Radio Rental - Rewind: Episode 04

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

Welcome to Radio Rental: Rewind, where we go back in time to where it all started. Hang out with us as we play our favorite, scariest tapes from the archives... and also have some fun with the fans.Today's topic: << Stalkers <<Hosted by Producer Steven Perez and featuring the creator of Radio Rental, Payne Lindsey.Watch on YouTube @RadioRentalUSAAnd don’t worry… Radio Rental (our main store) will re-open this October.Want more Radio Rental?For early access and ad-free listening, subscribe to Tenderfoot+ at ⁠https://tenderfoot.tv/plus/⁠.Follow the show at @radiorentalVisit the website at ⁠radiorentalusa.com

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or someone close to you please contact connects ontario at 1866 531 2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge betmgium operates pursuant to an operating agreement with eye gaming ontario Hey, what's up guys, I'm Stephen, and this is Radio Rental Rewind, where we check out the greatest, the scariest, deep from the archives, the fan favorites, which you guys love. And today, we're going to check out some stalker, stranger danger, weird, weirdo stories. This first one is really weird, and I think you're going to love it. And if you've already heard it, you're going to love it again. This one's called 404 Not Found. It's from episode one, the very first episode.

Let's check it out. Okay. Let's just start by you kind of setting the scene from you where you lived at the time and just kind of set the stage for the story. Certainly. I lived out in Goodyear, still live out in Good Year, but I traveled a lot through the Phoenix area. Good Year is on the west side of Phoenix. There's a small airport out there and a number of businesses. In fact, it's grown up a lot in the last few years. I'll be honest and say that I'm not a great fan of living in Arizona. It's sometimes blistering. But it's home. I was at the time an itinerant IT guy,

so I was servicing a lot of small businesses and municipalities. They like to have me go all over the place. So it was kind of a fun job. I got to know a lot about Phoenix that way. It was a strange situation. I was actually between jobs, between, I should say, between clients, and I'd parked myself at the Phoenix Public Library.

While I was there, I had this odd thing happen, which I got a text randomly. It was from the 404 area code. I happened to know that that's the symbol for not found on the internet, but it's also Atlanta, Georgia, I believe. I don't know how they got my number. I don't know what was going on, but I got a photo of all things it was a rabbit with a flapjack on its head. Which was just random enough that it completely appealed to me. If you look up Flapjack Bunny, there are dozens of examples on the internet. I'm sure there's some other cultural significance.

I don't know what it is, but it's a thing. A lop-eared rabbit with a pancake balanced on its head. Immediately I was hooked. I was on board. So I texted something back. I like the random moments of the universe. You've got to appreciate them. A day later, I was in Scottsdale,

and I saw the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile and thought, this is the proper return. I'm going to volley back with this. I don't know. I kind of like to be an interesting part of somebody's day in a positive way. I think there ought to be more of that. We ought to be the person who walks by and says, hey, nice hat.

Sort of silly. Sometimes I've been walking through places and pointed at a spot on the floor and say, hey, they got the blood out and just keep walking. That's an interesting moment in somebody's day. It gives them something to latch on to and have fun with. Or be terrified about it, but it's, you know, something. It at least makes the world a more interesting place. I figured that whoever had sent me that had sent it by mistake.

They were probably going to give up right then and there, especially when they got back a Wienerobile. Like, okay, whoever I sent this to is nuts, and that would be that. And didn't really think anything of it. I genuinely expected to never get a reply back or something like, who the heck is this, did not expect a reply. I was very surprised when I got another photo back.

Oddly enough, I was at a fire department. A fire department in town used to have me come out and work on their systems once a week. While I was there, I got a text, and it was a firecracker. Which kind of creeped me out for just a moment because fire department, firecracker, what are the odds? It was just somebody holding a lit firecracker. which is a bad practice, for one thing.

You know, that's a good way to lose fingers. It didn't look like a professionally taken photo. Someone may have snapped it with their phone. I'm hoping they had thrown it away pretty quickly after that. Feminine fingers holding a lit firecracker. That really didn't tell me much more than, okay, this person's on board with the random. Other than the slight creep factor of me being at a fire department and being a firecracker, which made me think, does this person know where I am?

You know, is this somebody I know punking me? Other than that, I thought this person is really diving in to the random moments of the universe. And I was on board and wanted to encourage that. Especially if it was a friend punking me. Then I was really on board. It was the idea of a stranger knowing where I was and what I was doing. That alarmed me a little bit. I didn't feel rushed to respond.

And I actually wanted to make sure it was something of a creative effort. I'm a bit of an amateur photographer, and I sent back a photo of someone who was waving a sparkler. I'd taken a long exposure, so the person was somewhat fuzzy, but it had a nice, beautiful spiral of the sparkler. One of my favorite shots that I've ever taken. I thought it was just fun. Again, I was still a little concerned, but it was probably 5% concerned to 95%. This is cool. More photos were exchanged.

It wasn't hurried either by me or by this person. Over a period of several months, we would exchange photos, never any words. And I'd try to somewhat respond to their photos. Like I say, there was the lit firecrackers, so I responded with the long exposure image of the sparkler being waved around. At one point, they sent me a flower, and I sent a vase. I sent a bag of fruity dino bites, just an image of a bag of fruity dino bites, which is like fruity pebbles, but generic, because I'm cheap. They sent back a photo of a gallon of 2% milk. So it was kind of this weird exchange.

There was a call-on response aspect to it. It was something I was kind of keeping to myself. It was kind of my private entertainment. It was just a conversation of photos. I was into it. I was always kind of giddy when I would get one. Sometimes I'd have to stare at it for a bit to try to figure out, okay, what's the meaning behind this? Okay, there's a mint leaf in this photo among whatever else is on there.

Do I riff off of that? Or, hey, this photo has an interesting use of negative space. Do I want to replicate that somehow in the positive space? And so it was definitely mentally engaging. The fact that someone was undertaking. this presumably just for me, that was kind of cool. It was a rollicking good time for a while, until it wasn't. There was a day, probably five months in, when I got a photo that was of now leaving Georgia sign, as if taken just off the side of the interstate. I'd never been really

in a hurry to respond. I always wanted to respond somewhat in kind and somewhat creatively. So I was thinking of trying to actually head to the border, which is about 150 miles away from my house, and get a now-leaving Arizona sign as a response. But I got a note back, or I should say an image back from this person a lot more quickly, that was entering Alabama. Okay, person's on the road. Cool, taking a road trip. I respect that.

Trying to do that myself as often as I can. Because they had sent leaving Georgia and entering Alabama pretty quickly together, I thought this is probably not my brother. This is probably not someone I know, someone, not anyone local anyway. This is genuinely a stranger. And that changed the perspective just a little bit. But again, they're in Alabama at this point.

It's still not a big deal. I got now leaving Alabama. That one was a little bit blurry as though they were actively driving. Now Mississippi. It was hard to ignore the fact that they were heading my direction at that point. It seemed like this person could actually be sending me these images in real time as they're traveling.

Louisiana was pretty quick after that. Then Texas, Texas takes a while to get through, and it seems like the photo took a long time between the now entering Texas and now leaving Texas. It made me nervous. It's the photos that were blurry, especially while traveling. I don't know, maybe I read it wrong, but I would think that if it was someone who was just trying to spook me that they would get clear images all the way. But it actually seemed like this was somebody traveling, taking photos opportunistically as they could as they passed by these

signs. New Mexico, the land of enchantment, that was the one that, man, they're really heading this way. It really seemed like that they were on their way towards me at that point. That was distressing. New Mexico was my back door at that point. I don't know if you're familiar. familiar with the author Orson Scott Card, he wrote, among other things, Ender's Game. That's probably what he's most famous for. But he's actually written some short stories and novels that he puts under the genre of dread. He talks about how horror is actually a relief. When you get to the moment, when you get to the jump scare, when you get to that, then you know what's there. Then you know what's coming. It's done. But dread, building dread, is a much more powerful effect.

and that was what was going through my brain. This is a slow, inextrable movement that I can't do anything about. Something is coming and I can't do anything about it. I just have no idea how to respond, what to do. It was so foreign that it was a profoundly distressing moment. It was that shift from sending photos back and forth once a week, once every few weeks. Like there was never any urgency to it, and then it shifted to this person's actively traveling. They're actively heading my way.

New Mexico, then Arizona, my home state. And then I was really curious what was going to happen next. About seven, eight hours later, there was my city limit sign. They were there, presumably in my neighborhood. It was the same sign. I didn't reply anymore. I was done, I was out. That journey across the States and then into my hometown, with no words at all, that finally got me.

I was cooked. I was done. Stick a fork in me. I did sort of put my wife on a little bit of alert to watch out for strangers. I don't think I actually ever told her what the reasoning was. The person never sent another message, which I've counted. as a blessing. Where they drew the line, I'm okay with that. If they'd taken a photo of my house and sent it to me, then I would have burnt the place down and moved to anywhere else. Or stayed in the ashes because they would never look for me there, something like that. As for what it could have been, a lot of us have taken jokes too far. And that's probably what I want to believe.

Someone made the trip. Either that or they went through a lot of effort to try and time out the photos well, find shots that looked like they were actually actively in motion. I think someone made the trip. I'm going to let it remain a mystery. Life moved on. No regrets. In the end, it's just a good story. These days, I might have access to tools that would allow me to track that person down because I do work, among other things, I work with some law enforcement. So, the mystery wouldn't last as long. And yeah, I'd feel compelled to investigate that one a little bit. Actually, I may even have a screenshot somewhere of that phone number.

Wow. I think I'm going to let it remain a mystery, unless I hear another thing. But I'm actually pretty sure I have a screenshot of one of those texts. So I probably have that phone number somewhere. I didn't commit it to memory. but yeah awesome this is great man

this is awesome appreciate it man I'm so glad I was so bumfell I was like man this is like the kind of story I'm looking for these kind of things

yeah this is that was one of the first ones you told me about right this is in the early batch I think at least and so after all he still doesn't know

who did it but if anyone wants to confess shoot us a DM or something we won't snitch promise yeah

I don't know what I would do the first few texts you're kind of like okay this is kind of weird a little strange playing along with it but once he gets closer to home you're kind of like no no not cool you know this is a real stalker shit so I've never had a stalker hopefully I don't there make that happen if you want I mean a boy can dream you know that's how you know you've made it once you once you have a stalker right okay check I'll pull some strengths yeah thank you appreciate it Um, let's, uh, take a breath. Let's take a break.

And we'll be back. All right, we're back. And it's, it's that time. We're going to listen to some weird shit again. I'm ready. You sure? No. We're not, but we're going to check it out.

All right. Let's hear some weird shit. Let's hear it. Let's go. I'm just sitting here calling numbers. I shouldn't be calling at 1240 in the morning. I think you guys are amazing and I miss you. And I can't wait to you come back in October.

And that's it. Love you guys. Bye. She sounds terrifying to me. And low-key terrifying. She was up late at 12.40 a.m. calling numbers, as in other numbers than this one. Is that like what she does? I mean, I used to do that as a kid.

for sure yeah 90s things prank calls were what's up she likes the show so okay you know we'll take that let's get weird yeah come on the fuck was that was that a fart wait like what actually is that I think it's why are these so weird I think it's a fart I think it's yeah these are like like actually weird yeah is it real though intentionally we whoever called in confirm is that real is this fake is it AI I'm AI fart it could be yeah we're they I slot Literally. Are you back? We miss you.

Okay. We miss you too. We'll be back. No worries. Me and my wife, just want to say we love the show. And we listen to it all the time and we can't wait for the next season. It's a season and Sophie. Have a good one. Bye. Cool. Where's your wife? Why wasn't you on the phone? Yeah. Do I trust that?

Yeah. It's kind of weird. Kind of sketch. I don't like it. Thanks, Payne. Appreciate you. gonna go on to another tape, another scary story on the same theme, some weird stalker, stranger dangers type stuff. So this one, it's a little weird, it's not what you expect.

It's a stalker story, but it's not exactly what you think it is. And this one's from episode 10, and it's called I'm the stalker. Let's check it out. You rolling? This will be super simple. Basically, like,

I'll have you kind of just retell the story. Okay, sure. Just to kind of kick it off, if you could just sort of set the stage for me, just in terms of how old you were, where you lived, it kind of was going on at the time. Yeah, it was around 2016, so I would have been 46 at the time. I do video production, and at the time I was a one-man band,

so I had a lot of gear, and I thought it would be a good idea to buy a production van. The van I happened to choose to buy was a 1994 Dodge Ram 250 cargo van with windows on it, But it happens to meet the exact criteria or the Hollywood stereotype of what a kidnapper's van would look like. If you ever see anyone in any show being shoved into a van or kidnapped or if there's some black ops team or someone spying on you or something, it's always this type of van. It just meets the profile of what apparently a kidnapper or some sort of burglar or a criminal of general kind would want. As I was driving home one evening from work in my van, I was driving, it was still sunny outside, and there was a woman pushing a stroller staring at me very intently.

It actually made me feel a little uncomfortable. She had sunglasses on so I couldn't see her eyes, but she kind of had her mouth hanging open and her head was just kind of on a swivel. She was walking one way and then staring into the street at me driving by. My road also happens to have speed bumps, and I had a lot of equipment and fragile gear in the back of the band, so I was driving very slowly over these speed bumps. I was just going through my daily life, just trying to work my job and go home. About a week later, after the incident that I had already mostly forgotten about,

we have a group email thread for the HOA in the homeowners association that I live within. The email list for the HOA started heating up with emails flying back and forth. One guy got on there and mentioned that a white van was stalking his wife. That's pretty serious because there are parents with children in there. I have my own children. I have two little girls. And then he went on to describe it as a white van. And that's when I was like, uh-oh, okay.

I didn't know that that man was somehow connected to the woman that I had seen, but I replied to all, to everyone in the email list and told them there is a resident that lives there with a white van, so don't come after me with your pitchfork and mob mentality. I told them my address, I told them the plate number on my van, I just wanted my neighbors to feel safe, and I don't want to have the police called on me in my own neighborhood or area. Since the topic of the email thread that was going around

was all the suspicious things that people had seen in the neighborhood, and I joked at the end of my email and said, By the way, I saw a very suspicious woman that stared at me very inappropriately, and it made me a little uncomfortable. And it was the very last sentence in my email. I was like, oh, by the way, I was driving by in my white van. I stated the time of day, what day it was, so they could figure out on their own whether it was me that they saw or whether it was an actual stalker.

And he didn't need to reply. I mean, once he realized that that was me and I'm a resident there and he now knows who I am and we could be cool, he said, I. I can read between the lines and see who you really are. There's something about you that you're not sharing. Reading in between the lines of my email that I didn't like him or like his wife or that I was trying to cast doubt or belittle their version of events. He was so angry to the point that other neighbors that are normally really quiet and docile

on the email thread started getting on and saying this email is making me really uncomfortable. So I stopped replying to all. and after a while his emails stopped coming to me. Shortly after that, I have a small dog as well that I would walk through my neighborhood. And walking by a particular house, suddenly this girl would come out and be extra friendly with us

and chat about our dog, and it was every time we walked by, she would come out from her home. I estimate her to have been about 10 years old. She would tell me things like, oh my family's really poor I remember her saying this and thinking it was really strange

that she would say something like this she would always follow it up with I'd do almost anything for some money she would bring up something like my family's really poor I wish we could afford a dog but we can barely afford to feed ourselves I'd do anything for some money the girl didn't look hungry or a poor

or anything like that And she just said she wanted to say hello to my dog. And then one day she shows up at our front door, said that she wanted to come over and play with our dog and that her dad would never let her have a dog, and she would just like to spend time at our house and hang out with a dog. Can I play with your dog?

Can I come in and play with your dog? That would be very inappropriate because I don't even know her parents, and I don't want my kids going to some stranger's house, and I wouldn't want any other kid coming over to my house. And I told her, no, and I need to talk to your parents before you ever come here again, and I want to talk to them anyway now, so please, I need to talk to your parents. About a week later, there's another girl in the neighborhood that we hang out with, my two daughters, my two kids.

It's kind of like a play date. So I'll take them over to her place for a play date, or she'll come over to ours. We were over visiting at her place, and she was about seven at the time. She told me she had an older friend who was about 10 and said that that girl had confided in her that her dad was telling her to talk to me. She told her that her dad was making her be friendly to us. This little girl had told her friend

that the dad was inside the house taking pictures of us talking whenever I walked by with my dog and was compiling some sort of attack fodder for accusing me of something. taking pictures of us. That's when it kind of clicked for me what was going on. So he was so convinced reading in between the lines of my email or seeing me drive by that one day

that I was some sort of child abductor, child molester, kidnapper, that he was trying to use his child as bait. I had never met the husband face to face. I had only seen the wife in the incident where she was staring at us in a way that I had. later found out was very accusatory. He's been taking pictures of us, not just me talking to his child, but my kids and my dog and everything. I was violated and shocked to the point where I didn't react to it for maybe a full day. Started just making my own guesses as to what he was planning on doing.

Judging from the initial incident with his wife and the tone of his emails and then this additional information, I just felt like he was generating some sort of campaign against me. She stopped coming over, she stopped approaching us, and I've never heard from them again, and it's been four years now. My conclusion from the ordeal was maybe this is a wifu was in that sort of stir-crazy mode, had seen maybe too many movies, and told her husband, he probably got excited and thought they were on to something, and perhaps they've genuine, were concerned that there was a danger to the neighborhood, which is why he brought it up to the HOA, and then might have felt that I was belittling his position on the matter.

My kind of take is that assuming everyone is out to get you kind of creates a confrontational situation in itself. If he really felt like I was a stalker, why would he send his child, put his child in danger like that? I mean, as a dad, you constantly have to be aware of your service. surroundings and who your child, her children are in contact with. And not only that, you kind of have to imagine the different possibilities of scenarios that can happen.

Me putting my daughter in a scenario like that is just something that could never cross my mind. All of my interactions involving the safety of my children have revolved around a sort of defensive, whereas he was just at the equivalent of putting his child on the front lines. I guess another take would be I'm a lot less suspicious of people now, judging judging them by their appearance now that I've tasted a little bit of what it feels like. I feel also a little bit angry at the dad for pretending that they're victims, when there are real victims out there, I feel like they're kind of belittling the people

that have really been affected by kidnappers or by child molesters or abductors or anything like that. Pretending to be a victim of something that you're not, it's insulting to those victims, to real victims. Is there a possibility he knew that you weren't a predator and he was trying to frame you? I feel like he must have known that I was not a real danger to anyone, but he felt so slighted by my, by the email exchange that he wanted to create an image of me that would somehow tarnish my reputation. Awesome.

Cool, man. That was great. Cool. Thank you. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Okay, yeah, this one is really messed up.

Luckily, the truth comes out in the end. Most of the time. But at least for this guy, did. We're here for you, man. If I ever just want to talk. I guess you did already, so... Yeah. Man, poor dude.

Like, just running his business, mining his own business. Just trying to run my business? Yeah, just running and minding his business. And they're thinking he's the stalker, like, trying to creep out little kids and stuff. But yeah, poor dude. But it sounds like, you know, got, you know, that of that situation.

But let's take a breath. Let's calm down a bit. Let's take a break. We'll be back. All right, guys, it's it for today. Appreciate you hanging out with me. Hearing some weirdo stalker stories. I've never had a stalker.

But have you ever had a stalker? Do you want a stalker? Are you into that kind of thing? Who knows? Let us know. We want to hear it all. But join me next week on Radio Rental Rewind. Later.

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