This is the first time I've ever written this down and even though it was over 6 years ago, it has changed my personality forever.
This isn't a made up story, it genuinely happened and was actually featured in my local paper but i don't like the idea of people knowing who i am or finding me, so i wont link it.
I'll try keep this as short as i can while giving most of the details. A little background for context first of all, I'm a female and was 23 at the time of the incident. I was living in the house my parents left me after they died, my dad died when i was 5 from a stomach ulcer and my mum died of womb cancer when i was 22. I'm an only child with no grandparents or other family and so as you can imagine it was pretty devastating to lose my mother and i wasn't ready to sell her home (my childhood home) yet, so i was living there alone at the time.
The way the house was situated was pretty perfect of any criminal behavior i guess because although it wasn't isolated (neighbours a stone throw away on both sides) it was surrounded by very tall tree's at the front and backed onto a forest.
So anyway on with what happened- The first odd thing (that didn't seem odd at the time) was that someone was ringing the doorbell a lot very early in the morning that day, at first i ignored it because i was still grieving and depressed so didn't really care about the outside world at that time. Anyway the person seemed to leave after 5 or 6 rings and i fell back to sleep.
Cut to the afternoon, the door bell rings again and this time i cant ignore it because the man outside could see me through the blurry glass door in my hallway. So, i answer and this homeless looking man with a huge backpack on the ground starts asking me about my home. He obviously wasn't part of any company so thinking he's an oddball trying to see how easy it would be to rob my house, i politely say I'm not interested and close the door. He stands there for ages but i see him eventually leave and i brush it off.
Twenty minuets later he's back. Thank god i locked my door because i see him walk straight up to the door and start trying to open it. I shout through the glass at him and he looks shocked and says he knew my mother...I just ignore him and call the police straight away after checking all the doors and windows are locked. While I'm still on the phone i hear him using what sounds like tools and getting scared he's about to break through the door, i stand by my back door ready to run.
About 30 seconds later i see my front door shudder and slightly open, i panic, drop the home phone (smart i know..) and run as fast as i can down my garden into the woods, onto the path and run to a neighbouring street. I don't see him anywhere so i assume he's robbing my home and that's all he wanted, slightly relieved, i knock on a strangers door at random and ask them to call the police again.
The police arrive to meet me in the living room of this stranger what seems like hours later but was probably only forty minuets. I go to the police station and find out exactly what happened was a lot creepier than i had imagined.
When the police got to my home, the man was gone but he left a host of finger prints and evidence and because he was know to the police, he was picked up the next day hiding in a family camp site. He wasn't too bright obviously and also had a long list of mental health problems (everything from schizophrenic to manic depressive). He used a long screw like tool to break my door lock (by hammering it through) and once inside he left huge carving knife marks all along the hallway, as-well as muddy hand prints and creepy carved out words on all 4 of the bedroom doors (which were almost all spelled incorrectly) like the word "bitch" as-well as the phrase "gut you".
It might not sound like much, but i can't explain just how scary it is to see slice marks meters long covering your hallway. He also left a large knife stabbed into one of my bedroom doors, (finger prints and all). He didn't steal anything as far as I'm aware but he had actually left a note for me that morning when i hadn't answered my door, although i never saw it because it was under a plant pot. His spelling was atrocious so it was hard to even fully understand what the note said but he proved he knew my full name, age and that i lived alone.
Frustratingly i wish i could say he went to prison for a long time but in the end i think he only got around 3 years even though he was wanted for other petty crimes and a more serious case of rape. I've never seen him again and since sold my old family home but i still can't bring myself to answer the door to strangers to this day.
---by reddit user Rachel-L via: reddit.com/r/LetsNotMeet
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