Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast - 5x12: Room For Rent - Let's Not Meet (Feat. Ashley McGlothren)

Episode Date: January 25, 2021

Stories in this episode: -Untitled - Listener named A. -Be Careful Who You Rent A Room From - Calm_Traveler. -Untitled - Andrea. -The Scariest Six Months Of My Teenage Life - Ashley McGlothren. Check Out Ashley's podcast Southern Haunts at podpage.com/southern-haunts or wherever you get your podcasts. Check True Crime Obsessed truecrimeobsessed.com, or wherever you get your podcasts! Make the switch to PrettyLitter TODAY! Get 20% off your first order by visiting prettylitter.com and use promo code MEET. Head over to chilitechnology.com/meet for ChiliSleep’s best deal, available to my listeners for a limited time! They make innovative, hydro-powered solutions that fit over your mattress to control bed temperature and trigger deep sleep. 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]. - Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/433173970399259/ - Twitter - https://twitter.com/letsnotmeetcast - Website - https://letsnotmeetpodcast.com - Patreon - https://patreon.com/letsnotmeetpodcast - Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsnotmeetcast/ - Twitch - https://twitch.tv/pizzatate - Merch - https://www.teepublic.com/user/letsnotmeet 

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The stories in this podcast contains adult content and language. The stories in this show may be frightening and disturbing for some. Listener discretion is advised. If you have a story to share, send it to Let's Not Meet Stories at gmail.com. Enjoy the show. cast. This story takes place when I was in middle school. 8th grade.

I'm 25 now. I used to watch YouTube videos where people would tell stories about having a creepy stalker, but I never really thought it could happen to me. I guess you're a bit more naive when you're young. Back in middle school, I was a bit of a flirt. I liked to talk to boys. As many hormonal and curious team girls do. I don't exactly remember how I began chatting with this particular guy, though. We'll call him Dick. It's not his real name,

but that's what he is. So it seemed fitting. It was probably over MySpace or Bibo or one of the sites that we all used back in the day to meet people and stay connected to friends. See, I remember chatting with Dick and automatically being intrigued because he was an older guy. He went to a high school that was in the same town as my middle school. I don't remember our conversations being particularly interesting, but they didn't have to be. He was a male and showed interest in me, and that's all it took for me. I had some insecurity issues back then. Still do today. I think I told him I was 15, and I was really 13, which would explain why a high school guy would even be interested in dating me in the first place.

After a short amount of time talking online, dick and I were officially dating. Now back then, dating for me didn't really mean much. If you were somewhat cute and into me, that was all the criteria I would need to date you. I do remember us texting all the time, having long conversations into the wee hours of the night. As far as actual dates, they were few and far between because my mom was hardly okay with me having an older boyfriend that age. Dick and I mostly texted back and forth and we met up once or twice for a shaper-owned movie date. I remember that one time my mom let me walk around the mall with him for about an hour while she did some shopping at other stores, which was pretty generous for her.

I also vaguely remember the first time we met in person with my best friend at the time in tow. As far as how that all went, it's very fuzzy in my mind. I can really only remember the bad times, if I'm being completely honest. Dick was a bit socially awkward, and he never really seemed to have many friends. The only thing that really stands out in my memory about him was the fact that he played guitar and that he drove a Jeep Cherokee, which I thought was pretty sweet at the time. We clearly didn't share much of a special connection, seeing as I can hardly remember

anything about our actual relationship. What I do remember is that it was short-lived. The entire relationship lasted for about a month. I started digging on another cute guy in my school, and pretty soon I broke the news to Dick via text that I was breaking up with him. He was pretty bummed out at first, just trying to understand what he did wrong and trying to see if he could mend things with me. To be fair, I may have let him on a bit and made him believe I was much more into him than I really was. I was a bit of a shit back then. He blew up my phone for a while

after we broke up, and, I just started ignoring his texts since he wasn't getting the memo. Then I was over him and didn't have any interest in trying to make things work. Pretty soon, his sadness turned to anger. He began posting angry statuses on social media and telling me what a bitch I was over text. His texts, they got longer and harder to understand. He would go on rants about how I played with his

heart one day and the next he would throw something out there about how there was still a chance we could make things work and that he saw a future for us. It was all too much for me and I ghosted him after a while. His aggression soon crossed the digital threshold and turned into real life creepiness. One day I was in gym class at school. My teacher came up to me and informed me that I was being called to the office.

That someone was there to pick me up. I was pretty confused as I didn't remember having any appointments that day, or my mom telling me that she was getting me from school early. I shrugged, not really thinking much of it. Just excited at the prospect of getting to go home early. I grabbed my stuff from the locker room and headed down the hall towards the front office, where I expected to see my mom waiting for me. Our school office had large glass doors and windows so you could see directly inside to the waiting area, even if you were pretty far down the hallway. As I drew closer, my blood ran cold. Instead of my mom, I saw Dick, his curly, dirty mop-blond hair from the back. I stood there, staring in disbelief.

stood there, staring in disbelief. When he turned around and saw me, he had this look of desperation on his face as if he were telepathically pleading with me to come with him so we could just run away together. I stood there like a statue for what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was probably just about 30 seconds. And I turned around and began speed walking back in the direction of the school gym, my heart racing. I glanced over my shoulder a couple of times, making sure he wasn't chasing me down the hallway like a madman, but he never moved from that spot where he was standing in the front office.

He just watched me, longingly, as I got further away from him and eventually moved out of his line of sight. I frantically went up to my gym teacher, trying not to seem panicked, as I informed her that there was some kind of mistake, and I didn't know the person that was there to pick me up. Thankfully, she reported this back to the office for me, and they apparently just told him that he was not authorized to pick me up. I was too afraid to go anywhere near the office for the rest of the school day. I only had a couple of classes left, and when the day ended, I grabbed my friends and made sure that they were close to me,

as we walked out of school for the day. Of course he was gone by then. My logical brain knew that the office staff wouldn't just let some random guy hang around that wasn't supposed to be there, but I was super paranoid. That he would be waiting in the shadows to grab me or something as I exited the school building. Needless to say, I officially blocked him on everything after that creepy incident, including his phone number. He had sent me a few more nonsensical rants via text before I blocked him, but I didn't even bother reading them. I just

deleted our entire conversation and any trace of him from my phone and my life. That's when he reached out to my best friend. I'll call her C. Now, this was not the best friend I mentioned earlier, the one who was with me when I first met Dick. He had never met C. But he knew of her, and he knew that I was at her house all the time so he would message her to try and get to me. This one fateful day in particular,

he was texting C, blowing her phone up with long messages ranting and looking for me. Now C is a very empathetic and understanding person, so at first she was trying to reason with him and have a somewhat normal conversation. She reminded him that I had blocked him and cut off contact for a reason, and that it was probably best to leave me be. This is when he got angry and began saying some very frightening things.

He started explaining to her that none of what she had been saying to try and help the situation had mattered because he was going to kill me, kill her because she was my best friend and then kill himself. This of course freaked her out, but she being who she was still attempted to de-escalate the situation. She told him, no you aren't. This only made him grow increasingly more pissed off. Yes, I am. And I know where she lives. He then named the neighborhood where I live.

No, that's not where she lives, see, replied. Just because you say that, he told her. Now I know for sure that's where she does live. I had never given him my address before, live. I had never given him my address before, and he had never been to my house. But I know that with the internet, there are a number of different ways he could have figured out my address, unfortunately. I must admit, this is the reason I have such a love-hate relationship with the internet. Dick also proceeded to let C know that he was in possession of a gun which wouldn't have surprised me in the least. He was definitely the type and we lived in an area where guns were legal. Anyway, C obviously, frantically contacted me after Dick had said all of this to her, warning

me to be careful and advising me to call the police. I was just as horrified as she was and immediately went to tell my mom. Dick had turned into quite a psycho in the previous weeks after our breakup. So I really could see him showing up to my house. My older brother was home too when all of this was happening, and he was understandably furious. I knew he would do anything to protect me and my mom. But if Dick had a gun, it wasn't sure how my brother could defend us all against that. Thoughts started racing through my mind, a million miles per hour. What was I going to do? Would he kill my family, too? My best friend in the whole world that I had known since elementary school.

All of this because I had ended our month-long relationship. My teenage brain just couldn't understand it. My mom promptly called the police and reported the entire incident, and they went and found Dick and immediately took him in. Some hours later, after myself, my friend C and my entire family sat uneasy, waiting for answers. The police informed us that he had been sent to a local mental health facility for a 48-hour

hold. The scariest part is that they had also mentioned that he had a gun on him. What would have happened if he hadn't told C that he was planning on doing this, but rather just came and did it. I had no idea if he actually had my address or not, but after he got out of the mental health facility, the police had once again reached out to us to let us know. Now, my mom was doing all of the talking since I was only a teenager. She expressed her concern that he would come and find me, even though they had confiscated his gun. So the police agreed to have an officer patrol the neighborhood throughout the day and night, and the day is following his release. Luckily, he never showed up.

But those couple of days were some of the most tense and terrifying of my life. I would constantly peer out my window, making sure he wasn't driving up in that jeep Cherokee that I once thought was cool. My mom and I really wanted to get a restraining order against him, as the cop suggested. But once we began the process of filing for one through the court system, we realized that the document that he would have to see and sign had our address on it. I don't think they do that nowadays, but back then, for whatever stupid reason, that's how it went. My mom decided against it, because if he didn't already have our address, the last thing we wanted was for him to see that, in case he was still homicidal and decided to go

crazy one day and come and find us. As time passed, I was able to relax more. Eventually, the whole thing became a distant memory, and I went off to high school for getting all about dick and his creepiness. But for some reason, one day I decided to unblock him on Facebook so I could check up on him and see if he was still around. If he had done anything else crazy. My curiosity got the best of me. I couldn't see anything from his posts that would indicate that he had hurt anyone, although I'm not even sure why I thought

that I could tell that just by looking at a person's Facebook page. Well, I must have forgotten to block him again after that, because one day I got a familiar ping from a Facebook message coming in. To my complete shock and slight horror, his name flashed across my screen. I expected to read one of his typical aggressive rants, but instead to my surprise, it was a long apology. For whatever reason, being 16 or 17 years old at the time, I decided to give him the benefit

of the doubt and respond to him, accepting his apology and forgiving him for threatening mine and my best friend's lives. Now, I kick myself for this. But I even took it a step further by allowing him to become my friend on Facebook again. We would actually chat from time to time, just about life, until he would start mentioning things about our relationship in the past,

and I would just stop reflying. He was starting to irritate me more and more, causing big arguments on Facebook posts with random people that I was friends with, and just being a general nuisance. He just loved to argue. At a certain point, I got sick of it and removed him as a friend on Facebook once again, and he left me alone, thankfully. Years later, I have yet again checked up on his Facebook,

and many of the things he's posted over the years have disturbed me deeply. Facebook, and many of the things he's posted over the years have disturbed me deeply. He was very misogynistic, resentful, self-pitying, and entitled. He would post a ton about how much he hated women, and how he would always be alone because they were such stupid bitches, and just general angry rants directed towards the female population. One post in particular freaked me out more than the rest. It said, I may as well have been a murderer. I probably would be more famous than I ever will be now, or ever was, with a laughing emoji., it seems he hasn't changed much. I'm thankful I haven't heard from him in years, and I keep my fingers forever crossed

that it will remain that way. I just hope with all of my heart that he never actually hurts someone. But I guess I'll never really know. Regardless, to Dick, that asshole that stalked me at school threatened to murder me and my best friend and made my life hell for a period of time as a team. All because of a month-long relationship that I thankfully ended, let's never meet again. If you love True Crime Podcasts like Let's Not Meet a True Horror podcast, I want to tell you about another show. It's called True Crime Obsessed.

Each week on True Crime Obs obsessed hosts Patrick and Jillian, give their take on a popular true crime documentary, covering everything from Ted Bundy to the Zodiac Killer to disappearances, cults, and the mafia. And they do it with humor, heart, and just the right amount of sass. Have you ever watched one of those crazy true crime documentaries on Netflix, HBO, or Oxygen, and then had a ton to say after?

Same for Patrick and Jillian. They say all the things you're thinking. They're basically the true crime best friends you never knew you needed. With over 20,000 five star reviews on Apple podcasts, true crime obsessed is for anyone who is interested in true crime, but also wants to laugh. Oh, and don't worry, the humor never comes at the expense of the victim or the crime. Patrick and Julian aren't monsters. True Crime Obsessed

is super fun and easy to listen to. Find true crime obsessed wherever you listen to podcasts. Now back to the show. I found this podcast while driving on a long road trip and thought, I might have an experience that fits. Shortly after graduating college in 2015, I was able to find a pretty good job in the television industry in LA. My family lived in Orange County about an hour south from where I worked, so I decided to commute the first couple of

months and save money before moving out. When I was ready, I used Craigslist for my scouting. I was definitely looking to rent a room in a house since LA apartments are ridiculously high in price. For context, I'm a male 6'3", 215 pounds. I'm sure like most people's experiences, just about every place I looked at, did not match the photos that were uploaded to the post. Finally after a long and disappointing day, I had one last place to visit. It was a house and a cul-de-sac, which I liked, because there was no reason for anyone to go down the street unless she lived there. I'm greeted by the homeowners, Mary, the elderly mother, and Susan, the curious daughter

who seemed to be around my age, late 20s, early 30s. I say curious because I couldn't quite put my finger on her. Mary and Susan were very nice initially. They showed me around and let me know the ins and outs and the do's and the don'ts, nothing of which I disagreed with. The place wasn't ideally what I was looking for, but I did my best to ignore the crowded antique setting placed throughout the house. I needed three things, my own room, my own bathroom, and privacy. They seemed to be able to offer

that. They pressured me to make the decision soon, which should have been the first sign of trouble, but I ultimately agreed. I moved in, and for the first three months everything was chill. I would work, enjoy the nightlife, come back home, shower, eat, sleep, repeat. Every so often I would even have people over. It was nice. I even learned more about Mary and Susan. Mary, being a very eccentric artist whose fashion and beliefs were always interesting to look at and listen to.

Susan, I learned, suffered from pre-existing illnesses, many of them, which I do not recall at the moment, but they changed her life drastically. She was a former actress who now could not venture too far from her home without assistance for medical reasons, but her spirits seemed very high. I felt for Mary and Susan, and would do chores and or errands whenever I was able to. I should mention that there was something eerie about the place though. When it became night, they always left the lights off inside the house. My room was directly across from theirs, and my bathroom was located between our rooms.

So, if I had to use the bathroom at night, the only thing staring back at me was a pitch black hallway. One that you can't really tell if someone is just there hiding, looking straight at you. Same with the living room. At times, when I entered the house at night, I would flip on a switch only to see Susan sitting in the dark, awake, and wide-eyed. I would apologize and turn the lights off. I just assumed that was her time to relax, but I always made sure to stay alert when maneuvering at night. They also had wooden flooring, so it would squeak with every step, all-ah, every haunted house story.

It all pretty much started going downhill about four months in. I came home after a night out and decided to make some food before showering and knocking out. As I was at the table eating, a loud shouting match between Mary and Susan and Sue in the backyard. Fuck you, Mom. Don't fucking look at me like that. Don't fucking talk to me that way. I mean, just F-bombs everywhere. It was very out of the ordinary.

Mary later came to me and said that Susan was acting up. She's having a flare and asked me to talk some sense to her. What does she mean a flair, I thought? Now I don't like meddling in other people's affairs, so I just checked in and asked Susan if she was okay and if there was anything that I could do. She said that she was fine. And it was just this fucking bitch who was bothering me. I let her know that I'm here as she needed me, and that I was going to bed. I said the

same to Mary, stuffed my food down, and fell asleep shortly after. This then became a weekly event, something happened to to Susan that I didn't understand She became very irritable and less communicative Mary said it was her illness and that it had happened every so often My only thought was Why wasn't this happening the first three months that I lived there? After a month of constant arguments, everything came crashing down. I came home, and Mary and Susan were arguing again. I was fed up with it at this point and went straight to my room.

After about 30 minutes or so, I heard the arguing traveling to their rooms. Wooden squeaks following. Shortly after I heard Mary saying, ow, you're hurting me. I spring up out of bed, open the door and looked out. I couldn't see anything so I had to walk closer. But when it came to I was taken aback. Susan was pushing the door shut with everything she had and Mary was using her body to block Susan from doing so. Mary's body was being crushed. I rushed over and pushed the door open. Susan then grabbed something. I don't remember what and started

swinging at me. I was able to dodge her swings, maneuver around her, bear hug her, just enough to have her relax without endangering Mary or I. Susan spewed up profanity like no other, no kidding. It was like that scene from the exorcist. She didn't care what she said. She just wanted to cut deep. After 30 to 45 minutes, her energy gave out as did mine. We had nothing left. Susan dragged her away to the room and shut the door. My mind was racing. I was just trying to understand what the hell just happened. Mary thanked me and said that she doesn't know what would have happened if I weren't there. I finally looked around and noticed that Mary's room was turned upside down. The TV knocked

over, clothes thrown from the closet all over the room, door frame busted mirrors cracked. It was crazy. I asked if she needed my help, but she declined and said that I've done so much already that she'll deal with it in the morning. I went back to my room, exhausted. I actually started tearing up from the experience. I couldn't believe what just happened. It just took so much out of me. Now, I don't know why I did this, but I locked my bedroom door. It's just something I forget to do at times and usually pisses people off. I've been told I'm too trusting of people. I mean front doors, car doors, you name it. I usually forget to lock it. But not this night. I locked my door, turned off my light and laid in bed.

Two hours later, I was still up. It was 3 a.m. and my mind was racing. I couldn't get it to stop. And then I hear it. I hear a squeak in the wood flooring. I thought it was odd because it was so late. Then I hear it. I hear a squeak in the wood flooring. I thought it was odd because it was so late. Then I hear it again. It's getting louder and louder and faster. I sit straight up in my bed. The squeak is right outside my door. The knob starts to twist, but it's locked. They pause and shake the door knob again. They seem confused as to why it's locked. I did the only thing I could.

I shouted deeply. Hey, what do you want? They released the knob and said in a very calm, but creepy manner. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you. It was Susan, but she spoke differently. In a way, I had never heard before. It was silent. Maybe another full minute had passed before I heard the squeaking start

to retreat. I didn't sleep that night, and I kept my pocket knife very close. The next week I told Mary I was moving out. She asked if it was because of the incident. It wasn't. The grappling got to me, but it was Susan trying to open my door that night. It was her aggressive manner and spooky tone, almost like she's done it before while I was sleeping. Shortly after, I removed all of my things and left. I didn't even bother getting my security deposit back. They could keep that shit. I have no idea why I locked the door that night, but I'm so grateful that I did.

To Mary and Susan, I hope you are safe and well. I truly do, but let's not meet again. We've all been looking for ways to make home more comfortable, especially if you have cats, so covering up the litter box smell is an absolute must. With my friends being stuck inside during the winter, especially being cat owners, it can be very challenging dealing with the smell the litter does to cleaning the box, but that's all changed for those that have switched over to pretty litter. Thankfully pretty litter does so much more than trap odor. Pretty litter is unlike any other cat litter out there.

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along the southern border is still very real and can use all hands on deck. Anyways, I had started dating someone and was living with them there. On my last day in Tijuana before I returned to school in Los Angeles, we decided to go to the beach and watch the sunset. When you first arrive on the beach, there are a lot of people there and many tourist attractions, which were still very active because it was September, so there were still some people on summer break. But as you go further south along the beach, there are fewer lights and, well, fewer people.

We wandered away as down while it was light out, and sat somewhere where we were more secluded, so that we could talk and watch the water. It began to get dark. I should have realized our mistake earlier, but I didn't. I was too wrapped up in being sad that I was leaving. Because it was my last night there, we were being very affectionate with each other. We were making our way slowly back towards the crowds. When we saw up ahead, a group of three men, I could only see their silhouettes,

but I could see that one of the men was walking in our direction. We sort of moved over so that he could pass, but he wasn't walking very steadily and kept weaving back and forth. At this point in the story, I should note that I am not only wide, but I'm also as pale as can be. My boyfriend at the time, however, is indigenous and very dark. Even though the light was low, it was very clear that we had two very different skin colors. Similarly, it was easy to tell that this man who was wandering towards us was white. I noticed he was carrying a stick and was saying something, but I couldn't quite tell

what it was. My boyfriend spoke zero English, so we would communicate in Spanish. My brain hadn't made the switch to make out what he was saying until he was very close to us. At that point, I recognized that he was speaking jumbled and nonsensical English with racial slurs thrown in, and I knew immediately that he had recognized my boyfriend and I were different races. As he got closer, it became clear that he was yelling at us and coming straight for us. Actually, not for us, for my boyfriend. It was right before he swung that I realized the stick in his hand was in fact a machete.

He swung it and barely missed my boyfriend's face. I felt the sand from the knife hit my own cheek. I froze. I'm an avid backpacker and I've come across bears before and for some reason my instinct was to treat this man like a bear. To try to move slowly away without activating his attack response. Luckily my boyfriend had a bit more sense. He grabbed my hand and we started running. There was a couple up ahead with a pair of dogs. We ran until we were right behind them. We ran past the two other men that seemed to be in the group with our attacker.

One of them yelled out at us, although I couldn't really make it out. I'm not terrified to be on the beach at night, and I can't stop wondering what would have happened if the swing had been just a little more to the right. So to the racist tweaker in Tijuana, let's not meet again. If you're listening to this podcast, then it's safe to say you love creepy stories just as much as I do. Unfortunately, hearing all of these horrifying tales can leave us anxious and tossing and turning at night and compromising the quality of our sleep. And the fact is, a poor night's sleep can weaken immunity, negatively affect mental

health, and even hurt weight loss efforts. But even with these risks, only about 44% of Americans report a restful night's sleep almost every night. But this is where chilly sleep systems comes to the rescue. Chilly sleep makes customizable climate-controlled sleep solutions that help you not only get a better night's sleep after an especially eerie episode, but also have improved my entire well-being. Chilli sleep makes both the chili pad and uler, innovative, hydro-powered solutions that fit over your mattress to control your bed's temperature and trigger deep sleep. So head over to chileotechnology.com slash meet for Chilli Sleep's best deal, available to let's not meet

listeners for a limited time. That's chile C-H-I-L-I technology.com slash meet MEET for a special offer. Now back to the show. The following story is narrated by the author, Ashley McLaughlin. Ashley hosts a paranormal true crime podcast called Southern Haunts. You can find it at podpage.com forward slash Southern Haifn Haunts. Or just follow the link in the show notes and listen wherever you get your podcasts. In 2004, I was 16 and heavily involved in my church's youth group.

We would meet up for a small worship session and a Bible study on both Wednesday and Sunday nights. Wednesdays were always a bit more energetic. We did our usual Bible study, but we would play games and break out into small groups. But I loved Sundays. On Sunday nights after we finished the Bible teaching, we would all cram into the church van and go out to eat. We would sing our favorite songs and just goof off. As a middle schooler who had pretty strict parents, these Sunday evening outings were just a little taste of freedom.

Especially since the Sunday group was a mix of both middle school and high school students. I started attending this youth group in sixth grade and continued to be involved throughout my time in high school. And I hardly ever missed a Sunday night service. In my junior year, my younger sister became old enough to go along with me, which wasn't really cool. But my parents would let me borrow their car to get us there.

So I would put my sister in the church van with all the other middle schoolers and drive me and my friends to dinner with the windows rolled down in our favorite band blasting. This was 2004 so it was most definitely some kind of emo something. My parents would hand me a $20 bill every Sunday evening before me and my sister headed out to help cover our dinners. I, for the life of me, can't remember why, but one Sunday night, the life of me can't remember why, but one Sunday night, they didn't give me any money for dinner. And that's when this story takes place. So me and my middle sister are at youth group one cold Sunday night, and I realize that I don't have any money for us to go out to eat with everyone. I called my mom to see if I could come home and grab some cash before meeting up with everyone. She said sure, and after solidifying plans with our group, my sister and I

hopped in my car and made our way home, which was only about five minutes away from the church. I can't remember what month this was in, but I know it was 2004 and it was cold. I live in Florida, so that means it could only have been like December through February. At the time, we lived in this horrendously ugly pepto-bizmal pink rental home, and what I would say was an older middle-class neighborhood that had seen its better days. The house was pretty small, and my room was at the back of the house, with my sister sharing a room across the hall with a bathroom between us. They had one long skinny window that spanned the side wall of the room, which ran along the right side of the house if you were looking at it from the street. Underneath their window was our air conditioning unit. I know this is boring, but it's important to know. The next part is kind of splotchy in my memory.

This happened over 15 years ago and was the most terrifying thing I had ever experienced at that time. My sister and I are on our way home when we see cop car lights in front of our house. Of course, instant panic kicks in. We didn't live in a bad neighborhood. It was just older and a little run down. Sometimes kids would get bored and try to get into unlock cars looking for whatever. But that was the extent of the dangers in the area. Seeing a cop car with its lights on in our neighborhood was odd. Seeing it in front of our little pink house was absolutely terrifying.

I wasn't sure what to do. I was frantic to get to the house to make sure our parents and our baby sister who were home when we left were safe and okay. I had just talked to my mom 10 minutes earlier with no issues. What the hell was going on? I slowly pulled up to our house and could start to see more of what was going on in our front yard. Like I said, it's a little splotchy, but I remember seeing a police officer holding a man face

down on the ground on our front lawn. My parents and an older couple who live next door were in our driveway kind of huddled together. I had no idea what to do, but wanted desperately to get to my family. So I just slowly drove around the cop car and the face down man in our yard and pulled up into the driveway in front of my parents. My mom pointed to the front door, and I understood what she meant immediately.

I told my sister to run to the front door and go inside. I told her not to stop. Just get inside. We looked at each other, and then made a break for it. When I opened the door of the car, it was like I was suddenly flung into the reality of what was going on. I realized the man on the ground was yelling. I could only make out a little bit of it, but I definitely heard him say, I will fucking kill you.

When we got close to my mom, she just kept saying, get inside, over and over again. So my sister and I walked very quickly up the rest of the driveway, passed my parents and neighbors and into the house. I don't really remember what happened once we got inside the house. I have really bad anxiety and am prone to panic attacks and I think I was dealing with that during all of this. But I do remember the extremely bright hall light on, and my youngest sister, who was in elementary school at the time, was crumpled up crying in the hall. I remember going to her and making sure she wasn't hurt,

which she wasn't, thank goodness. My sisters and I huddled in the hallway for what seemed like forever until my parents came in to tell us what had happened. To this day, the story still gives me the chills. There was a road in our neighborhood that cut the road our house was on into a T-shape, with the intersection being across the street and slightly to the left of the front of our house. Our neighbors were coming home from dinner, and when they turned onto our road from that intersection, their headlights exposed a person, crouched on top of our air conditioning

unit, along the side of our house, and right beneath my sister's window. The wife called 911 from her cell phone, while her husband called my parents to let them know it looked like someone was trying to break into our house. My dad went outside to confront the man, and the guy threatened him. When the cops got there, he tried to tell them that he was walking his dog when the leash snapped, and the dog ran alongside our house. He was holding a leash, but there was no dog anywhere, and the leash seemed to be perfectly intact. And if he was walking a dog, why was he on top of our air conditioning unit? They ended up arresting him for trespassing and threatening a witness.

I asked my mom if we knew who he was. It turns out he lived on our street. I had never seen him before that night, but he lived in a little brown house that sat catty corner from ours. Although you could see his front yard from our front yard, I had never laid eyes on him. This may be hard to believe, but after everything that had happened my sister and I still wanted to grab dinner with our youth group. I think we just really wanted to be around friends in an upbeat situation.

The next day we were able to find out a little more information about the man who tried to break into our house. Turns out, he was a registered sex offender whose charges included attempted kidnap and sexual battery of a child. This, of course, terrified us. I had the thought that he had to have known that that was my little sister's room, which means he might have watched us before this.

What happened next reinforced that theory in my mind. I can't remember how long it was, but I think it was less than a week before the registered sex offender who tried to break into our home was released. We weren't sure what to do with the news that he was out, or how things were going to play out with him still living across the street from us. Soon after he was released, I was coming home from school by myself. I got out of the car and instantly felt eyes on me. I looked over to the brown house and saw the man standing on his

front porch just watching me. He didn't look away when I looked up at him. I got back into my car and called my mom. She told me to drive to my friend's house that was a few streets over and wait for her there until she got off work and we could go home together. She also said she was going to call the police department and see if there was anything they could do since he was clearly watching us. Of course, the cop said they couldn't do much

since he was just standing there. He was there when my mom and I got home that day. And he was there every afternoon from that day on. He would watch us get out of our car and walk inside our house. We didn't do anything in the front yard and tried to stay out of the driveway as much as possible. I started going to my friend's house every day after school

and my sisters had after school activities to keep them busy. My parents were too terrified for us to be at home alone with that guy watching us. My parents filed a restraining order against him, just in the message, I guess. Like they weren't afraid of getting the authorities involved again. This caused things to come to a boiling point. One afternoon, the man left his porch and started walking towards my house with a shovel in his hands. I still don't know what he was trying to do, but he stopped in the street in front of our house

and just stood there staring up at our house with an angry face. It was horrifying. He stood for a long time. My dad eventually went out on our front porch and asked what the hell he was doing. He said it wasn't against the law for him to stand in the street. Then he walked up to where our property line met the road and just stood there looking up at our house. My dad called the cops and they were able to make him leave. A few months went by with him watching from his porch. I continued to make myself busy with friends after school, and my sisters stayed in their activities.

It was awful and scary for quite a while. Then we saw a moving truck in his front yard. Apparently the owners of the house he lived in weren't cool with a tenant who tried to break into someone else's home, and they didn't renew his lease. He moved away, and our lives went on. We were a little more paranoid from then on, and became obsessed with locking everything up. But the man who tried to break into our house became just a story, we told to friends.

I almost forgot it even happened, this six-month terrifying span of my teenage life But I was reminded of it recently when my mom sent me an article from a local newspaper back home The headline claimed the local police department had captured a sex offender in an online sting I scrolled down the article and saw the mug shot. It was him Making the same face you made in the street that day over a decade ago. The paper said he thought he was meeting a 14-year-old for sex, but it was really a cop. He was arrested for soliciting a child for sex online, and failing to register as a sex offender. I'm not sure if this guy is still in jail or out and about on the streets.

I really hope he's still locked up because obviously time has not changed him. I try not to think about what might have happened if he had been successful in getting into my sister's room that night. So creepy pedophile who tried to break into my house when I was 16? Let's Not Meet a True Horror Podcast. This week you have heard a story from listener A. Be careful who you rent a room from by Calm Traveler. A story from Listener Andrea. And finally, the scariest six months of my teenage life by Ashley McLaughlin. Thanks again to Ashley McLaughlin for sending in her story and recording it for the show. I checked out her podcast and I really enjoyed. Again, check it out. PodPage.com, forward slash Southern hyphen haunts or follow the link in the show notes. You can also listen wherever

you get your podcasts. 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. If you want to hear your story on the show, send it to Let's Not Meet Stories at gmail.com. And as always, if you want to hear your story on the show, send it to Let's Not Meet Stories at gmail.com. And as always, if you want to get access to weekly, half-hour bonus episodes of Let's Not Meet a True Horror podcast, as well as a lot of other bonus content and exclusive merch, head over to patreon.com forward slash Let's Not Meet podcast. I'll see you all

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