This is a popular story with my family and most of my friends.
Amanda is my brother's girlfriend. At the time of this story, she was looking for her first apartment and moving out from her parents' house. Her and my brother didn't want to move in together since they had only dated for a few months. She opted instead to search for a roommate online. Browsing Craigslist, she found an ad titled something like "Roommate Wanted: Females Only." This sort of thing was common since the area she was looking in was mostly young professionals.
The listing was for a room in a house for about $225 a month, which was quite cheap compared to the most places listed. The occupant listed herself as a 23 year old college student that wasn't comfortable with living with any males. The other roommate would have their own room and attached bathroom. So far, Amanda was into this place. However, the listing only had a single photo from outside the property. Amanda sent an email wanting to meet the occupant and tour the house. Within 30 minutes, she receives an email back with all the details and time to stop by. The girl worked late hours and wanted Amanda to stop by at 8pm.
When Amanda arrives, there is a handwritten note on the front door saying "Door broken, use back door." Walking around the house, it looks nice but slightly unkempt: tall grass, weeds, dusty windows, etc. Still no alarms for Amanda though. When she knocks on the backdoor and an older man opens the door. At first Amanda thinks she has the wrong house but the man reassures her and says that the occupant (I forget the name) was out and he was the landlord. The occupant asked him to meet Amanda since she was working late. He seemed pleasant and offered to show her around.
Alarms start going off but aren't at red alert yet. First, the guy was clearly in his 40's, unshaven, and looked like he lived in his car. Also, only the kitchen light was on. As they walked around the house, Amanda noticed one huge red flag: No furniture. Nothing. The landlord was polite about answering questions but seemed irritable to keeping lights on for too long, rushing her around and only letting her look at rooms for a few moments. There was a single room that the landlord wouldn't open, telling her that it was the occupant's room and he didn't want to invade her privacy. As they walk down the hallway into the living room, she notices the front door has a plank nailed across it. "Broken" for sure.
Amanda's creep-o-meter is started to ding so she decides to wrap up the walk-through and leave but trying to polite. As she's giving the guy her "thanks for the showing" bit, he perks up and states that he forgot to show her the basement. It's recently furnished and would be a great rec room...and she should take a look down there. At the time, Amanda and the landlord are standing in the small hallway between the front living room and the back kitchen. In this little hallway was the basement door. When he opens the door, it opens outward to create something of a barrier between Amanda and the backdoor. The basement is pitch black. He smiles, motions down the stairs, and says "Ladies first."
What happens next is nothing more than a stroke of luck. Amanda get a text just as some random person parks in front of the house. Thinking on her feet, she pretends it's a phone call and answers her phone. "Hey! Yeah, are you here? I'll come out from around back and let you in. It's great, you have to see it." With a motion of confidence, she excuses herself around the landlord and walks out of the back door. She says the guy just looked at her like he was confused. Once outside, she sprinted to her car and sped like hell out of there.
When Amanda got home, she told her mother and my brother everything. Cops were called, they took her statement, and went to investigate. The Craigslist post had been removed.
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EPILOGUE
The house had been foreclosed over six months earlier and the property had been abandoned. When the police investigated, they found that the closed room the "landlord" didn't want her to look in was where the man had been staying. There was a pile of old dirty blankets, rotten food, and empty gallon jugs everywhere. More creepy was he had plastered ripped up pages from porno mags on ALL the walls in the room (where do they even find porno mags!?).
The really scary part of this was the basement. The man had tied a thin piece of fishing twine at about shin level across the stairs about halfway down. The basement was empty except another pile of old blankets, a broom handle wrapped in leather belts, and a small box with a few rolls of assorted tape (duct, electric, etc).
Amanda ended up not moving in.
---by reddit user ScarsAndStripes via: reddit.com/r/LetsNotMeet
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