I was 27 years old ten years ago. That's when I experienced this incident. Back then, I was a nurse at a general hospital. And rotated in three 8-hour shifts.
The hospital was so busy and I was working so hard. Then, shocking news hit me.
I had to move out of the studio I was living in within a month. As I was in a hurry, I checked the real estate online forum. Had it been about two weeks? A listing got my attention.
It was a rooftop house. Everything was perfect. But....
"Why is it so cheap?"
The deposit was only 3,000 dollars. And the monthly rent was 250 dollars.
I went to see the house before someone else took the house. It was a rooftop house on top of a residential building.
"Gosh. This is spacious."
It was close to a subway station. The bedroom, the kitchen, and the bathroom were clean and well-lit. I loved it. An old lady who lived downstairs was the landlady.
"The house is clean, right?"
"Yes."
"Do you like the room?"
"Yes."
"Only girls lived in this unit." "Oh, right. Are you married? Do you have a boyfriend?"
"Ma'am, if I were married why would I be here to live alone?"
Actually, I had a boyfriend. But I kept that from her because I wanted to make a good impression.
"So you are a nurse, right?"
"Yes."
"You seem like a sweet girl. And you have a respectful job too."
Right before I was about to sign the contract, the old lady suddenly told me the conditions I had to keep to live in that house.
I was not allowed to bring men into the house. When she was showing me the house, she kept emphasizing on this. "The tenant must be a woman. It has to be an unmarried woman." That's what she kept saying.
"Don't bring your boyfriend here. Use this house only to sleep."
I couldn't believe she went on this power trip. Since I had to move right away, I promised her that I would meet her conditions and began living in the rooftop house.
It was my first night there. I was sleeping in the house. I could feel a creepy gaze from somewhere. My bedroom window was half open. I definitely closed the window before going to sleep.
"Who's there?"
"Who's there?"
I saw her face through the open window at that moment. The old lay was watching me?
"Ma'am, what are you doing there?"
"I came to check up on you. This is your first night here. Sleep some more."
She left after saying that.
Ever since that day, I felt like someone was watching me whenever I was home. At first, I thought I was just sensitive because of the old lady on the first night. But it wasn't that. I kept finding traces of someone else being in the house other than me.
Like the stockings I took off were gone. Bathroom window was wide open. There was a time when only my toothbrush disappeared. And one night when I came out of the shower after work, my phone which was working fine before had frozen up.
You know how in order to unlock the phone, you have to put in a passcode. And when you get it wrong multiple times, the screen gets locked. That's what had happened to my phone.
In other words, when I was in the shower, someone secretly tried to unlock it and failed.