I live in an apartment with my girlfriend and our cat, we’ve been here for almost a year. This isn’t the best place to be; there’s mold that just won’t stop growing, the hot water hardly ever works, some of the neighbors are bad news, there’s one washer and dryer in a creepy dusty basement for all 40 or so tenants, and so on. In other words, there’s a lot that can go wrong, and when that happens, you have to call maintenance.
Yesterday, we awoke to a familiar text from our landlord about maintenance being around to fix the hot water. We thought whatever, not us. But as it turned out, it was us. Maintenance didn’t knock on our door — rather, they announced their arrival with keys jingling and our lock shifting. A man entered and right off the bat, I did not like his vibe. He was way too nice to my girlfriend and would hardly even look at me.
He carried on with his work in the bathroom while my girlfriend and I watched TV. My gut feeling got ever so slightly worse, however, when the maintenance man had come out of the bathroom with a question: “Are either of you guys going to work today?”
At once, I wonder why? Why does he need to know this? Should I ask?
But my girlfriend beats me to answering, telling him not today but we both work tomorrow. He said he’d be back tomorrow because he needs another person and the work they’re going to do is loud.
After maintenance left, I still couldn’t shake the feeling and talked about it with my girlfriend. But alas, she’s very trusting of people, and thought I was bugging out about nothing. But I’m a guy, and I know guys, and I can just tell he’s up to something. I proposed we should buy security cameras just to be safe. She thought about it, and ultimately didn’t disagree because she’d be able to watch the cat while she was at work. Great.
So, we went to Walmart.
On the drive there, I realized something. I had an opportunity to pull a prank that I’ve been wanting to pull (in essence) for years, but haven’t been able to. But I had finally come across the proper circumstances. I’ll explain…
A suspicious person may or may not go through me or my girlfriends personal drawers tomorrow while we are both at work… so let’s leave them a surprise to find in case they do. This is essentially what I was thinking, and this is how I went about it: acquire a few mason jars, fill them generously with a gnarly cocktail of fluids until they pass for blood — and a certain other bodily fluid — then close them up, put some tape on them for labeling, and finally tuck them away in the personal drawers so that if the suspicious person goes through them, they may discover the jars and hopefully be deeply freaked out. Example labels: “{certain bodily fluid} — 2018”, “{name of person/animal that drew blood} — MAR 5, 2017”.
My girlfriend, who also loves freaking people out for a laugh, liked the idea. So we got one camera for the living room, another for the bedroom, and whatever prank supplies we didn’t already have at home. Spirit Halloween has just opened so we stopped there for fake food afterwards.
We made six jars:
1, 2 — Two filled with the certain bodily fluid (flour, sesame oil, shampoo, cheap toilet paper, artificial lemon juice mostly for color, and a tiny bit of Funyuns reduced to a light dust), labeled for the current year and previous.
3, 4, 5, 6 — Four with blood (fake blood mixed with a whole tube of jelly-lube and some burnt crisps leftover from the unwashed pan we used to cook dinner the night prior, plus some BBQ sauce), labelled for the current year and previous three.
This morning, I made sure the cameras were on before we left for work, and to shut the bedroom door. Because he has absolutely no business in there. But if he is up to something, he is going to open that door and do whatever — and I’m going to have it all on video.
At around 9am, my phone started getting notifications.
I wouldn’t see these until I caught a break from work at around 10am. By that time, the maintenance man had come and gone.
“PERSON DETECTED IN LIVING ROOM - 13s”
Then…
“PERSON DETECTED IN BEDROOM - 1m26s”
“PERSON DETECTED IN BEDROOM - 2m51s”
Then roughly 20 minutes later…
“PERSON DETECTED IN LIVING ROOM - 29s”
My heart skipped a beat when I read this. I went to the bathroom at work and watched the first bedroom video.
My gut feeling was right, and it was the worst thing in the world to realize.
He had a hood on, and you could barely see his face, but I knew it was the same guy from the day before. He went right into the bedroom and started looking through the closet with a flashlight. He hastily sorts through my girlfriends dresses and looks through the boxes on the closet floor. He doesn’t seem to find whatever it is he’s looking for, though, and moves on quickly. My side of the bed, and all my stuff, is right beside the closet — but he doesn’t go to my side next. He walks right around to my girlfriends side. Where I had put the camera. He digs through her dirty laundry, examining underwear. He sifts through her dresser and scours her bedside table… directly beneath the security camera.
He goes still for a moment, hands buried in the drawer. You can tell he’s found the jars. But his reaction was not what I expected.
I had anticipated potentially fucked up reactions, but not this.
The shitty camera audio kicks in.
“Ohh, fuck…”
But the way he said it.
Made my heart skip another beat.
He was pleasantly surprised. I couldn’t believe what I was watching.
He takes out both of the blood jars and stared at them for so long that the camera(which records based on movement) had stopped recording. So I watched the next video. It started with him putting the blood jars down onto the bedside table… and briefly slipping his hands in his pants to adjust his crotch during the process. Then I saw him sliding the four certain bodily fluid jars forward in the drawer, and he proceeded to examine those next. He picked one up — the jar for the current year, noticeably only filled about halfway.
He rubs inside his pants again.
In a strange almost ironic way, I felt totally violated. Obviously the contents of the jar are fake, but in this moment, he clearly didn’t realize any of the jars were fake. In this moment, he was getting off on jars that he thinks are full of my girlfriends period blood and my certain bodily fluids. Fucking bizarre.
Then, he stops rubbing inside his pants.
He undoes his belt, and his fly.
He opens the certain bodily fluids jar.
He goes still for a moment. You can see him take a big sniff of the air. He holds the open jar right up to his nose for hardly a second and then says…
“It’s fake.”
My heart skips another beat.
He could definitely smell the lemon. Or sesame oil.
He sticks his fingers in the jar, and tastes them. He spits instantly.
“Definitely fake.”
He fixes his belt/pants, then he picks up one of the blood jars and gives it a smell.
“Also fake. Disappointing,” he says, shaking his head. Shaking his fucking head.
And then, finally…
He notices the camera.
“Oh, shit,” he says.
Immediately, his pants are back up. He keeps his head down, hiding his face under his hood.
“That wasn’t there yesterday.”
He inspects it more closely, and sees that it is in fact recording.
“Fuck me.”
He sounds calm.
“This is a prank, isn’t it?”
A pause.
“Fuck.”
He shakes his head… then giggles.
“Listen, guys… Neither of you have any idea who the fuck I am or who the fuck I know, alright? I fucked up today. I’ll give you that, I totally fucked up. But if you share that video, you’re looking for trouble. I know where you live and I have a fucking key. If I get fired and they change the locks, trust me when I say that I still know how to get in.”
He laughs.
“I’m gonna get back to work now. You’ll be seeing me around…”
He continues laughing, giggling, all the way out of the bedroom. He closes the door, and the video ends shortly afterwards.
You’ll be seeing me around…
You’ll be seeing me around…
The words are still echoing in my head.
The last video, as I mentioned earlier, was taken in the living room about 20 minutes later. The video starts with him entering the living room. He stops promptly, and scans the room. He spots the camera.
“Had a feeling you had another one. Good to know. Hot water’s running again, by the way…”
He then exits, and the video soon ends.
I told my boss that a maintenance person was going through my girlfriend and I’s things and was allowed to leave right then and there.
I sped home, and sent my girlfriend the videos, telling her to call me ASAP. I heard from her not even a 2 minutes later; she was going to be leaving early as well.
Truth is though, we should have just stayed at work. We were both allowed to leave early because our bosses thought we had some serious stuff to sort out with our landlord and the police. But that’s not what’s been happening. I went through our lease and discovered that there is literally nothing about maintenance except that they have to give you notice (which they never do for anyone, so I hear).
Basically, because it’s not written, there’s nothing wrong with maintenance going through people’s belongings. I guess my girlfriend and I have no one to blame here but ourselves for singing the damn thing.
We just tried calling the police. To ask if anything illegal had happened. But we didn’t bring up the prank; we just told them that maintenance went through/touched our personal stuff (and how they have never given notice, which is illegal). But… this would prove to be a total waste of time.
Unfortunately, since nothing was physically taken — and there’s nothing in our lease about maintenance going through our things — there was no crime committed, and nothing they could do. I asked to make a report anyway, and the officer insisted it wasn’t worth it, but to call them if it happens again.
We’re both back at the apartment now, but it doesn’t feel like home anymore. To say we’re scared would be an understatement. We want to move, but that would be impossible for at least a year.
We’ve blockaded our front door with the couch because we’re going to have to stay here tonight. Neither of us have family close-by, either (closest is a 15 hour drive away).
I see a cop parked down the end of the street right now, which gives us some comfort.
Still, I don’t think we’ll be getting any sleep tonight.