The guy next door Hey guys. Sorry if this is kind of long…
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The guy next door
Hey guys. Sorry if this is kind of long. So, for context, I live on the outskirts of a medium-sized city in Arkansas. It’s a beautiful city, the people are really nice, and it’s pretty quiet here. The greenery is absolutely beautiful. I recently moved here for a job working at a prison as a caseworker.
I’m a young professional, 24 years old, and for a while, I lived in a townhouse that I rented. It’s not what I would usually prefer, since having a neighbor literally means I can hear everything going on next door. The walls are paper-thin. It was one of the cheaper and nicer options for me, though.
For the first few months, I didn’t have a neighbor, so it was pretty quiet. But a few weeks ago, someone finally moved in. I wasn’t necessarily happy about it, but I guess that’s just part of living in a townhouse.
I was pretty busy with work and life, so I didn’t really pay much attention. All I noticed was a moving truck parked in the driveway, but I was extremely exhausted, so I just settled in, watched some TV, and fell asleep on my couch.
The next morning, I had the day off. I wanted to sleep in, but I could hear my new neighbor moving furniture around and talking to someone on the phone.
He sounded like a man.
It was kind of frustrating, but I decided to try to meet him and welcome him to the neighborhood.
I got dressed and went to knock on his door.
I found it kind of strange that his vehicle wasn’t in the driveway. I figured maybe he didn’t drive.
Anyway, I knocked on his door and stood there waiting for him to answer.
I tried to listen, but I couldn’t hear anyone inside at all, which was kind of strange considering I had just heard him moving furniture around and everything.
It literally woke me up.
So yeah, that was pretty weird. But maybe he just didn’t want to talk. Whatever.
The following Monday, I went to work and came home. I threw my keys onto the counter, feeling tired as usual.
Then I heard the guy next door throw his keys onto his counter too.
It was a funny coincidence.
I guessed we had both just gotten home from work.
It was a little weird because I hadn’t seen him outside when I came in, but maybe he went inside a little after me.
I spent the rest of the evening chilling in my living room, eating some Kraft mac and cheese because I didn’t feel like cooking, and FaceTiming my boyfriend, who lives a few hours away. It was a pretty quiet evening.
Eventually, I went upstairs to get ready for bed.
As I was going up the stairs, I heard my neighbor going up his stairs too.
He was so fucking loud. It was annoying.
I could hear him doing practically anything.
I hopped in the shower, and a few minutes later, he took a shower too.
I joked with my coworker that my neighbor was like an NPC who copied my routine or something
.
Over the next few evenings, I noticed he was copying my routines even more.
For example, if I was making a meal, I’d hear his kitchen cabinets opening and closing on his side.
If I showered, he showered.
If I went up or down the stairs, he did it, too.
It was getting strange.
The moment that really caught me off guard was when I was using the toilet.
I flushed, and immediately afterward, I heard a toilet flush on his side too.
I stopped in my tracks.
I took three steps back from the wall.
Then I heard three individual footsteps on his side.
The floors were creaky, so I could hear everything.
I decided to test it.
I took another step.
A step came from his side.
I lifted my foot into the air, held it there for three seconds, then stomped it down.
A stomp came from the other side.
I was freaked out at this point and on the verge of a panic attack.
I bolted downstairs and fumbled for my phone to call my boyfriend.
But strangely enough, I didn’t hear the man next door run down the stairs.
In fact, I didn’t hear anything from his side for the rest of the night.
My boyfriend tried to calm me down and told me I was overreacting.
“He’s probably just as annoyed as you are by the noises, and is fucking with you.”
The next few nights were totally quiet and normal.
Eventually, though, I started hearing him making his usual sounds again.
Then, one night, I accidentally dropped one of my wine glasses.
I was so pissed off because I just wanted to go to bed.
I started cleaning it up.
A few minutes later,
I heard glass shatter on my neighbor’s side.
This couldn’t be a fucking coincidence.
So I tested it again.
I tapped the counter three times, loud enough for the neighbor to hear.
There was silence for a few seconds.
Then I heard three taps from the other side.
I called my boyfriend again and explained that it was happening again. I put him on speaker so I could show him what was happening.
I grabbed a spoon from my drawer and tapped it against the stove five times, making it really loud.
Silence.
Then I heard it.
Metal clanking against a surface five times from the other side, loud and clear.
I asked my boyfriend if he heard that. He had to have heard it. It was really loud.
My boyfriend just said, “No. What am I supposed to be hearing?”
I assumed maybe it was an issue with the phone’s speaker quality, so I decided to test it again and record it with my cellphone.
I banged on the wall three times.
The guy on the other side did the same thing.
Finally, I had gotten it loud and clear on a recording. I sent it to my boyfriend.
He said he still couldn’t hear anything.
So I watched the video back myself.
I heard it.
So why couldn’t he?
My boyfriend questioned me while we were still on FaceTime.
“Wait, have you ever even seen this guy?”
I told him no, but I had seen a moving truck, and I’d been hearing him ever since.
I had tried to meet the guy, but he never answered his door.
I was kind of irritated by the question because I didn’t understand why that was relevant anymore.
This guy was copying me.
Then my boyfriend asked, “So, did you actually ever see him, or did you see a moving truck?”
For a moment, I paused and thought about it.
Yeah, I saw the moving truck.
No, I never saw him.
But I’d heard him.
So obviously he existed.
I hung up the phone. I was so annoyed and felt like my boyfriend wasn’t taking me seriously.
The next morning, I decided to file a formal complaint with the housing manager.
The housing manager told me that apparently the unit next to mine was vacant and that they didn’t have any record of someone moving in.
I thought maybe they were confused, so I gave them the exact unit number again.
They told me it had been vacant for two years.
I asked if they could pull up footage from the day I saw the moving truck.
They had to go through security to get it, and the security guy wasn’t very good at using the software the camera footage was stored on, so it took a little while.
Eventually, he pulled up the footage.
There was, in fact, a moving truck.
But as I walked into my unit, the truck turned around and drove somewhere else.
I guess I had been too exhausted from working with inmates that day to realize it.
But then why did I start hearing a guy next door after I saw that moving truck?
I told the housing manager that if the unit was truly vacant, I wanted her to walk through it with me and prove it.
After getting permission, she agreed.
We walked into the unit next to mine.
I was dumbfounded.
It was completely empty.
Unfurnished.
We walked through the entire unit, upstairs and downstairs.
No one was there.
We even went into the upstairs bathroom where I had heard him shower and flush the toilet.
There was no furniture.
No toiletries.
Nothing.
At that point, I felt my stomach drop.
Had I just hallucinated everything?
The next day, I decided to move back into my parents’ house and maybe get some help after what had just happened.
I wasn’t able to move out completely yet though.
I was also still on a lease.
Thankfully, my friend
who I’ll call V
had just graduated from college and needed a place to stay, so she took over my lease.
After I got home, I decided to call V and ask how things were going at her new place.
She was about to go to bed when I called her,
so we didn’t talk for very long.
Everything seemed to be going well for her, though.
She was about to get off the phone.
Then we both heard it.
Three knocks on her wall.
And a man’s voice said,
“Hello, new neighbor.”
#entertainment
source
Hey guys. Sorry if this is kind of long. So, for context, I live on the outskirts of a medium-sized city in Arkansas. It’s a beautiful city, the people are really nice, and it’s pretty quiet here. The greenery is absolutely beautiful. I recently moved here for a job working at a prison as a caseworker.
I’m a young professional, 24 years old, and for a while, I lived in a townhouse that I rented. It’s not what I would usually prefer, since having a neighbor literally means I can hear everything going on next door. The walls are paper-thin. It was one of the cheaper and nicer options for me, though.
For the first few months, I didn’t have a neighbor, so it was pretty quiet. But a few weeks ago, someone finally moved in. I wasn’t necessarily happy about it, but I guess that’s just part of living in a townhouse.
I was pretty busy with work and life, so I didn’t really pay much attention. All I noticed was a moving truck parked in the driveway, but I was extremely exhausted, so I just settled in, watched some TV, and fell asleep on my couch.
The next morning, I had the day off. I wanted to sleep in, but I could hear my new neighbor moving furniture around and talking to someone on the phone.
He sounded like a man.
It was kind of frustrating, but I decided to try to meet him and welcome him to the neighborhood.
I got dressed and went to knock on his door.
I found it kind of strange that his vehicle wasn’t in the driveway. I figured maybe he didn’t drive.
Anyway, I knocked on his door and stood there waiting for him to answer.
I tried to listen, but I couldn’t hear anyone inside at all, which was kind of strange considering I had just heard him moving furniture around and everything.
It literally woke me up.
So yeah, that was pretty weird. But maybe he just didn’t want to talk. Whatever.
The following Monday, I went to work and came home. I threw my keys onto the counter, feeling tired as usual.
Then I heard the guy next door throw his keys onto his counter too.
It was a funny coincidence.
I guessed we had both just gotten home from work.
It was a little weird because I hadn’t seen him outside when I came in, but maybe he went inside a little after me.
I spent the rest of the evening chilling in my living room, eating some Kraft mac and cheese because I didn’t feel like cooking, and FaceTiming my boyfriend, who lives a few hours away. It was a pretty quiet evening.
Eventually, I went upstairs to get ready for bed.
As I was going up the stairs, I heard my neighbor going up his stairs too.
He was so fucking loud. It was annoying.
I could hear him doing practically anything.
I hopped in the shower, and a few minutes later, he took a shower too.
I joked with my coworker that my neighbor was like an NPC who copied my routine or something
.
Over the next few evenings, I noticed he was copying my routines even more.
For example, if I was making a meal, I’d hear his kitchen cabinets opening and closing on his side.
If I showered, he showered.
If I went up or down the stairs, he did it, too.
It was getting strange.
The moment that really caught me off guard was when I was using the toilet.
I flushed, and immediately afterward, I heard a toilet flush on his side too.
I stopped in my tracks.
I took three steps back from the wall.
Then I heard three individual footsteps on his side.
The floors were creaky, so I could hear everything.
I decided to test it.
I took another step.
A step came from his side.
I lifted my foot into the air, held it there for three seconds, then stomped it down.
A stomp came from the other side.
I was freaked out at this point and on the verge of a panic attack.
I bolted downstairs and fumbled for my phone to call my boyfriend.
But strangely enough, I didn’t hear the man next door run down the stairs.
In fact, I didn’t hear anything from his side for the rest of the night.
My boyfriend tried to calm me down and told me I was overreacting.
“He’s probably just as annoyed as you are by the noises, and is fucking with you.”
The next few nights were totally quiet and normal.
Eventually, though, I started hearing him making his usual sounds again.
Then, one night, I accidentally dropped one of my wine glasses.
I was so pissed off because I just wanted to go to bed.
I started cleaning it up.
A few minutes later,
I heard glass shatter on my neighbor’s side.
This couldn’t be a fucking coincidence.
So I tested it again.
I tapped the counter three times, loud enough for the neighbor to hear.
There was silence for a few seconds.
Then I heard three taps from the other side.
I called my boyfriend again and explained that it was happening again. I put him on speaker so I could show him what was happening.
I grabbed a spoon from my drawer and tapped it against the stove five times, making it really loud.
Silence.
Then I heard it.
Metal clanking against a surface five times from the other side, loud and clear.
I asked my boyfriend if he heard that. He had to have heard it. It was really loud.
My boyfriend just said, “No. What am I supposed to be hearing?”
I assumed maybe it was an issue with the phone’s speaker quality, so I decided to test it again and record it with my cellphone.
I banged on the wall three times.
The guy on the other side did the same thing.
Finally, I had gotten it loud and clear on a recording. I sent it to my boyfriend.
He said he still couldn’t hear anything.
So I watched the video back myself.
I heard it.
So why couldn’t he?
My boyfriend questioned me while we were still on FaceTime.
“Wait, have you ever even seen this guy?”
I told him no, but I had seen a moving truck, and I’d been hearing him ever since.
I had tried to meet the guy, but he never answered his door.
I was kind of irritated by the question because I didn’t understand why that was relevant anymore.
This guy was copying me.
Then my boyfriend asked, “So, did you actually ever see him, or did you see a moving truck?”
For a moment, I paused and thought about it.
Yeah, I saw the moving truck.
No, I never saw him.
But I’d heard him.
So obviously he existed.
I hung up the phone. I was so annoyed and felt like my boyfriend wasn’t taking me seriously.
The next morning, I decided to file a formal complaint with the housing manager.
The housing manager told me that apparently the unit next to mine was vacant and that they didn’t have any record of someone moving in.
I thought maybe they were confused, so I gave them the exact unit number again.
They told me it had been vacant for two years.
I asked if they could pull up footage from the day I saw the moving truck.
They had to go through security to get it, and the security guy wasn’t very good at using the software the camera footage was stored on, so it took a little while.
Eventually, he pulled up the footage.
There was, in fact, a moving truck.
But as I walked into my unit, the truck turned around and drove somewhere else.
I guess I had been too exhausted from working with inmates that day to realize it.
But then why did I start hearing a guy next door after I saw that moving truck?
I told the housing manager that if the unit was truly vacant, I wanted her to walk through it with me and prove it.
After getting permission, she agreed.
We walked into the unit next to mine.
I was dumbfounded.
It was completely empty.
Unfurnished.
We walked through the entire unit, upstairs and downstairs.
No one was there.
We even went into the upstairs bathroom where I had heard him shower and flush the toilet.
There was no furniture.
No toiletries.
Nothing.
At that point, I felt my stomach drop.
Had I just hallucinated everything?
The next day, I decided to move back into my parents’ house and maybe get some help after what had just happened.
I wasn’t able to move out completely yet though.
I was also still on a lease.
Thankfully, my friend
who I’ll call V
had just graduated from college and needed a place to stay, so she took over my lease.
After I got home, I decided to call V and ask how things were going at her new place.
She was about to go to bed when I called her,
so we didn’t talk for very long.
Everything seemed to be going well for her, though.
She was about to get off the phone.
Then we both heard it.
Three knocks on her wall.
And a man’s voice said,
“Hello, new neighbor.”
#entertainment
source
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