Originally Published May 2009
It started in 2003. My apartment was robbed, someone broke in through the Kitchen window. The police were sure it was neighborhood kids based on the items taken, but would not listen to me when I pointed out some obvious issues with their theory:
That was the beginning of the Stalking, as far as I knew. It could have started many years earlier, but this was the first time I had definitive proof that someone was watching me.
When my garage was broken into in June of the 2004, I moved. A good friend needed a place near the University and we agreed that the room mate situation would suit us both fine due to our schedules being drastically different. I opened a Post Office Box and deferred all my mail, including all of the utilities for the apartment, to the new PO Box. There was no way to trace my physical location to the new apartment. For 6 months there were no break ins, no terror, no fear. Then, in early 2005, I came home to find a knick knack given to be by a dear friend and kept in the tiny alcove off the Living room broken into two pieces with one of the broken pieces placed neatly on my pillow in my bedroom. I moved again.
For the first eight months in the Tree House Apartment, there was peace. I was very careful not to publish my address and ensured that not a single piece of mail arrived at the apartment. Then, in June 2006, a single piece of mail arrived from a Marketing Company addressed to me. It was the first and only piece of mail I ever received at the apartment. The hair on the back of my neck rose up in fear.
That single piece of mail became the place marker for a distinct pattern which followed me until 2009. Every year, starting in the Spring and through the Summer, as early as June and as late as August, without fail I would come home from work to find something changed in my home which disrupted my ordinary and boring daily routine. Nothing was ever taken, things were just moved around. It never happened in the Fall or the Winter - from October to May my daily routine was uninterrupted and my home unmolested.
Sometimes it was obvious and disturbing: a locked door propped open, the TV on and switched to a channel I never watch, a shampoo bottle in the office or a pair of shoes in the bath tub. Sometimes it was subtle and insidious: the knick knacks on the bookshelf neatly re arranged, or a book seemingly out of place on the living room floor. It always occurred on a Thursday or Friday, never on a weekend and never at the beginning of the work week.
- They stole the Play Station 2, but only 1 controller
- They did not steal any PS2 games
- They stole jewelry, but only the real jewelry, leaving the costume jewelry behind. And more specifically, only the jewelry given to me by my ex-husband.
- I believed at the time it happened that they stole all of my music CDs, only to discover days later that they had in fact collected every CD in the house, placed it in a re-usable shopping bag and tucked it on to the very top shelf of my bedroom closet.
That was the beginning of the Stalking, as far as I knew. It could have started many years earlier, but this was the first time I had definitive proof that someone was watching me.
When my garage was broken into in June of the 2004, I moved. A good friend needed a place near the University and we agreed that the room mate situation would suit us both fine due to our schedules being drastically different. I opened a Post Office Box and deferred all my mail, including all of the utilities for the apartment, to the new PO Box. There was no way to trace my physical location to the new apartment. For 6 months there were no break ins, no terror, no fear. Then, in early 2005, I came home to find a knick knack given to be by a dear friend and kept in the tiny alcove off the Living room broken into two pieces with one of the broken pieces placed neatly on my pillow in my bedroom. I moved again.
For the first eight months in the Tree House Apartment, there was peace. I was very careful not to publish my address and ensured that not a single piece of mail arrived at the apartment. Then, in June 2006, a single piece of mail arrived from a Marketing Company addressed to me. It was the first and only piece of mail I ever received at the apartment. The hair on the back of my neck rose up in fear.
That single piece of mail became the place marker for a distinct pattern which followed me until 2009. Every year, starting in the Spring and through the Summer, as early as June and as late as August, without fail I would come home from work to find something changed in my home which disrupted my ordinary and boring daily routine. Nothing was ever taken, things were just moved around. It never happened in the Fall or the Winter - from October to May my daily routine was uninterrupted and my home unmolested.
Sometimes it was obvious and disturbing: a locked door propped open, the TV on and switched to a channel I never watch, a shampoo bottle in the office or a pair of shoes in the bath tub. Sometimes it was subtle and insidious: the knick knacks on the bookshelf neatly re arranged, or a book seemingly out of place on the living room floor. It always occurred on a Thursday or Friday, never on a weekend and never at the beginning of the work week.
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