So I cautiously approached the back door and aligned my eyeball with the bottom corner of the newly installed Venetian blind. I lifted it open just enough to accommodate an eyeball to peer out. All I could see was a shirt inches from my face. After I experienced what I was sure was a heart attack, I temporarily lost control of all of the muscles in my body.

I was so nervous that my body felt like jello, but I made it back to that safe room that we all used before and called the police again. They came out to our house once again and of course found nothing, but they reassured us that they would increase patrols in the area again. The next day I attempted some sleuthing of my own and started looking for clues. All I found were some dried smears on the window, exactly where I had seen the face the week prior. The smudges indicated that someone had breathed on the window and maybe even licked it, since

they were so close to it, and I could tell they attempted to wipe it off. I cleaned it off, unsettled, and chalked it up to the events of the first night. The day after that, I was outside and noticed that the window had been smeared again. I asked my family about the smears and everyone said that they didn't have anything to do with it. I thought about calling the police again, but they made it evident the last time we called that they had no interest in looking into it any further. It seemed like they were only going to be helpful if they happened to catch this person in the act,

so I wiped off the window again. The smears were back every single day I followed up. This was happening so consistently that we considered hooking the window frame up to some kind of source of electricity, but ultimately decided not to do that, as this would probably have led to burning down the house. We also found out during this time that it was illegal to put up an electric fence, even

if it was in your own yard. This went on the entire time I lived back at home. For over two years. Sometimes the police were called, but we were never able to catch the guy peeking in personally. At some point, someone was arrested for peeping about a block away, but he was only held overnight before being released. I doubt anything more than a fine came from it. In any case, we knew that our peeper was out there. We could always tell by the footprints in the snow around our house and under our windows, the slobbery smears on

the back window, and the subtle noises that he made. I think peeping into people's windows is a fairly common thing, as there really aren't any repercussions involved since it's pretty damn hard to even be caught. It seems to be some kind of fetish for some people, so I am no longer disillusioned enough to believe that I'm safe to assume I'm walking through my home in privacy. It's a difficult reality to face when you realize your home isn't the private place you've always assumed it to be.

Even years later, when I lived in entirely different cities, I was up early getting ready for work. My dog would be outside and she, as well as the neighbor's dog, were barking fiercely at something. This usually would happen when they would see a possum or some rodent so I didn't think much of it. When I leaned out the door to tell them both to stop barking, they were both barking at the area between the houses. Without thinking, I leaned back in the door and glanced out the window that peers into that space and saw a very clear outline of a person from the chest up,

standing smack in the middle of my window. Everyone, please stay safe and watch for peeping Toms. They're so much more common than you ever think they would be. When I was around nine years old, my parents built a tree house for me and my twin brother. We lived in a very rural town in Washington state on five acres of land. The house and the lawns took up about two acres of land and the other three acres were woods. The tree house sat in the middle of these woods and it was well hidden away from the trails that wound about inside the woods.

It was a basic treehouse, nothing too fancy, but to me and my brother it was the coolest thing in the world. We always wanted to sleep in the treehouse, but because it was in the thick woods and far away from the house, my parents said no. But when we were 11, they finally said yes after we wore them down from constantly begging. As we got ready to head up to the treehouse for the night, my brother and I gathered some comic books, our Nintendo DSs, a few flashlights, and our sleeping bags. Washington summer evenings are pretty comfortable, so we weren't too worried about getting cold,

and we were focused on having fun in the treehouse more than anything. We set up our sleeping bags in there, and then began playing Pokemon. We were having a great time. It was getting darker, so we switched our flashlights on and read our comic books. The treehouse door had two latches to keep the door shut when it got windy. One latch was on the outside while the other was on the inside. As we got into our sleeping bags, I latched the door shut so that it wouldn't blow open in the middle of the night.

I don't remember what time it was, but I woke up to the sound of crunching on the ground below us. I sat up and listened to my surroundings, making sure I wasn't hearing things. In doing so, I heard the crunching as it continued below the treehouse. I woke my brother up and whispered to him, explaining what I heard. He reached for his flashlight, but I stopped him. We sat there in the pitch dark, listening. It seemed that the noise had stopped.

He whispered that it was probably coyotes and assured me that we were fine. Not even 30 seconds later we heard the ladder to the tree house as it creaked with the weight of somebody climbing. Then whoever it was attempted to try and push the door open. But luckily the latch was engaged, so the door stayed shut. Then a huge thud came from the other side of the door, along with sounds of cracking wood. We stayed quiet, too scared to make a sound.

The next thing we heard was a thump on the ground which sounded like somebody had jumped off of the last bit of the ladder. Then we heard footsteps walking away. After what felt like hours, we got the courage to bolt back to the house. We left everything but our DSs. Even though we were scared out of our minds, we both wanted to prioritize the safety of our Nintendo DSes, especially since I had finally caught a Pokemon that I had been looking for. We made it back to the house in two minutes, running the fastest we had ever run before.

The walk to the treehouse takes about five minutes from the back door, so running to the house in two minutes was impressive for us. We grabbed the hidden key from under the pot and opened the back door. We locked it behind us. When we both went into our room, we finally felt safe. We didn't want to tell our parents about what happened because we didn't want our mom to say, I told you so, and not allow us to go back out there. Well, the next week, as we were in the post office with our mom, our neighbor who lived down the road from us walked in.

As my mom and the neighbor got to talking, he told her that last week he found a very thin, disheveled man in his shed. The neighbor's dog had seen the man go into the shed and was barking at the shed. When the neighbor went to go check it out, he found the man in there holding a rusty old knife. Luckily, the neighbor had brought his hunting rifle with him when he went to check it out, so the man dropped the knife. The cops were called, and the man was taken away.

I believe that the disheveled man was the one who was on the other side of the treehouse door that night. He was probably looking for a place to sleep that summer night. After that incident, we didn't play in that treehouse all that much, and only went into the woods when it was light out, and we always took a knife with us from that point on. This happened when I was around 12 years old. I was traveling a stretch of road between a large Irish town and a not-so-large Irish town with my mother and my niece. My niece was 11 at the time.

She and I were buckled up in the back while my mother was driving. The weather was eerie as hell. It was densely foggy with a light drizzle. About three quarters of the way out of this town, still driving in dense fog, we saw roadwork signs ahead. This meant that all traffic had to squeeze through a gap not much wider than a single car on one side of the road. As we approached this gap, my mother practically slammed on the brakes because this figure, completely out of nowhere, staggered out of the fog and onto the main road.

The figure just stood there, directly in line with the gap. As we drew nearer, we could see that the figure was a woman. I'm going to refer to this woman as Jane. When Jane saw our car, she wandered over to us, looking awfully disoriented. Now bear in mind, the only people in the car were my mother and two preteens. So, my mother was obviously a bit sketched out about this individual who emerged from the dense fog to block the road before approaching her car in a fairly isolated area. Jane then moved around to the passenger side door across from my mother and pulled it open.

I do believe that my mother would have locked it beforehand or kept driving had she expected this woman to do this, but it was such a sudden movement that none of us could really have predicted it. So Jane took a seat in the car and awkwardly placed this plastic bag on the floor. Jane had this faraway look in her eye. She was wearing a fluorescent red rain jacket. My niece and I exchanged glances as my mother politely but

firmly asked Jane to please get out of the car. Jane closed the door and refused. I recall her saying something along the lines of, No, you haven't taken me to town. As though it were some obvious fact that she was surprised we weren't aware of. My mother then mildly berated her about wandering out in front of traffic, stating that someone would have to be mad to be doing so in this weather. Jane responded with, and this is a direct quote, a simple, I know.

She didn't say sorry or anything, she just agreed. We weren't too far from the town that we were driving to, so my mother decided to continue driving along. She just assured us that we'd drop Jane off and we'd be fine. As we were driving off, my mother was again cautiously questioning Jane about what she thought she was doing. But all Jane would do was continuously insist in this blank, monotone voice, you need to drop me off in town. She just stared vacantly into the fog as she repeated this.

My niece and I were a bit scared. We were both experiencing that feeling of someone just giving you the creeps. You know the one. It's like you can't put your finger on it, but you can sense that something is definitely wrong. I remember my mother briefly glancing back at us, checking to see if we were fine, and we sheepishly confirmed as much. Then suddenly, Jane whipped her head around wildly, as if something had bitten her.

I kid you not. It looked like she genuinely hadn't even noticed that we were in the back seat. She spent a good five to ten seconds eyeing my knees before staring directly at me for the same amount of time. Her fingers were grasping the plastic bag, the contents of which I'll never know. Her eyes bore into mine with this genuinely uncomprehending expression on her face. It was as though I had suddenly sprouted wings or told her that she was on Saturn or something. She slowly, and I mean slowly, turned her head back around.

Her eyes did not leave me until her head was fully turned. Then she returned to listlessly staring out the window. The drive continued as normal, but it stayed quiet as none of us wanted to opt for further conversation with Jane. Then we were approaching the town in question. We had to take a turn just before the bridge into town. My mother calmly explained to Jane that we were dropping her off at the bridge so that she could walk into town.

My mother assumed this would be acceptable since the town center was literally just a two-minute walk away from this bridge, but Jane furiously shook her head. No, no, you cannot drop me off here, she insisted. Again, she used this tone like we were idiots. It was like she thought it was blatantly obvious that we couldn't possibly drop her off there. My mother asked why, and in a faraway tone, Jane just said, "...you're going to have to drop me off in town." I should mention, it wasn't as though Jane was being rude with these statements.

Not intentionally, anyway. She just sounded greatly confused that we were questioning her requests to be dropped off in town. It seemed like she thought that we had missed some genuine reason as to why we just had to drop her off straight into town, and she couldn't figure out how we were misunderstanding this. Anyway, rather than uselessly arguing with Jane, my mother crossed the bridge, drove into the square, and let Jane go. After a few awkward seconds of Jane glancing around, she grabbed her plastic bag, pulled the door open, and gave me and my niece one

final confused glare before stumbling out. It had started raining heavily by this point, but Jane didn't pull the hood of her raincoat up. She just aimlessly wandered off into the rain, leaving the car door hanging open. No explanation, no thank you, no goodbye. She just took off. Looking back, it seems entirely likely that Jane probably had some issues with her mental health, but I'd just like to reaffirm the gut feeling of wrong permeating from this

woman. It felt as though she shouldn't have been there. She shouldn't have been wandering that lonely road in the late winter evening. After a brief debate about the woman and her departure, I'll admit it was a cold, uncomfortable, and faintly eerie ride home the last few dozen miles in the fog. I have no idea what brought Jane out to that patch of road miles from anywhere that evening. If she was capable of being out there by herself, what put her in such a lost and confused state of mind?

Who or what was responsible for landing this confused woman out in the middle of nowhere? Those are questions that neither I nor you will ever have the answers to, but I can say with certainty that Jane is likely still out there, and I just hope that I never have to pick her up again. I live in the suburbs of Dublin, Ireland. I'm surrounded by greenery, beautiful hiking trails, and a lot of Celtic mysticism. One particular hiking trail in the area is called the Hellfire Club. There are a lot of stories that have been passed on from generation to generation as to how it got its name, but the most popular reason, as far as I am aware, is because it leads up to the top of

a mountain where this deteriorated lodge of sorts sits. Legend has it that back in the day, it was a hangout spot where men would drink, play cards, and have a merry old time. According to this legend, one night, a group of men were playing cards when a stranger showed up and asked if he could join. During said game, one of the men dropped a card so he bent down to pick it up off of the ground and he realized the stranger had hooved feet.

In this present day, this trail is very popular for hikers and campers. This happened back in 2018, about 10 minutes away from the house. Three friends decided to go camping up there, and they set up their tents beside the old lodge. A few hours later they noticed that someone else had also set up camp quite close by. This didn't strike them as dangerous, but they thought that it was a little odd. The guy in the other camp eventually decided to approach the three friends and introduce himself.

The four of them ended up chatting for a few hours. After some time had passed, one of the campers from the group of friends decided that they needed more firewood, so the stranger tagged along with him while the other two campers went off in the other direction. As the camper was gathering firewood, the stranger ended up grabbing him from behind. He then placed his left hand across the camper's mouth and attempted to cut his throat with a knife. He was sliced across the throat three times before he managed to push the attacker away.

He then fell to the ground and was stabbed in the chest. The knife ended up breaking while the blade was still in his chest. The campers two friends then realized something was happening and tried to intervene. One of them was knocked to the ground so the other one escaped to get help. The cops were called and began searching for this guy, whom they eventually found. It turns out he had recently spent some time in a mental institution. He suffered from a deep-seated mental illness, paranoid schizophrenia, and he had an acute psychotic episode that day. It was like a horror movie come to life.

As far as I know, the guy got locked up, but only for a few years. This is a story about an old neighbor of mine. My husband and I moved into an old fixer-upper house during the summer of 2015 with our two young children. I was in college full-time and my husband agreed to stay home with the kids until I graduated so we could slowly work on fixing the house up. The house was situated in a very small, sleepy village in the countryside of Ireland. Everyone who lived there knew each other and everyone knew everyone's business.

We had a neighbor, Johnny, who was a bit of a loner. The only living family member that he had was a brother named Thomas, and he didn't have any friends. Even though he was a former alcoholic, I had a strong suspicion that he drank heavily most nights. He was also a clean freak, or at least the outside of his house was immaculate. His grass was the greenest, softest grass I had ever saw, and nobody was allowed to touch it. Otherwise, he would come outside and yell at you to get off of his property. He also had expensive garden statues set up outside his home.

Honestly, the outside of his house, and especially the lawn, looked like it was right out of a fancy magazine. The inside of his house was another story. Inside was pretty dark and filthy. The floor tiles were blackened with perpetual dirt, and his ceilings had turned yellow from smoking cigarettes and doors without opening any of the windows. His appearance was always unkempt,

and he had the bulging eyeballs and demeanor of someone who was constantly on the brink of exploding with rage. On the day we moved in, Johnny walked into our front garden and gruffly introduced himself. I'm Johnny. I live next door. I've been living here 66 years, 8 months, and 21 days. Who are you? My husband and I thought that he was strange from the get-go, but we were polite, and explained

that we just bought the house and were planning on making it our family home. He grumbled, nobody should have ever bought that house. This was my late sister's house. She died many years ago when she was a young woman. We were taken aback by this, but extended some polite apologies. Just as we were telling him that we were sorry to hear it, he turned and started walking away. But then he abruptly stopped at the gate and hissed,

I cut the grass every other day at 10 a.m. I take care of this lawn and mine. Don't ever touch the grass. After exchanging apprehensive glances, my husband said, Uh, okay, sure. Even though we didn't really think he was actually serious about this. And after he walked back into the house, we just laughed it off. Turns out Johnny was extremely serious about this, and every other morning at 10 a.m.

we would hear the lawnmower start up, and there he was cutting the grass, whilst muttering angrily with his wide eyes darting around. My husband often went outside and told Johnny that he would take care of it, but Johnny would continue working on the lawn as if my husband wasn't even there. Johnny was also a hunter. He had two dogs that he would bring with him, and he also owned guns. This freaked me out, as guns are very rarely seen in Ireland. Guns are especially rare to see in the hands of someone that unstable.

Shortly after we moved in, some really strange things started to happen. We were clearing out the attic upstairs, and we had all of the trash that we were going to dump out in the front garden. When Johnny saw this, he stormed into our garden and demanded to know what we were doing. When we explained that we were cleaning out the attic, he marched up and scolded us, You should never, ever go near that attic. My husband was annoyed at this point and he said, You need to leave us alone.

This is our house now, and we'll do what we want. Johnny freaked out. He screamed. My sister's clothes and bicycle are up there. That's not your stuff. You're not supposed to be touching any of it. Don't ever touch my sister's stuff. Needless to say, we decided to ignore this, but we offered to let him look through all

of the stuff that we were putting outside. We told him that if this stuff meant so much, he was free to take whatever he wanted. He then stormed off and looked back at us, laughing maniacally. This interaction really scared me, but my husband said that Johnny was probably just a weirdo, and he told me I should no longer take notice of him. The next day, the rubbish removal company was due to come and collect the stuff we had decided to dump. We were surprised to see that the pile of old belongings that was awaiting collection had gone completely untouched since we put it out there.

But at some point during the day, the belongings were gone. Even though we never heard the rubbish company arrive. We assumed Johnny came and took the stuff, and after that we stopped hearing his lawnmower every other day. We didn't so much as see him for three entire weeks. Then, one day, while my husband was out of town, I was alone with the kids, and they wanted to go outside and play soccer. When we went outside, we discovered that all of the soccer balls had kitchen knives stuck in them. I was scared, so I called my husband, who was urging me to call the police, but I didn't, since I assumed there was nothing that they could do. That night I barely slept. Instead, I was awake, terrified Johnny was behind all of this.

The next morning, I went downstairs early, at around 5 a.m., and Johnny was there standing in his backyard in the dark. It was pouring rain. Then I heard him yell, Then I heard him yell, Don't touch her clothes, Tommy. I'll kill you. Thomas, I swear I will kill you. Don't look at me with your sinful stare. I was pretty unnerved. I felt like I shouldn't be seeing this.

So I tried my hardest not to listen as I went into the living room. Later that day, I heard Johnny start up his lawnmower, right as I was going into the backyard with my best friend, who decided to visit for the day. When Johnny saw us, he stopped dead in his tracks and said, "'You didn't tell me that you had a sister.'" "'Oh, no,' I replied. "'She's not my sister.

She's my best friend.'" Johnny scoffed. "'You can't fool me. Wait until I tell Thomas that you tried to, he won't be happy. He then stared right at us with those bulging eyes and in an eerily calm tone, he said, it's clear that your sister's you have the same flesh. He then walked away, muttering angrily. This made me very nervous, but my husband was due home soon, so

my best friend and I decided we were going to walk to a nearby store to buy some milk. As we started walking, a neighbor from across the street approached us. She warned us and said that Johnny was shady. This neighbor confirmed that the house was in fact his late sister's. But she said that his sister didn't die all those years ago like Johnny said. Turns out his sister had been murdered in a very brutal fashion. The neighbor said that nobody had ever been brought to justice, so nobody was ever technically a suspect.

Everyone in town suspected Johnny, so he was questioned by the police at the time, but he was released without charge. When I mentioned his brother Thomas, the neighbor looked bewildered and said that Johnny had no remaining family, and he never even had any brothers at all. This was all very sketchy information to hear, so I hurriedly rang my husband to tell him. He agreed that Johnny was dangerous, possibly mentally unstable, and this made him uneasy as we had young kids. Over the next couple of weeks, I continued to hear Johnny yelling at Thomas some more.

My husband said that we should just ignore him, so maybe he'll stop. My husband also bought his own lawnmower to take care of the grass. One morning, as he was setting it up, out of the corner of his eye he saw Johnny staring at him through the window on an upper story of his house. My husband could hear Johnny muttering angrily, but he couldn't make out any of what he was saying specifically. On that night, things escalated. The kids were having a sleepover at their friend's house, so my husband and

I decided to paint the inside and do some light renovation work. Husband and I decided to paint the inside and do some light renovation work. That night, there was a series of long, hard, angry knocks at the door. It was Johnny. We looked outside and saw him yelling viciously. I could see spit flying from his mouth. His hands were on his shotgun. He was clutching it tightly, and his knuckles had turned white. I told you, he bellowed, I warned you, do not touch the grass.

As those words came out of his mouth, he kicked the front door down, stepped inside, and stood in our hallway. He was reeking of alcohol and cigarette smoke. I genuinely thought that both my husband and I were about to be shot. My husband tried to reason with Johnny, but it was no use. He was only getting angrier until he abruptly stopped yelling, then stared straight ahead, looking right past us. Then he quietly said, I need you to bring me home. I don't feel well. I protested, but my husband said, call the police. So I did.

As I spoke to the police, they took the situation very seriously, seeing as there was a gun wielding maniac in our hallway, whom my husband was calmly guiding toward our front door. My husband agreed to walk Johnny just as far as the front door, so he never left my side as I stayed on the phone with the police. As Johnny opened his front door, my husband said that he caught a glimpse of his hallway, and there were hundreds of newspaper clippings plastered all over the walls.

Johnny also had some crude drawings on the walls, but my husband couldn't make out what they were supposed to be. Once Johnny stepped through the door, my husband ran and jumped the wall that divided our homes. As he did that, he made one crucial error. He walked on the grass. Johnny then came tearing out of his house again with his gun. He started raising it at my husband. And just as he was taking aim, two police cars showed up.

Their timing was remarkable. Johnny had to be tased twice, but was eventually overpowered. During the takedown, he was repeatedly yelling, I didn't kill her, I didn't kill her. My husband and I decided to press charges, and the court case is still pending. Johnny is also being investigated for his sister's death, as there have now been many breakthroughs with DNA. He's currently serving time in jail,

and his house now sits there empty and unloved. His once pristinely manicured lawns are now overgrown and wild, and there's a very creepy atmosphere about that place. Thanks for listening, and stick around after the music for your extended version of this week's episode of Let's Not Meet. If you want to get access, head over to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast to sign up and support the show today. You'll get access to ad free versions of all of our episodes at a higher bit rate for the

best listening experience and bonus content every single week with stories you won't hear anywhere else. Again, that's patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast. This week you have heard a leprechaun impersonator almost kidnapped us by Mambo number five. He wasn't the electricity guy by Jake in the sky. The peeping tom reality by Saber 2332. On the other side of the treehouse Door by Ozzy Osborne. Jane in the Fog by Tralacore. The Hellfire Club by Queen of the Harpies420 and finally

Don't Touch the Grass by PugLife2018. All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors. Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast that's not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online. Send your stories in to letsnotmeetstoriesatgmail.com to hear them on the show, and be sure to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like Odd Trails, Cryptic Encounters, and the old time radio cast, all at CrypticCypodcasts.com. And follow me on Twitch for my live streams at twitch.tv slash cryptic county. I'll see you all next week for a

brand new episode of Let's Not Meet. Everybody stay safe. This happened sometime around 1997 when I was in high school.