Stalker #4??? Whoa now

It has been a very interesting week. Actually mostly scary, overwhelming and exhausting but I often use interesting so not to sound dramatic. This past week was actually quite dramatic so I will stop lying to all of you now. I was starting to get back into meeting people since the world has started re-opening and had a couple meetings with someone, let's name him Parker. I found him to be quite interesting (turns out I am attracted to interesting people, but I need to learn that is not enough). So on this particular day, I went by Parker's house for a coffee. We talked for a couple of hours and it was nice, there's probably more to the date than that but nothing to write about really. Then I go home to hang out with my kids and my daughter starts to tell me that someone had come to the door.

When talking about this person at the door she really was just saying it in passing, hadn't noted anything strange (she can be totally oblivious). I was suspicious instantly (part of my true crime addict mind, I suppose). A man was banging loudly on our front door. My kids (teens) usually ignore this, it's often the mailman alerting us to a package. Since it just would not stop (roughly 5 minutes) she went to check with her brother if it was one of his friends. It was not and unfortunately on the way to her brother's room is the front door and next to that door are two long windows. The man at the door saw her and she noted in her mind that he was just staring at our very large dog while she barked at him, not deterred by her at all. My daughter wanted to ignore him but when he waved her over to the door she made a bad judgement call put the dog in another room and answered the door (Did I never teach my child about stranger danger and to not answer the door? I assure you I did).

She asked the man why he was there and he responded that he was needing a place to live and looking for rentals in the area, he seemed quite with it and she told him to look on Craigslist to which he replied his phone wasn't working (he was holding his phone that wasn't working the entire time). She told him her mom was not home and she can't help him and closed the door (I know, have I also never taught them NOT to say that??). While she is telling me this story I find it all too suspicious, it is a time of social distancing, he had a phone but nowhere to live, no one in my mind goes door to door like that, we do not live in an area with homeless people. I found it suspicious enough to call the RCMP non emergency line and report a suspicious person...just in case. There had been many other calls about this person (later I find out the calls had been coming in about this person for 2 weeks prior to him coming to our door). We chalked it up to a rare incident and went about our business and I told her to never answer the door when I am not home. Who knew this would end up so much more dramatic in the coming days.

10 pm on the same day my son is in his room playing video games and my daughter and I are watching TV. My daughter hears light knocking on the door and tells me, I ask if she is sure because the dog isn't barking and unfortunately I don't hear well anyway (neither does my son). Instead of going to the front door we opt to look out our large living room window to see if anyone is there. The light knocking continues for about a minute (we think he was testing to see if the dog would hear it, she's an old girl...she did not) and he begins to walk up our driveway. He starts to flash us his middle finger aggressively and yell something. He was not leaving quickly so I followed the advice of the RCMP and called 911, who told me to call non emergency again because it was not a violent threat. I call non emergency and they say I should have called 911, how aggravating. Either way, a car is sent over, they find him and have a chat with him.

When I called police he was watching me, he knew I was calling. At 11 pm after police had let him go, he came back and grabbed something out of our tall grass in front of the lot next door. Very suspicious. Although a strange and slightly scary encounter we never thought we'd see him again and went about our business. I am currently working from home and my Monday started like any other, Parker texted asking how the rest of my day was and I told him about having to call police and how crazy it was...he had been so easy to talk to I thought he might find this interesting (he didn't). I went for my lunch break run as I normally do, no real fear but watching out for this guy just in case, I didn't see him.

Just the week before I had dropped my phone in the toilet (yes and it's not the first time, I keep my phone in my back pocket) so, on this day, I was waiting eagerly for my new phone to arrive. At 3:30 pm just nearing the end of my workday there was loud banging at the door (often the mailman does this). I hear my dog barking like crazy (not unusual when someone is at the door) and I bounce toward the stairs eagerly because I think my phone has arrived (I was using THE WORST temp phone, dating apps were barely working on it, yikes). To my absolute horror a man is staring at me through the window. He has a tattooed forearm up against the window (while still banging on the door with the other arm) his forehead resting on his arm and he is just staring at me and my dog. I yell out, 'I am not answering the door during Covid, what do you want?' and he continues to stare. I say, 'Leave, just leave or I will call the police!' and he just stares. I start to dial 911 and begin to walk back up my stairs to the living room window. As 911 answers and I tell them to come right away he goes onto the other side of my hedges for a minute and then begins to walk down the street. I tell the police which direction and I see a police car within minutes. YAY! 911 says the police will talk to me after, so I make a mental note to tell them to search my hedges, he is hiding things when he sees me call police. Not 10 minutes later the man is back reaching into my hedges and walks the opposite way down the street.

At this point, I cannot understand why they just talk to him and let him walk back to my house. I cal 911 to report he is back at my house. Now I am angry, the officer who spoke to him calls me (funny story, later standing by his car I see notes about my angry demeanor on his computer). This officer was not informed that this man had been to our house three times the day before and had no idea the history and came right over to speak to me. The officer is young, probably 10 years my junior, handsome and has a nice less cop-like demeanor. I explain all three incidents and my fears and my kids fears and the hiding of things. I told him I was afraid to bring my garbage cans in so he offers to do it for me. He told me there isn't much he can do unless they catch him in the act of a crime and/or becomes violent. So, in other words, when it is too late and my whole family could be dead, nice system. He says he will look into any other options and I give him a written statement. A good friend stays the night. At 2 am my daughter hears knocking and wakes my friend up. His car alarm goes off and he bolts to the front door and right out and no one is there. A neighbor later confirms that it was the guy at our house.

While most of this is going on (except late night) I am texting Parker the whole story and would you believe what this sack of shit had to say to me???? Brace yourselves...my texts obviously were annoying him and instead of saying something nicely he went with what is the most inconsiderate, least understanding thing I could say to someone who is clearly going through hell...'I just met you, this is too much , I have my own problems.' So callous, and rude. Not an ounce of concern and absolutely unnecessary. I did call him out on the callousness of his text and he agreed and apologized to tell me he doesn't want to date someone with kids. Read the room Fucktard; I have bigger fish to fry, maybe give it a day when I am not dealing with a psycho stalker to let me down easy about the kids thing, maybe not right after some callous text about my problems being too much (also literally not a problem I brought onto myself, I was currently a victim of circumstance). I met you twice it''s no big deal, but to be an ass when you know someone is going through an insanely scary time and then to add some other excuse because you got called out for acting like an asshole, not needed. Needless to say that guy is not a person whose face I ever want to encounter again and that was the end of that. Back at the online thing when the phone arrives.

The officer comes back the next morning for an audio statement. Because we fear for our safety this can get us a no-contact order (and it was a success, there is a no contact order for 6 months). A few hours later after Officer Young and Handsome goes off shift, my daughter gets a text from someone saying 'I am a friend of your Dad, I saw that guy walking toward your house'. I get down by the window to record him when he arrives (police need to actually see him trespassing), hiding so he won't see me. I should mention, my daughter and I had posted a picture and post about this publicly on Facebook and it was shared 400 plus times, all our neighbors knew at this point what was going on and had seen him personally acting suspiciously.

What I see coming down the street ends up a little comical. I see the guy at first but he is being followed very closely by two other men. I look closer and one of the men is carrying a large BBQ brush and the other is clearly on the phone to police. As they pass my driveway they keep him away from my house. The one man is waving the BBQ brush at him. Minutes later 3 police SUVs show up and he is put in cuffs and taken. When the two neighbor heroes were talking to police they looked over at my window and waved me down to tell the new police the full story. I thanked them, and one neighbor says, looks like you get to sleep tonight and I thanked him again, but boy were we all wrong.

At 10 pm I go to bed finally looking forward to a good nights rest, I had told my friend he did not have to stay because the guy had been arrested. 3 hours into a peaceful sleep at 1 am I hear knocking on my door and my phone alert goes off. The text is from my son and it says 'He's Here'. My heart began to race, my hands began to shake and I could barely open the keypad to dial 911. I don't even go to look, I just dial 911. As I am telling the operator I am looking for police I peer out my window and to my relief it was police not creepy guy. I put on a robe and my daughter comes down too and I open the door where there are two officers, I have not met these ones but have spoken to one of them on the phone the first time this guy started coming around. There is an officer standing at my doorway and another one 2 feet behind shining his flashlight into my yard. The officer in my doorway gives me a look of apology and I say, 'you let him go, didn't you?' to which he responds, 'yes, we let him go and have now received a call from one of your neighbors that he was in your yard.' This is the moment that I became really afraid, the moment where this was no longer just a nuisance. The officer proceeded to apologize and tell us they had no choice, he was deemed mentally fit, but that we are in imminent danger and should ensure all windows and doors are locked and keep our phones on us at all times. 'Call 911 immediately if you hear a knock on your door' (as if we weren't already doing all those things). He also suggested security cameras (already had them ordered of course).

They continued their search for a bit with a spotlight looking down the street and with flashlights in my backyard and then retreated to the basic patrolling of the area. I posted about this on social media because I couldn't go back to sleep and a friend kindly offered to park across the street to keep watch through the night so I could sleep. Although he was there, keeping watch, every time I would fall asleep I would have a nightmare about this guy crawling through my window and me being unable to reach my phone. Then I would be up for another hour or so hearing every noise in the house or neighborhood. Even texted to ensure my friend was still watching at 3:30 am and he confirmed no one had been around. It was uneventful the rest of the night and at 7 am, I said I was up and told my friend to go home.

The next day was quiet, didn't hear anything but friends came by throughout the day to check on us and I solicited my other friend to return for the night. Without hesitation he agreed (he is one of my best friends and would drop anything for me and my family). That evening the lead officer called and said the guy had been brought to a shelter on the other side of town and hopefully wouldn't be making it back to my area for a while. I felt a little more at ease at this point as my security camera was installed and working well and my friend was staying the night. The officer confirmed that there is a no-contact order for myself and my two kids and that if he were to show up on my street again he would be arrested for breach (so try me guy). That night and the next day were uneventful and today I am feeling a lot of relief and expecting some normalcy. Last night before Officer Young and Handsome went off shift for 4 days he called to tell me that he checked in with the shelter and wanted to give me an update. To my relief, and an additional Covid silver lining, the shelter requires a 14 day quarantine and if they don't do it they lose their bed at the shelter. I guess he wants to keep his bed because for 2 days he has not left the shelter. Once the 14 day period is over he can come and go but I believe probably has to check in daily to keep the bed and in that case should be sticking around that area. The Officer said he isn't 100% convinced the threat is completely gone but it is less likely than it was before for him to return. I just hope he wants to keep staying there and forgets about me and my family.

For now this guy is our Stalker number 4, maybe my daughters first stalker (she's starting with hers 4 years before I had my first one) because she actually spoke to him and interacted. I am hopeful I never write about him again. This prevented me from getting any dating out this past week, but hopeful I will feel safe enough to go out more now. This guy definitely doesn't need a list of red flags as he is actually just a giant walking red flag and since the murder scenarios are just too close to home with this one and could and may still be possible I will leave those out for my sanity as well. I am sure you can all come up with some yourselves.

Stay Safe and I hope you have good friends and neighbors (ones that have BBQ brushes nearby) like I do, it could save you one day.

#stalking #stalker #nuisance #nocontactorder #creep #BBQbrushweapon