I live with my dad in an apartment building with pretty thin walls, so it’s pretty easy to hear people walking around in the halls and stairwells. It’s not very noticeable during the day when there’s plenty of other noise alongside it, but when night comes and you’re trying to fall asleep, the footsteps seem 10 times louder. I never really minded the noise. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t like complete silence, so hearing the distant thumping late at night was actually somewhat soothing. The only noises that really got to me were when people would go up on the roof (we live on the top floor). This wasn’t an uncommon occurrence, since our roof has a really good view of the city, and people like to go up to watch the sunset. Whenever they would do so went on the roof, their footsteps would echo throughout our apartment, which was very difficult to ignore.
A few weeks ago, my dad went on a camping trip with some old friends, so I would have the apartment to myself for 3 nights. This wasn’t a big deal, as I’d been in that situation a few times before. I’ve never been the very social type, so my dad didn’t have to worry about me doing something like throwing a big party and trashing the place. The only real thing I did differently while home alone was not wearing my headphones when I used my computer. Things did get a little spooky once the sun went down, but as long as I kept the lights on and didn’t watch anything too scary, I would be good.
Things were pretty normal the first night. I made myself dinner, played some computer games, and watched some Netflix before going to bed a little after midnight. It didn’t take too long for me to fall asleep, but right before I dozed off, I could distinctly hear someone walking on the roof right above my room. Probably just someone going up to look at the stars, I thought as I drifted away. The next morning was uneventful. I got up, made some coffee, had some breakfast, nothing out of the ordinary. At about noon, I decided to go out for a walk. When I got to the door, however, I noticed something odd.
The door was unlocked. Not just the normal door lock, but the big deadbolt that we only lock at night. I thought it over for a bit. I could have sworn I had locked both of them before I went to bed. I did so every night without fail. I eventually convinced myself that I must have somehow forgotten to do so. That was the only possible scenario. There was no way for anyone to have unlocked both of them from the outside since the deadbolt keyhole is all gummed up and can only be opened from the inside. I moved on from it pretty quickly after that.
The rest of the day moved by quickly, and before I knew it, it was time to go to bed. Once again, right when I found myself about to drift away, I could hear footsteps on the roof echoing throughout my room. Once again, I disregarded them, before falling asleep. When I woke up, could tell I hadn’t slept for very long, as there wasn’t much sunlight shining on my wall from the window. Undeterred, I closed my eyes and shifted in bed trying to find a comfortable position to fall back asleep. Right as I did so, however, I heard a sound that made my heart stop.
I heard my bedroom door quietly close shut. I shot upright in bed and turned to face my door, but saw nothing. Any hopes that it was just my imagination were dashed once I heard soft footsteps walking away from my door. These noises were followed by two soft clicks, the front door gently opening, and then closing. Figuring that it was safe to do so, I brought up the courage to get out of bed and walk down the hall to the front door. Sure enough, both locks were undone. Now I knew for a fact that I hadn’t just forgotten to lock them the first night. Someone was coming into the apartment while I was asleep, then leaving through the front door. But how? They couldn’t have had a key, and while it was possible in theory to pick the main door lock, doing so for the gummed-up deadbolt would have been near impossible. Then it hit me.
The window. Someone must have been going up onto the roof, climbing down the fire escape, and opening the dining window to get inside. That would also explain the footsteps I had been hearing right before I fell asleep. I turned around to look down the hall to the dining room window, and sure enough, the window was wide open. The lock for the window had been broken for a while, so I knew it was possible for someone to gain entry from outside, but I never thought anyone would actually do it.
Now I knew what was happening. I was still confused as to what he could be doing once he got inside. I looked around the apartment, and nothing worth taking had been stolen. I knew he had opened the door to my room, so my only guess was that he was looking at me while I was sleeping. Regardless of why he was doing what he was doing, I had to think of what to do next. I thought about going to the police, but they probably wouldn’t be able to do anything if I didn’t have any actual evidence. I only had one more night until my dad came back, so maybe I could just wait and have him help me deal with it, but I didn’t feel safe sleeping in the apartment for even one night knowing that someone was so easily gaining entry. I decided to try and catch whoever was doing it in the act.
I carried on the rest of the day normally, but when it came time to go to bed, I instead went into the bathroom next to the dining room, brought a hammer from my dad’s tool bag in case things got ugly, and locked the door. Then, I waited. At around 1 in the morning, I finally heard someone walking on the roof. I heard them walk over to the edge of the building before the noises stopped. They must have been climbing down the fire escape at that point. After about 20 more seconds, I heard the window squeak open, and then a soft thump as whoever it was climbed inside. I had planned to jump out and confront him at that moment, but I found myself unable to muster up the courage, so I decided to just stay put and hope for the best.
I pressed my ear to the door, being careful to breathe as softly as possible. I heard them walk past the bathroom down the hall to my room. There was a soft squeak as my bedroom door opened. After a few seconds of no noise, I heard him walking elsewhere in the apartment, probably looking for other places I could be sleeping. Eventually, I heard him once again walk towards the bathroom where I was hiding, but this time, he stopped right in front of the door.
The silence was broken by the sound of him trying to turn the door knob. This was followed by him knocking a few times. My heart was pounding out of my chest. I didn’t know if he would try to force the door open. It was locked, but the door itself isn’t that sturdy, so a grown man could break it down if he really tried. After what felt like forever, I heard him walking away. This was followed by two barely audible clicks as the front door opened, then closed.
After about a second, I opened the bathroom door, hurried down the hallway to the front door, and opened it as quietly as I could. I knew it could have gone terribly, but I just needed to see who was doing this. Following the sound of footsteps in the stairwell, I tiptoed down the stairs to the floor two stories below mine. Peeking my head around the handrail, I saw a man with a camera around his neck unlock his apartment door before walking inside and closing it.
I recognized who it was. It was this guy who had lived in our building for a few years. I hadn’t interacted with him much at all, but whenever our paths crossed in the stairwell, I noticed that he would keep his eyes on me longer than usual. I hadn’t really thought much of it, though, since he seemed generally harmless. He was on pretty good terms with my dad, and they would talk from time to time. That must have been how he had heard about my dad’s camping trip. I guess he thought, with me being alone, it was safe to come into our apartment and do whatever he was doing, which given his camera, probably had to do with taking photos of me sleeping.
I went back up to my apartment and double locked the door. I tried to stay up all night in case he broke in again, but I succumbed to exhaustion eventually and fell asleep around 4 in the morning. Later that day, when my dad came back, I told him about what had happened. He seemed pretty skeptical at first, but I thank that once he saw how freaked out about it I was, he realized it was something he should take seriously. The next day, we went down to the police station to file a report. They didn’t seem too concerned, and I can’t say I blame them. Someone breaking into an apartment solely to take photos of people sleeping and not even stealing anything does sound pretty far-fetched. We gave them our building address and the guy’s apartment number, and they said that they would send over two officers to talk to him and look for anything suspicious.
The next day, I noticed a police car parked outside the building. I watched it until I saw two officers come outside with my downstairs neighbor in handcuffs. They placed him in the back of the car before coming back inside, and I heard them knock at our door about a minute later. They told me and my dad what had happened. Apparently, while they were in his apartment talking to him, one of them noticed a photograph on the floor, and when they picked it up, they saw that it was me sleeping. When they searched more, they found a bunch of photos just like that.
We were able to charge him with breaking and entering, as well as giving him a restraining order. He pled guilty to everything, so the process was over with pretty quickly. Things have been normal ever since then. We called a guy to fix the locks on our windows, and some new people moved into the guy’s apartment. To this day, however, whenever I’m in bed and I hear footsteps on the roof, my heart stops.