Something Was Wrong - S6 Ep7: Frank + Mary | Michael

Episode Date: December 21, 2020

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For more resources, visit something was wrong.com slash resources. Thank you so much. You think you know me You don't know me Hi friends I am really excited about today's episode because I invited a very special guest my husband, Michael Reese. And because it is the holiday season,

I wanted to have a little bit of a lighter episode. And while this story is absolutely a cautionary Craigslist tale and was extremely creepy and stressful at the time, I can now look at it through a comedic lens as well, and it's something that my husband and I definitely will never forget. All right, Michael, welcome to something was wrong. How are you? I'm great. Thank you. Well, my name is Michael Reese, and I'm currently 35 years old, and married to Tiffany Reese, the best podcast.

in the whole wide world, and I love her with my whole heart. And I'm a chef. I feel like we should start with some background on the story before we jump in. So this took place about 12 years ago. I want to say it was about 2007, 2008. Now, Michael and I, like many people here in California, were extremely food insecure and shelter insecure at the time. When this took place, I think we were,

both around 21, 22 years old? Yeah, it was before we got married. So we were looking for a place to live and we were currently living with multiple roommates, which was a step up from where we were living before because we lived in a one-bedroom apartment with two other people. So there was four people in a one-bedroom apartment that was roughly 500 square feet. One of our friends living in a modified tiny dining room with a curtain for his door. And so we moved into the townhouse apartment and we had our own room, which I only lived there part time with you though, because I was still going to culinary school in San Francisco. You live there with the young just turned 18 roommate, right?

I think she, we had, I had one roommate. She had just turned 18. It was definitely like her first time being out on her own. And then my other roommate, who's still my buddy, five yawke, that's his nickname. But yes, we were living below the poverty line here in California. It's a very expensive state. But we were definitely those kids who left home early. I moved out on my own when I was 17 years.

years old for the first time. I went to college. I graduated early. I wanted to get away from my family and start my own life. And so from a very young age, I have worked full time and taking care of myself. And I think I was working two jobs and going to junior college at this point. And we still could barely afford to live and eat because it is so expensive. So I remember I moved back after school and started my internship and lived with you in the apartments, right? Yes. So we were basically both going to school and working nonstop. And I was living with, like you said, two roommates and then you would come and stay. So we were looking for a new place to live because we were, our roommates were moving, I think. And so we were looking for something new.

So we started looking on Craigslist to try and find a new place to live. And, And Michael, can you kind of talk a little bit about what it was like to find Frank and Mary's gem of an ad? Yeah. So we were looking originally for our own place. And we quickly realized we did not have enough money unless we wanted to get the worst apartment in the worst place. and I had heard from maybe like friends or something that like sometimes people will run out like have roommates in hell and nice houses and stuff and like you have like your own separate room and it's way cheaper. So we went down that rabbit hole of roommate searches on Craigslist. And we saw this ad.

I don't really remember what the title or like subject of it said besides. I do. Can I say what it was? Please. It said, eat dinner with us. That's all I needed. That's all I fucking needed. They had me.

There were no red flags for me from there. I'm already thinking like, oh, this is like my grandpa always has food ready to eat. So we click on the ad and there's pictures of a pool and a spa. and there's pictures of like the front of the house, I remember. There wasn't really too many indoor pictures from what I recall, but you start reading it. And when you're desperate, too good to be true, that line, I feel like, just gets pushed further and further down the road,

what too good to be true is. And I remember they said, you don't even need to buy toilet paper. Well, and as somebody who is like taking extra napkins from, you know, a fast food restaurant at the time because I didn't have toilet paper at home, that was a dream come true. The ad was basically like, we're just really nice people. We just want to be your friends.

And it said they were like senior citizens. And essentially, it seemed like, from the ad a couple of cute little grandparents who maybe wanted to adopt some kids because they were like looking for some kids to take care of. Yeah, it said in that like you don't even need towels so we have plenty of fresh towels to go around. Do you remember saying anything about them doing our laundry? Do you remember that?

I know there was access to laundry. It was basically like you can use anything of ours and we'll make you dinner. Like you can do, like you can just literally do whatever you want. We just want to be your friend so bad. And all this for $400. Which is like even in 2007 was so cheap, especially because this house was in a really nice city where it wasn't even in the same city that we were currently living. It was in a nearby city that is much more expensive.

Other rooms that were similar were at least twice as much money. Is that fair to say? Yeah. And it was in a, it is in a part of town where there was a electronics company or a computer engineering company or something like that. That, so there was a bunch of new development around there. So it was like a newer house from what I remember. It was awesome.

And I remember us talking about it and being like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Is this real? Right away, we were kind of like, this. But it could be. It could be the grandparents. Right. We were like, it could be a serial killer or we could win the lottery. Yes, and we deserved the lottery.

I mean, it seemed too good to be true. It seemed like maybe it could be a scam also is the other thing because Craigslist scams are obviously very real. But I also didn't know as much about Craigslist at this time because it was a newer platform or whatever you want to call. It was a newer website at the time. so we decide that we should call. Yes, and you called. Yes, I called and I got an older gentleman on the phone, and his name was Frank. He was very friendly.

I'm assuming I had it on speakerphone so you could hear while I was talking. Am I correct? Oh, yeah. Yeah, okay. I wanted to hear our future grandfather. Yes, we were so excited. We're like, literally, what if we didn't have to worry, about having enough food.

Wouldn't that be amazing? So I call Frank and he's like very nice. He's very excited to get a response to the ad. And I'm very excited and I'm asking him, I'm saying to him like, I'd love to come see the place and hear more a bit about it. It sounds awesome. And he said, yeah, we'd love to have you come see it.

There's just one thing. the pool is clothing optional and the jacuzzi is no clothing allowed. And he said, and I just like to be up front about that because that's what we find comfortable. And then he said something about it being better for the pool system or something like that. And he said, so I just like to like be up front about that. So at this point, you and I are kind of looking at each other. and just locked eyes smiling. Oh, okay. Kind of laughing.

This is the weird thing about it. This is the weird thing about our grandparents. Like they're super nice people and they just are maybe nudist is what I'm thinking at this point. What did you think? I just thought that was how they kept the pool and the jacuzzi and his explanation of the chemicals went over my head. So I just assumed that was just what they did and figured I'd never, ever go swimming when they were going swimming. That was what went through my head, that if they were home, I would never go near the pool. Also, to be clear, we're like 21, 22 years old at the time. So we were definitely like learning about life in a lot of ways.

And just, again, cannot emphasize how desperate we were to pray. that, first of all, anybody would take care of us and, like, God forbid. And, too, that, like, we could possibly not be losing sleep every week about whether or not we could feed ourselves. So I told him on the phone, okay, let me talk to my husband about this and we'll give you a call back. And he was like, okay. And you and I discussed it. And pretty much we thought, okay, here's the reason that this is so. cheap that these people are nudists of some kind and that's why they are looking for maybe some people

who are compassionate towards that or yeah maybe they're just looking for like roommates who are accepting of that and that's why it's such a good deal and maybe I just wouldn't go in the pool at the same time as them what did you think yeah so basically I just figured I would never go in the pool in their home just on the off chance that they decide to go swimming at the same time as me. So at this point, we talk about it. We're like, okay, and we're pretty desperate. And so maybe we'll just go and check it out and go see the place. It's $400. They're willing to feed us. They are willing to give us toilet paper. So we decide that you're going to call Frank back and schedule. Yeah, so I call Frank back and I said, hey Frank, this is Michael, Tiffany's husband, and we're just discussing the place. And we're like, you know, pretty open-minded people and would love to come check out the room. And he said, oh, that's wonderful. He was so excited. And he said, I'm, you know, I'll let Mary know. And there is one other thing I do need to tell you before you come over. it's just that we do have a hard time finding roommates because a lot of people don't agree with our lifestyle. And at this point, I think we're both, Tiffany and I are both thinking, like, here comes the nudist talk.

You know, he's going to talk to us about that. And he said, well, Mary and I are both swingers. Now, I even at the time had no judgment for the swinger lifestyle. And I thought, what does that matter? It wouldn't matter if he told me he was some religion or whatever. Like, I don't care what you do with your free time, sir. It didn't bother me at all. And I think it didn't really bother you at all, right?

I'm like thinking, who the fuck is Frank and Mary? They have a pool. They're getting nude. They are swingers. These people, they're doing life the way they want to do it. Like, these could be the coolest people ever. I personally, like, that's not for me. That's not how I am at all.

But I could care less about what they do in their bedroom and their free time. Absolutely. So we, anyway, we tell Frank, sure, we'd still like to come meet you and see the house. We'd love to see this room. And he was elated, I think, kind of surprised after he dropped that box. in our laps and we were like well he said most people don't come when they tell him yeah they had had had other people call and nobody had come to see the house so then it just kind of we felt bad we're like come on oh we got we got to fucking go now my god frank and mary we're going to be best

friends like what we love you we accept you frank and mary like no problem we'll totally be your roommates so we head over to frank and mary's a nervous and mostly excited. So we pulled up to the neighborhood looking for the house, and you spotted the red Mustang. It was like a 2000s Mustang, and there was a magnet attached to the side. You saw the magnet, and what did it say? It said models wanted photographer with like a cell phone number. As soon as I saw it, I was like, oh, well, that's definitely Frank's car.

That's absolutely Frank's car. So we park the car, a few houses down, walk over to his house, knock on the door, and Frank answers the door. He was roughly 70 years old, dyed jet black hair, slicked back in kind of a Stephen Seagall power mullet. It was beautiful. And looking back now, honestly, like, I'm kind of jealous that he had so much hair at that with this ever-growing bald spot on my head. But what was your first impression of Frank when you saw him at the door? 70-year-old guy, slicked back hair, I don't know, he wasn't like big by any means,

5-10, 5-11, probably. And yeah, he just, he seemed really welcoming. He seemed really, really friendly. And knowing now what I know, I look back at him and he really looked like a sex vampire. What do you say that? He was like a sexy grandpa on vampire diaries is what he looked like. Yeah. Yeah.

And I've never even seen vampire diaries. But yes, that's true. He was just missing the cape. But he invited it. He's like, all right, I'd love to, like, let me show you around. I remember we walked in. And literally the first fucking thing in his house right there in the living room is a picture, a large photo. of who I'm assuming is his wife from the 80s, like a glamour shot.

And she's wearing like a white, lacy, like, see-through lingerie right there in the living room. But it's obviously like 20 years old, at least at this point. I remember seeing said photo. And yes, I was just like, wow, pubes right away. We are looking at pubes through a sheer nightgown. I think it's awesome that Mary was like, I'm a fucking queen and I'm going to hang it on the wall. However, for me, for me, as a like 21-year-old guest in their house who's like experienced sexual trauma in my life and definitely did not grow up in an environment that embraced nudity at all, let alone something of this nature, I was not expecting it.

I've never walked into somebody's house and them had a full nude shot of their wife. And he was so proud of it. He like literally called our attention to it and was like, oh yeah, this is Mary here. Yes. And then we smelled the cigarette smoke whispering in from the kitchen. And we heard a voice like an angel coming from the back room. And she said, Frank. At this point, we had to just try to finish the tour without even like going really.

into the house we were like, we were stuck. We're like, at this point, we just have to appease him. And as I peeled myself off the wall from Mary's voice, we walked into the kitchen. And she was sitting at a computer smoking her cigarettes with what seemed like a pile of butts next door. And I'm pretty sure she was wearing the same see-through nighty as she was in the photo on the wall. He was. I can confirm. She was basically nude, yes.

She said hello. We said hello. I don't remember her asking too many questions. Frank did most of the talking. She was busy. So he went out, showed us the pool, which he had already explained to us, his clothing optional. And then he said, but most people just go nude, I remember.

And he showed us the jacuzzi, you know, no clothing due to the chemicals. He was so excited that we were there and he decided to show us the room that we would be staying in, which was upstairs. So we go into the room and the first thing we notice is it's painted like a nursery. They obviously did not have a baby recently

so it must have been like that forever but it was yellow, like the powder baby yellow. I don't know any other way to describe it with duckies painted along the rim of the room, like around the edge of the room. Contrasted with the rest of the house at this point, like when I walked in and I saw that it was pastel yellow, there was like duck wallpaper going around the top. I didn't know what to expect the room to look like, but based on all the other

information that I had in this situation, that wasn't it. And it felt like such a strange juxtaposition from the rest of the house. It was definitely bizarre, but he said we could paint it if we wanted. Like you said, we haven't really done anything with this room. We didn't even look at the room we were going to stay in very long. So Frank wants to show us his and Mary's bedroom. So we go downstairs and we walk into the room. And the first thing I noticed was they had it.

It was extremely messy. There was a big bed in the middle and mattresses on either side of the floor, like, of the bed on the floor. There was no, like, floor to be seen. It was just mattresses on the floor. And we had to, like, walk around them because he wanted to show us his jacuzzi tub. And there's just all these twin and queen mismatched mattresses

with no sheets on them, just mattresses, mind you. Looks like a scene from many a Dateline episode, I've seen. And it was creeping me out at this point because the mattresses also were like not clean looking. So there was just like a bunch of dirty mattresses on the floor. And we had to walk like kind of on them, around them to get to the bathtub that he wanted to show us. So we walked into the bathroom and I realized that I was no longer really part of this tour. because you are truly the focus now when we walked and looked at the jacuzzi tub? So I'm the more talkative, I would say, of us, Michael.

When we're in these kind of situations, I'm more outspoken. You're more, how do you describe? Bodyguard. As we're going along, he's directing more of his, like, attention and his just general conversation towards me, which I didn't really pay much attention to. until we got to their room, which had the dirty mattresses everywhere. And he was really adamant about showing me this jacuzzi tub. Again, also, there was many, many nude graphic photos on the wall, Michael, if you recall, in their bedroom.

Yeah, there was, it was like the B sides of the photo in the living room. And the bathtub was huge. It was so big. and it was circular and lined with candles. And every other candle seemed like it had a jar filled with cigarette butts. Yes. And then he shows us the tub and he turns to me. And in a very different tone than the tone he had been speaking to me before,

he said, this is Mary's tub, but you can feel free to come use it anytime you want. And, you know, there's fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. Those can be trauma responses. With fawning, which sometimes can be my response, it's more of like a people pleaser response that is something that I've definitely had to work on over the years. But it's a strategy I learned as a young child to pacify people around me when I feel uncomfortable. So that might sound odd for some, but for me,

a way that I learned to survive was to appease and make people around me more comfortable with the way they were behaving in a way to protect myself. So when he started acting like that, my response was to be like,

oh, that's very nice of you and like started walking out of the bedroom. What did you think at that moment, Michael? I was so grieved out by him and his beady little eyes, his beady little sex vampire eyes staring at you, and I was ready to see the garage. Yeah, we were ready to wrap up the tour at this point. So we move to the garage.

The garage basically was more of the floor of the bedroom, plus some stripper pulls. He said, we do not use the garage for normal or, like for storage or anything like that, we just have it set up for our parties. And he said, and I'll tell you more of that out in the living room. But just staring at the garage floor, literally covered in mattresses,

just bare mattresses on the floor. I was like, what the fuck is going on here? What parties, sir? He gestured us to the living room. So we sat down on the sticky vinyl. couch. I sat down in the middle of the couch so he couldn't sit next to you and you sat down next to me. Frank didn't even sit on the same couch as us. I think he sat on the plastic lined

lazy boy. And Frank started telling us more about his and Mary's lifestyle that they are the president of the Swingers Association in the area. They head up swingers cruises every year. They had pictures on the wall from their cruise that he gestured us towards. And then he told us about their parties. They hosted their parties at their house once a month. And while staring at you said, of course, if you live here, you are more than welcome to join in the parties. or you could just stay in your room if you want,

or we had another roommate who would just leave for the night when we would have our parties. What was going through your mind at this point? I was just like really creeped out, to be honest, because of the way it's hard to describe, like, as a sexual assault survivor, I instantly, once we hit the bathtub situation and he acted different towards me and was like standing closer to me

and just the way he was looking at me like my fawn response was just kicking in at that point and I was just like, I will say whatever the fuck I need to say to get out of here is how I felt at this moment. He was trying to propose like some sort of sexual situation between all of us is what I felt at the time. Do you disagree?

I don't disagree. Frank started describing another roommate that lived there and he said that she was a massage therapist and instead of paying rent, she gave him massage therapy lessons, and that at first she didn't really want to, but now she's been participating in their parties once a month. And the way he said it was like, maybe we can all come to an agreement like that. I don't remember how we got out of there, but it was right after he started describing that stuff that we're like, well, thank you so much for the tour, Frank.

It was great to meet you. We're going to head home now and just talk more about it. And we'll give you a call. I don't know, whatever we said just to get the fuck out. I remember him saying before we got out of there that the parties could get kind of crazy and out of control. and loud and stuff and that people were drinking a lot. And I don't think he said anything about like drugs or anything like that.

But he just made it sound like you probably wouldn't want to be here unless you were participating because it's so extreme. Yes, 100%. Like the way he was describing it made it sound like Studio 54 or something. I don't know. Yeah, I have no idea. But he was like getting so amped up describing the parties. And there was like a sparkle in his eye.

when he was talking about it. And I didn't know how to react necessarily besides like, I didn't want to offend him because do you. But now you're like, I feel like you're trying to recruit me into your creepy sex cult at this point. This is you trying to recruit through Craigslist or some shit like that. I have no idea. It just felt so weird.

Once I started the uncomfortable feeling and his demeanor kind of changed and that's when he started acting more like a sexy vampire. for lack of a better word going with that. And he got that look in his eye. It was like that gut instinct feeling of just like get the fuck out. Like I didn't feel like he was a safe person. Yeah. No wonder why they had a hard time finding roommates.

I mean, I assume he was just, you know, shooting his shot trying to see how many people like he could reel in. It just felt very uncomfortable to me and like he was coming on to me for lack of a better term. And because I was like a 21-year-old woman and he's a 70-year-old dude asking me to get in his wife's like sexy smoke bathtub. I was. So basically we tell him that we are going to think about it and we'll let him know. Yeah. I remember we like we didn't run to the car, but we did that fast shuffle walking with each step we were just like. like fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, trying to walk as fast as we could.

We absolutely heard over and over and over again, knew each other just all the way to the car. Yeah. And we got the car, lock the doors. And I think that's probably the first time I had breathed the whole time. I already was starting to feel like I was going to get a nosebleed and felt kind of sick. So, like, I just remember kind of like gasping and then getting in the car and just being like, what the fuck? Over and over again.

So after freaking out in the car, we did not call him back that day. We just figured we were going to erase him from our lives, forgetting he had Tiffany's phone number. So he calls me the next day, very anxious to lock this deal down and get us to come back. You must have called and left a message or something like that eventually. I think we lied. It just said we found another place. I felt like if we made him mad, that would be bad news. So I just wanted an excuse. I mean, it's not something I'll ever forget.

No, I just think, looking back now, like, as more of an adult, obviously, I am more terrified of the fact that we were there. Like, if I think of, like, my kids being 21 and going to some creepy sex vampire cold house, I would be terrified for them. I was more amused then. And so many red flags thinking about it now just from the start. I think it's a really good reminder, too, that like sometimes people get into situations because they are desperate. And we were struggling to survive. And we were so desperate to just have food and shelter security that we put ourselves in a really unsafe position that could have. turned out a lot worse.

Yeah, I mean, going as a pair was a huge bonus. I mean, could you imagine if you, like, if it was a different situation checking out like an apartment or something like that, there's been time, like, you checked out plenty of apartments by yourself, but when I was at work or, you know, we couldn't go together. And could you imagine if you had gone there by yourself, you know, like, always take somebody with you to check out of place, please? don't go alone. Absolutely.

Thank you so much for coming on the podcast, husband. Thanks for having me, babe. I just want to say, again, thank you so much to everyone for listening to the podcast this past year. Wishing everybody, happy holidays. Please stay safe.

If you're in Georgia, please vote January 5th. I will be on a bit of a break through the holidays and January working on some new seasons and some projects that I am really honored and excited to work on. And I will be back with you all soon in the new year. Thank you so much for being here, Michael.

Thank you so much for having me on. And I'm also just so excited for you making it to the number one spot on Apple Podcasts. I can never be more proud of you. And I love you. Oh, thanks, babe. Something Was Wrong is produced and hosted by me, Tiffany Reese. Music on this episode from Gladrags. Check out their album, Wonder Under.

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