Transcript of Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Rather, and I'm joined by the Duchess of Duluth.

Anonymous.

Anonymous. Today is crazy neighbor stories.

We got some nutty neighbors out there.

And, of course, we do.

Of course, we do. People are crazy.

When you're listening to people talk about their crazy neighbor, you realize how stuck you are.

Yeah.

Like, if you got a It's claustrophobic. They're inches from you in some cases. If you're in an apartment, you're like, oh my god. Literally, 2 feet across my door is someone I don't ever wanna be around again for the rest of my life.

Yeah. And 1 of them, last story, is intense. Yeah. Really intense. And yeah.

Yeah. A lot of these things blur with stalking.

Yes. Exactly.

They have the same feelings. Oof. You can't get rid of them.

Oh. Cannot get

rid of them.

Please enjoy KwaZY Neighbors.

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Are yours gonna be all about Wales? Yes.

Hello. Oh, hello.

Katie, where are you?

I'm in Arkansas.

Oh, wonderful. Home of mister Clinton. Yeah?

Yes. Of course.

Of course. Are you in Little Rock?

No. I'm in Jonesboro. It's, like, northeast, close to Memphis.

Oh, okay. So that's a beautiful part of the country.

It's alright.

This is okay.

If I were gonna go be, like, northwest, that's like Ozark. That's a place to really be, I think.

Ozark's a party. Right? I need to get out there on a boat at some point.

Absolutely. When

I was in 2nd grade, we had to do a project on a city, and I really wanted to do it on Little Rock. But there was another girl in my class who's from Little Rock.

Uh-oh.

And so she was competing with me, and she won.

Oh, boy. Yeah. Why use, like, the name?

I think I just liked the name.

Little Rock.

Yeah. It

was like,

that's so cute.

That'd probably be second for me to Northwest Art. Yeah. If we had to rank, which is what this podcast is about is me ranking different. That's right. This is in Arkansas.

You're absolutely right. Okay. So you have a crazy neighbor story.

I do. I kind of had to make myself some notes to keep all of this straight. We have a lot of timeline info going on.

Okay. Great.

So my husband and I moved here in September of last year from South Arkansas where we're from, and I was very pregnant. I was due in December. Our house that we ended up buying is like a split level. It's got a wraparound deck on the top level, and that's where the primary bedroom is, the living room, the kitchen. And then our driveway has 2 entrances and exits, and then so does our neighbor's driveway.

And we share 1 of those entrances and exits. So on move in day, our trash can was in the shared drive roped off to keep people from going in that drive, which we thought was odd, like, have we already pissed somebody off? And so we were like, oh, let's do something nice, like, go get cookies and introduce ourselves to that neighbor. But before we could do that, we actually saw her go to get her mail. And my husband, humble brag, he's pretty cute and he's really nice.

So, you know, I'm like, let's send him out there to talk to this old lady neighbor.

As an ambassador of the family.

Yeah. Go schmooze a little bit. Go rub elbows with this old lady neighbor. And so he goes out. She's wearing a mumu.

She has a walking stick and some big cataract glasses.

Oh, wow.

Already kind of giving off character energy.

She feels like she's a wizard trying to pretend to be a muggle and is not doing a great job.

Okay. That's interesting, Jake.

I'm trying

to remember what character. There's a weird old lady in Harry Potter Yes.

This is a swib or something like that.

Creepy. Like, jump scared. Rob also has images of this lady.

Yeah. Yeah. I have them stacked up here, but I'm gonna wait to reveal it. Okay. Because you tell me to.

So, anyway, he goes and he talks to her and he comes back. He's like, oh, she's nice. She put the trash can there because there was a small pothole and there had been people looking at the house. She didn't want someone to get their car damaged. Something something.

Okay. Great. She said her husband was in the hospital with a bladder infection. Check up on her, you know, if we don't see her for a while or something because she was there by herself right now. She did say some kind of kooky old lady things.

1 example was she said, don't you just love the night?

Oh, wow.

And he was like, okay. She said something about how she just loves to stay up and she watches TV. And so, of course, then we continued to say, don't you just love the night? It's like a weird thing to creep each other out.

Yeah. Yeah.

They exchanged phone numbers just so that we could contact her if we hadn't seen her in a while. She's in her late seventies. We just saw Wicked, so we're gonna call her missus Glenda.

Okay.

A couple weeks later after we move in, we go to dinner. We come back and we're dillydallying around the house, and we see a bullet hole through the window.

Oh my.

We did call the police, and we said we think there's a bullet hole. There's also an image of this. It went all the way into the dining room.

Yes. I got a photo of your open floor plan living room with a

Right. Dining room. Next to that pasta painting, there's, like, a nick in the drywall. And then if you look at those 3 windows to the left there, it came from 1 of those windows. Oh.

So it literally went, like, all the way across and then into that drywall that we had to then patch up.

And were the cops able to see that when they arrived?

Yeah. They took a report, but they also basically were like, well, you're in the south. You're kind of in a wooded area even though you are in city limits, so it might be someone hunting where they're not supposed to. Nothing we can really do. Time moves on.

October, my husband called to check on her because we hadn't seen her in a bit. Usually, we would see her going to get her mail almost daily. And she said, actually, there is something you can do for me. You can call the police. Oh.

I wanna file a report. There have been people watching me and trespassing on my So we're kind of getting weirded out because we just had this bullet hole. So we call, they come out, they talk to her. We don't hear anything about that because it's not really our business. But we get to November.

We came home from an OB appointment. And as I was walking back out to the car to get something out of the car, my husband rushed me back inside and said, miss Glenda's dancing around with a gun. Go back inside.

0. 0. 0. 0.

0 my

god. And I was, like, dancing around with a gun, and he was like, go downstairs, and

I'll come get your wife. Glenda is dancing around with a gun.

What?

That'd be a great title for a short story.

He comes back in, and he's called the police, obviously. And he said, she came out from behind the side of her house where we can see her from our house, and said that she was wearing, like, a helmet. And he said she had a rifle slung over her

shoulders Oh

my god.

And was yelling and doing almost like a scarecrow looking sort of movement. Very odd. Then he said that the helmet kind of tilted down over her face, and then she tripped and almost dropped off the rifle.

It's like a mix of a comedy routine and scary.

If it wasn't a gun, it would be like a different situation. But once the gun is in the mix, we're having an issue. So the police come, they talk to her apparently, and then they come talk to us since we're the ones that called. And they said that she definitely seemed kind of off, but they didn't see the firearm. And they said she was holding a cardboard box with the words birth control scribbled on it.

What? She told the cops that she had been filming a video for her kids.

Uh-oh. Okay.

So we're already getting into weird territory of

the young If I'm the law enforcement, I'm like, I can't really put these 3 new pieces of evidence into 1 cohesive thought. It seemed very unrelated.

Bizarre. So we get to February. 1 day, she came and banged on our door. We weren't home. But when we did get home, we saw her, like, walking out around her house, and she kind of yelled across the yard, hey.

Don't use my driveway anymore. Oh. And we're like, okay. No problem.

That was kind of you. I would have objected.

At this point, I'm 2 months postpartum. So I'm, like, literally whatever I can do to not have you talk to me.

Awesome. Right.

So we stop using our driveway. We don't even walk up it when we get our mail even though our mailbox is on that side. Now we go, like, all the way around. So later this month, my husband shoots bows. We have, like, a target in the yard, and so he's standing out in the driveway area shooting this target.

And he had our baby in the bassinet stroller situation just out with him. I'm inside, and I hear a gunshot. I'm immediately freaking out because I know that this woman has a gun, and I know that my husband and my baby are outside. And so I run out. I don't see either 1 of them.

So now I'm even more panicked. And then I realized he's down the street on the phone with who I assume at the moment is the cops. And so I'm like, okay. Thank god. They're okay at least.

But I did see her holding a pistol, like, walking in

the south.

She also has a pistol. So she got a rifle and a pistol. She's very well armed.

Yes. Which isn't abnormal in the South, but this is when we get into an issue where it's like, how do you take away someone's guns when they are not mentally sound enough to have them, which she clearly is not. The cops come. They file a police report. And literally in the police report, it says cops advised the suspect that it is illegal to discharge a weapon in city limits.

That's it. Just a reminder. Hey.

FYI, that's illegal. And she did admit she was like, oh, it's just shooting at the woods.

Oh my god.

Okay.

I have to figure out who this person does she actually have children?

What about the husband that was in the hospital? Yeah.

He never returned.

To this day, we have never seen the husband.

Okay. Maybe there was no husband. Yeah.

We have a lot of theories, obviously. You know, did she kill the husband? We don't know.

Also, those bladder infections can get you.

Yeah.

It's just men don't get them generally. It's more of a female thing.

I do some online sleuthing, and I do find that she has 2 adult children. 1, at least, I knew lived in town. He was a realtor. And so I found his cell phone on his realtor website, and I called him. And I explained the situation.

I'm like, hey. We live next door to your mother. She's firing guns. Can we figure this out? And he was like, oh, we're estranged.

Oh. He says a few years ago, he tried to talk to her about her mental health. And she basically said, you're trying to sell my money and my house and put me in a home. Yeah.

Don't talk to

me.

Oh, boy. And so he suggests calling the sister. He says, last I heard, they were still talking. Maybe give her call. So he gives me her phone number.

I call her. She says, we're estranged. Talk to my brother.

Oh, my god. Yep.

Cool. I am on my own. But he did tell me that his father had had a stroke a few years back. And he said to his knowledge, the father is still alive and wasn't in a home. Okay.

In March, my husband leaves the house. He's a director of a soccer club.

Can I ask you

a quick question? The time you came out where you're shooting the bow and he was down the road, did he tell you what had happened? Had she come out and just start firing in his direction?

He also heard the gun, and then he saw her walking around the house. But, anyways, he leaves to go to soccer practice. I'm home alone with the baby, and here comes miss Glenda to the house. She starts ringing the doorbell and banging on the front door. I'm not gonna answer because I don't know if she has a gun.

I don't know what's happening, and I'm by myself with the baby.

I'm now allowing myself to look at all the photos. I assume this is from the incident. Yeah. And so for the listener, Katie has done a perfect job describing her. She does look like a character out of a Wes Anderson movie or something.

There's 1 where she's got her wrist bent. Like, she's almost a little over it. Okay. So she starts ringing the bell.

And this is where the upper deck, wraparound deck comes into play. So, essentially, she's ringing the bell. She's banging on the door. I have 2 big dogs. They start going absolutely nuts.

So I'm like, okay. I'm just gonna take me and the dogs and go into the bedroom. She'll think we're not home. Also, I have a sleeping baby downstairs. I'm trying not to wake the baby.

You know, it's not like she realizes no one's answering and she leaves. She starts circling the deck. And she's banging on every single door. She's jiggling door handles. She's banging on every window.

She's looking in.

Oh.

She laps the entire deck 2 times. Yeah. She goes out to the garage area. She goes like, she's gonna maybe even go into the downstairs backyard area. And at this point, I'm freaking out.

I don't know if she has a gun on her. I don't know if I've accidentally left a door open. What if I've done that and she comes into my house thinking that I'm in her house?

Sure.

So I'm calling my husband. I'm in tears, and he immediately rushes home. He's on the phone with me the whole way, and I have this on video even though he wouldn't want me to share it. But my husband's very nonconfrontational. I'm very confrontational.

You just see in the video, like, he squeals up into the driveway. She's coming around at the front door, and she's like, hey, neighbor. How's it going?

Oh, she's code switched.

And he's like, you have my phone number. There is no reason for you to be on our property over here banging on doors, jiggling door handles. She starts to get pissy. They get into a cussing argument. Oh.

She's walking back to her house, like, cussing him out. We call the police, file a police report, etcetera, etcetera, like we do every 1 of these incidents. And all of the days weeks after this confrontation, she's walking out to her mailbox and, like, flipping us off. After this, I filed an APS report, adult protective services, because I'm like, she's off her rocker. She might be her husband's primary caretaker.

None of her kids can get through to her. I don't know what else to do. And I do know that they came out for a visit because they accidentally came to our house. I'm not privy to the info after that. So this leads me to my final event.

We get to April. While my husband and I were out, miss Glenda comes on to our property holding what looks like open mail. She's throwing the mail everywhere. She walked towards our front door and she's saying, hello, Katie and Rex are names. And she's proceeding to scream at our dogs through the window.

That's that 1 photo where it looks like she's screaming.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. The description I left out is it looks like there's a zombie circling your house. That's actually what it looks like. Like, there's an undead trying to come in.

It's terrifying. Yeah. And she's saying, where are you? Walks around the entirety of the deck multiple times doing the same thing, jiggling the door handles, knocking on everything. And then, again, we call and report this to the police.

When the police come this time, they're like, would you like us to go criminally ban her from your property? And I'm like, sure. Great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Why are we just now doing this? So they go. They attempt to make contact, but she doesn't answer the door. So they can't criminally ban her because she doesn't answer the door.

Oh my gosh. That's the

A very arbitrary system we have.

Yeah. Yes. I don't know if this is a state thing, but you can't file a restraining order unless there's already been evidence of physical altercation.

You can't prove she shot through the window even though we know she shot through the window.

Exactly. Again, my husband leaves to go to soccer practice, and I am home alone with the baby. And here she comes again. This is later the same day.

Oh my god.

Bad. I

see her coming, and I'm on the phone with 911, and I'm like, y'all better come here right now. I'm done with this lady. In my head, I'm like, I'm about to let my dogs out.

It's time to escalate.

Yeah. Exactly. And, also, they keep saying, well, we can't do anything unless we catch her on the property. And I'm like, I have video evidence of her being on the property. What's the point of the videos then?

I don't know.

Yep. Great question.

So she comes up to the door, starts doing her typical routine, but then she gets angry at the dogs and screams again, and then she throws a bag of charcoal at the window where the dogs are barking at her. And then on her way back to her house, she knocks the grill over.

Oh. Again,

all this on video. The cops come, and then this time they do make contact, and they do criminally ban her. And, basically, they say she's being really nice. Like, I just wanted to see if someone still lived there. I hadn't seen them in a while.

Oh my god.

And then they said the second that they said, ma'am, there's video evidence of you doing this. She, like, flipped and was like, I don't care. Arrest me then. Immediately had this weird reaction. So I don't know if there's a dementia element going on.

Kinda sounds like it. It's sad.

Well, I'm also wondering if she's just hammered. Is she just an old drunk? Does she get shit faced and come up with these crazy ideas, and she gotta get over to your property? And could be a lot of things. It's the guns that really turn it into something that needs to be taken seriously.

Her coming over every 14 minutes.

After this, the cops are basically like, if I were you, I would file an affidavit and basically say that you want her to be charged with discharging a weapon in city limits, harassment, and trespassing. She does get charged. As far as I know, she had to appear in court. So I guess she has a record now. From then on, we really have not seen much of her other than her going to get her mail.

And then also, apparently, she had been walking around the neighborhood during a heat advisory and knocking on doors asking for help. 1 lady, this is the 1 that came and talked to us, answered the door, and she said something about, I don't know where my husband is. They took him away from me. Oh. And so she was like, okay.

Well, I can't really help with that, but I can at least drive you back to your house. And then she showed up the following night in the middle of the night saying the same thing.

Oh. Yeah. There's some yeah.

You know what we need societally? We need some rung between jail and total freedom. You're not rounding them up and throwing them in a, like, mental institution, but there's gotta be, like, a state run kinda retirement home we could put you in. Some option that's not incarcerating them, but, also, this gal probably needs some supervision.

Yeah. There should be some sort of mandate if you're wreaking a lot of havoc. Yeah. Like, you

have to go somewhere. Yeah. Yard popping off pistols.

Jeez. Oh,

wow. And you still live next to her. So this is more to come.

She could have knocked during this. It would have been so great.

My dream is that someone at the end of their crazy neighbor story just goes, I have a shout out. Can I just bring in real quick? And it's their ex man neighbor.

Well, you're the first, so it might happen. Okay.

I hope you'll write us if there's any update in this story because I have a bad hunch.

Yeah. This isn't Right.

I mean, you're still right next to each other.

It's not great.

Oh, man. Oh, man.

Boy, I'm sorry. Last thing you think you're gonna be living in fear of is an old, old lady.

It sucks.

It's like, oh, we have this sweet, old lady, and we just had this baby. Yeah.

The stakes are so high because the option is to move.

Yeah. Well, Katie, I wish you a ton of luck with miss Grendel. Glendal. Glenda. Miss Glenda.

Miss Grendel.

I'm gonna give a quick shout out. My mother-in-law, Lee, was sad that she couldn't be up here to pop in at the end.

Oh, we miss Lee.

She started listening to this with me on, like, a road trip.

It caught her.

I reeled her right in.

Oh, good job. Take more people on car rides.

Okay. I'll try.

Well, great meeting you, Katie. Be well, and good luck

with her.

Alright.

You too. Alright. Bye.

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Maya. Mia. Maya. Miramar. Miramar.

Hello.

Nice to meet you both.

Nice to

meet you. Is it Maya?

It's Mia.

It's Mia. I threw that out there as an other option.

You did.

It sounds like someone's using an electric toothbrush behind you.

Yep. I think there's construction that literally started up to the window

1 minute ago.

Welcome to our world. Every time we start to record, it's like, oh, they're gonna mow the grass right now.

Mhmm.

Give me a callback. I can also do that. No.

No. We'll party. People are used to hearing a bunch of shit. Okay. Where are you at, Mia?

So I'm currently calling from San Francisco. I live in San Diego, but we're up here for the week visiting friends and my husband's family. And, funnily enough, this is where the story takes place. Late 2015, 1 of my best friends, Dominica, shout out, he and I were living together. We were living in a typical old Victorian style San Francisco apartment.

We were on the 1st floor. We had a neighbor who lived directly above us. Prior to this event, we had very typical, kind of almost expected noise complaints, walking with shoes on in the middle of the night, performatively loud sex, always, like, on weekdays.

Did you get a visual on the upstairs neighbor? What kind of gentleman was he?

Sorry. I should have clarified. He was a girl. I would say up until this point, it's sort of noise you kind of sign up for living in an old apartment. Anyways, 1 night, Dominica and I are coming home from a night out.

It wasn't all that late for, like, a Friday night. It was maybe 11 PM. And we are walking up to our building. We get out of our Uber. Dominica's a little bit ahead of me.

She turns the corner to walk into our building, and there's a few steps up, a very large glass door looking into our lobby. Dominica quickly turns back around, walks to me, and is like, someone's getting eaten out. Oh,

up this scale is a party.

Okay. She's an exhibitionist.

I just have to say there's something crazier about that than even fucking.

A 100%. In order to get to the lobby, there's a few stairs, and then the first floor is sort of on an elevated level. So she walking up and had bent over to give you a visual, and the skirt was lifted from behind.

Oh, wow. You're seating her out from behind. Can I ask 1 question about the neighbor? What age would you say she was?

I would say she was

a bit older than us. So we were mid twenties. I would guess around 30.

Okay. Not 60. No. I feel like that would be really relevant. Okay.

We sort of step back and decide what to do. And Dominica and I decide, like, okay. I'm gonna knock and then step back to give her

little privacy.

If it were me, I would probably sprint to my apartment and, like, shut the door. So we knock, we step back, give it a second, and then we walk, and they're standing there, like, almost waiting for us.

Oh, wow. Yeah. They're cute.

You think this is a king?

Yeah. I think she's an exhibitionist for sure.

I agree. And I had a feeling you guys were gonna

say that as well. So we punch in

the code. We walk in, and we kind of are like, okay. Let's just walk right by, leave it be. And the girl says to me, oh my god. What are the chances of what?

High if you're getting down in the lobby. Yeah. It's pretty high someone's gonna see.

That's kinda what I said. I said, I I think pretty high.

Was she weird? What was her personality like in general?

We didn't know her very well, so we think she was an alcohol distribution. I wasn't maybe looking to be her friend.

Right.

That's my mode

too. You're just cordial in the hallway after

the fact. Wow.

I don't feel like these people ever get paired with the right people. Like, I would have been the dream neighbor for her. I would have been very encouraging of this behavior. I would have thought it was spectacular. You never get the neighbor you want.

I don't think they want that.

They don't. They want me to be shocked

or horrified.

Shock. That's part of the thrill of doing that.

So did it ever escalate beyond the getting eaten out in the foyer of the building?

It didn't after that. I mean, she continued on with her regular antics.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say she might have also had a little bit of a drinking problem herself, maybe.

She might have.

Yeah.

I think there was some substance that evening for sure.

God, if she was sober, that's scarier.

Well, true. Whew.

Yeah. Wild experience. I think she moved out shortly after that. Oh, wow.

Funny. What are the odds? Mia, that was incredible. I'm sorry you witnessed that, and I'm also jealous that you witnessed that.

It got me here. So I'll end on the typical fangirl moment. I've been listening to you guys from the beginning, so I've been listening through many, many phases of life. Most recently, I just had a baby boy 6 months ago. Congratulations.

I did also wanna share that our baby boy is named Crosby.

Oh, cute.

Wonderful. Sweet.

And if it's okay, I'll bring him in.

Yeah. Oh my goodness. Oh,

no. He's so cute.

Do you have the roundest cheeks, Crosby? Hi, little buddy.

He is so cute.

My goodness. Hi.

Congratulations. What

a beautiful family you

have here. Very San Diego.

Thank you. Yes. This is my husband, Benjie.

Could be on the cover of, like, American that's too outdated, American Eagle.

Abercrombie? Yeah.

Abercrombie family. Mhmm. Tummy Hillfiger, like, maybe by

a sailboat.

Ralph Lauren even?

Yeah. Ralph Lauren. Sure.

Oh, we'll take it.

Alright. Well, nice meeting all of you. Congratulations. Take care.

Oh my god. I wanna squish that baby. Yeah.

He was so cute.

Chew on the cheeks a little bit. Chomp. Chomp. Chomp. Chomp.

Chomp. I like to chomp on cheeks. Do any chomping on Delta's cheeks when you had the chance?

I probably did.

Chomp. Chomp. Chomp.

Hello?

Can you hear

us? I can hear you. Can you hear me?

Yes. We got you.

Is it Eric?

It is. Yes.

Okay. Wonderful. I'm loving the room you're in. It's throwing me back to my uncle's rec room in the basement of the house. Very wood.

I love it.

Oh, yeah. Mid century modern. It's my little office here.

And is this the home in which you had a crazy neighbor, or does it predate this house?

This is a new house.

Oh, okay.

Oh, okay.

Maybe because of?

We'll see.

This is about 10 years ago. So there's a few characters, obviously, my wife being 1 of them. She's kinda social butterfly, the opposite of me, Texas girl, southern. Everywhere we go, she's talking with people, and people love her. She's adorable and got dimples, blonde hair.

So basically, wherever we go, she's finding friends, and I'm trying to lose the friends she's making sometimes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

And so we moved into our new house. We left the city of Rochester to move to a little town right on the outskirts of it. We were just so excited because it was tucked away. It was quiet, not a lot of hustle and bustle from the city. So we were just really excited to move in.

The house was set back a little bit, so the driveway was a little bit longer than everyone else's. We get there and obviously we're making friends right away. My wife's talking with all the neighbors. Everyone's super nice. There's 1 particular neighbor right next door to us.

Her name's Betty. She's about a 60 year old Italian woman. Seems really sweet. We kinda hit it off talking at the end of the driveway, neighborly things. Everyone's really supportive in our neighborhood.

And there was another neighbor across the street. His name's Randy. He was kind of like a bachelor guy, retired, but only, like, 47, 48 years old, so he retired kinda early. I think he worked for, like, the sheriff's department or something. Real nice guy.

So late summer, we just moved in. The neighbor next door, Betty, brings over a gift, and it's a little broom, dustpan, and a Frisbee.

Oh, interesting mix.

Yeah. We're like, okay. Great. Thank you so much. That's nice.

I found it odd because the only thing left in our house previously, you know, we moved in. It was empty. It was a couple cans of paint and a dustpan and a broom and a Frisbee.

What?

Oh my god. Like, maybe she had gifted that to the previous owner.

Exactly. But this is the only thing in the home.

Weird.

They moved out and left. Uh-oh. Just these things. Right?

That's very weird.

I work a lot of evenings and weekends, so I can come home and Mandy and Randy and Betty will be outside chatting, maybe having a little smoke break, having a cocktail, that kind of thing. Fall rolls around. Betty starts asking my wife, can you take out my dog once in a while when I'm running errands? They have a few cocktail hours, things like that. She's a stay at home mom, my wife.

So it was just nice that she was hanging out with other retired people and had some company during the day and while I was at work and things. You know, it was just a pretty typical fall, nothing too crazy. Winter rolls around, and I'll shovel her driveway once in a while. You know, everyone's helping out. Randy comes by with his snowblower, and we'll clear the end of each other's driveways after the big plow comes through, and we're all helping each other out.

Betty would ask my wife for a couple of rides to the doctor when it was snowing or things like that. And that's when I was like, maybe you just tell her no once in a while, even if you're available, just to make sure we're keeping

on a trajectory that's untenable.

Yeah. Good fences make good neighbors kind of approach. Just another couple things that sparked my curiosity. My office was in the front of the house so I could kinda see at the end, and Betty would stop the mailman and talk for, like, an hour to the mailman. I'm like, this is not sustainable here.

You know? I just can't imagine, like, why would the mailman wait that long? Maybe he's lonely. I don't know. He was a younger guy.

But then the mailman started showing up in street clothes to her house. Oh. That's a little weird. I don't know if you're supposed to have a relationship with a mailman like that. So spring rolls around, and I see an ambulance across the street at Randy's house there, and it turns out he died suddenly.

Oh my

goodness. God. At 48.

Young guy, you know, he smoked 10 packs of cigarettes a day, it seemed like, and 30 coolers, like, a day kinda have it. So we weren't surprised, but I guess he had a heart attack, called his dad a few hours before saying he was having some issues and then passed away. So that was really sad. He was a real nice guy. We missed him.

And that's kinda when things got a little weird. We started seeing Betty in a robe all the time, not really out and about like she was walking her dog. She would just walk her dog to the end of the street. And then 1 day, she just came out just yelling at kids playing basketball in the middle of the day. And I walked out there and was just like, you know, oh, hey, calm down.

Didn't give yourself a heart attack. She was really worked up. Again, another check mark, Maybe things aren't as stable as we thought here. And then she started yelling at us from the fence. Oh.

0. Waiting for us to, like, drive by on the driveway and kinda yell right at the car. She's yelling that my wife killed Randy. Oh.

0, my god.

She has some theories.

Yes. Wow. That we ruined the neighborhood.

Everything was good until you arrived.

For, like, the bad luck or something. So that's when I was like, okay. No more connection. Let's just ignore. I had a 10 year old son at the time.

I told him, Betty's sick, and we kinda left it at that. Well, early summer now, I came home late at night, pulled in the driveway, got out of my car, and it was just terrible smell. This is bad. You know, is it my trash can or something?

Yeah.

We're about 300 feet from 1 of the great lakes, so you can get some kinda terrible smells once in a while. It's summertime. I'm like, oh, that's weird, but I'm tired. It's late. I'll solve this problem tomorrow.

Maybe we'll be gone. I wake up in the morning. I get some errands to run at Home Depot. I hop in my truck that was parked in the driveway the previous night. I still smell this terrible smell.

I'm like, what is this? Look around. Look in the trash can. I just can't seem to find it. I hop in the truck.

I go to Home Depot. I take this road. It's through a park, very windy, 25 miles an hour. I'm driving on this road and someone just passes me, you know, double line, shouldn't be passing me, gives me a dirty look. I'm like, what's going on?

Sunday morning, everyone relax. Keep driving. I come to a red light, and I see this truck behind me, and then he kinda backs up and then pulls alongside me. And this truck was like a farm truck. The doors don't match the paint.

There's 2 gentlemen there. They're real kinda dirty guys, and he kinda makes this motion like a hitchhiker or something motion. Wasn't sure what exactly he was doing. The light turns green. I'm like, what is going on today?

Why is everyone just looking weird? And I pull into the Home Depot. I go past the entrance, and again, I just noticed everyone looks so angry today. I'm just so confused. Pull into a parking spot, step out of my truck.

I took a few steps and it just it hit me, the smell. And I looked down and tied to my bumper is a dead animal.

Oh. 0 my god.

Dragging dragging this animal through my town

Oh.

On a Sunday morning.

Through my town.

And everyone's trying to tell me, and that's why everyone's so angry and passing me.

Kind of a fucking psycho are you? Were you able to identify the carcass immediately, or did you know what kind of animal?

First, I thought it was my cat. Okay. And I was in shock. Did get a closer look, it was a raccoon.

Oh. Wow.

It was tied around its neck with like a USB cable Oh. And then like a wired mouse then attached to my bumper.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

And again, I'm looking around. Everyone's looking at me. I got nothing to say. I'm in shock. You know, people are clenching their kids in the Home Depot parking lot like, look at this monster, dragging room hill.

And then I'll call him the Home Depot angel. The guy who's collecting the carts comes over, kinda breaks the silence as the crowd has gathered around me, and I'm unsure what to do. Everyone else is unsure what to do. And just looks at me and goes, looks like you caught something.

Oh, that's

a nice icebreaker,

I guess. Yeah. He's there to help. And he's like, no worries, man. I'll be right back.

Comes back with a bucket and a shovel. We cut this guy loose and he scoops him up, puts them in the bucket. Oh. And he's like, I'll take care of this. I'll throw it in the dumpster.

Yeah.

Did you grease this kid $10 or anything?

I was in shock, but I did this a few days later as I gave him a good review. Okay.

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I put pieces together and realized that she must have, at night, her or someone, maybe the mailman

She enlisted him in her plan.

Possibly to put this kind of roadkill Oh. Attached to my truck underneath so that I wouldn't see it until I pulled out and pulled away. And then I just went down the police station the next day and was like, I'm not concerned about this woman hurting us, but it's a lot of diseases on this raccoon.

Well, and, minimally, you go, hey. This is escalating. So they were shouting from the fence. Now we've got carrying attached to the bumper. What's next?

Exactly. She moved a few years after that, and then we moved a few years after she left.

Do you think they called her and said, hey. Take your foot off the gas on your neighbor. We're aware of what's going. Why do you think it stopped and she didn't continue to escalate?

They came over to the house. The police talked with her and some of the other neighbors. I just think about all the signs. Everyone is kinda warning us. Even the previous owner of the home had just left Yay.

What they gave her. Right? No.

They didn't wanna take it with them. Yes. I wish I could talk to her because my big curiosity now after hearing the whole story is, were they slashing prices on a broom, dustpan, Frisbee combo? And she's like, I'm gonna pick up 5 of these, and I'll give them out. Or is every time someone moves and she's like, oh, I know the perfect thing to get, and then she goes and gets a new 1.

I kinda think it's that.

You do.

Yeah. Like, she's like, this is the gift to give new neighbors. Yeah.

She said something about it being good luck. It gives someone a broom or something. So they're saying it was good luck and then the people leaving it behind.

When you move out, it would've been great if you left it next to the other 1.

I did.

You did. That's hilarious.

Oh, yeah.

There was 2 sets of Frisbees

investment. God.

That is

so funny. I was not bringing that to my next home.

It's kinda like a horror

movie.

It is. Yeah.

But also the broom kind of foreshadowing Which which you needed to clean up Oh. Eventually. Okay.

It was very interesting.

Wow.

I thank you for letting me tell that story. Hopefully, it was somewhat entertaining.

Oh, it's incredibly. You. I'm always encouraged when women turn out to be shitty as well like men are because we're just so universally shitty. It's nice when women are shitty. And I'm delighted that we have a couple stories now where the perpetrator is a crazy lady and then is wearing the night wear out.

That's a guaranteed part

of the pattern.

Right? Same as our last person who dealt with a crazy gal.

Oh, wow.

Well, Eric, great meeting you. What a bizarre and interesting story.

My wife really got me into armchair expert. We pretty much only listen when we go on road trips, and she kinda created a monster. She's like, you know, can we listen to music once in a while? I'm ready to binge on, you know, experts on experts, and she needs a little bit of, tuneage and relaxation in between.

Oh, that's delightful.

So nice.

Well, I hope you guys take a 1000000 more road trips.

Yeah. Can she pop in and say hello? Of course.

Yeah. This is the gal from Texas who's very hospitable.

My beautiful southern bride. Her name's Mandy.

Hi. Hi, Mandy From Texas.

Hello.

Where in Texas?

I was born in Austin.

Oh. You lucky duck.

My grandparents, it was kind of a bummer when they moved. I'm sorry. When they died.

Moved on to heaven.

The family sold the house. I was like, no. Don't sell the house. Keep it in the fam.

Oh. But they

did. It's okay.

I have a question. Why'd you kill Randy?

Yeah. What was it that Randy had done that made you wanna turn homicidal? It's a great question.

I feel like I gave Randy a nice out from Betty.

Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure.

I feel bad. Poor Randy.

I think he just had

a lot of fun. Yeah. But he did have a stressful job. He worked as a Correctional officer.

Officer. Wow.

Yeah. I think the rate of alcoholism in all law enforcement is really tragically high. It's a rough job.

It is. We miss him.

He was a good dude.

Well, it's delightful meeting both of

you.

This is great.

Thanks so much for listening to this guy prattle on.

Oh, I loved it. He sucked us into his rhythm.

Oh my gosh. I cannot

believe that story is out in the open.

Alright. Be well.

Much love. Hello. Hi. I'm so excited.

We're gonna call you Sarah?

Yeah. Sarah, you have color coded sweaters as I do in your closet.

I do. That's how I decide what to wear. I switch colors kinda every day.

Love it. It's so cute.

Where do you live?

I'm in Ottawa.

Nice. Are we cold?

Yeah. It is. We are expecting freezing rain tonight. Oh.

And what time is it getting dark?

So it's about 411 right now. 4:30, it'll probably be pitch black out.

Oh, wow. Wow. That's too early.

You would not do that.

That's not for me.

Monica wouldn't survive.

It's not really for me either, but I suffered through it for some of the other benefits of this place.

Sure. That's fair.

So you have a crazy neighbor story?

I do. Yeah. Well, just sorry. Jump right in. I'm I'm very nervous.

Oh.

Don't be

nervous. Don't be nervous. You're with your friends, Monica and Dax and Wabi Wab.

I just opened my Instagram and, like, literally, first post was Dax, then it was Monica, then it was armchair. I'm like, yeah. I'm an armchair. This story happened in March of 2017, but the background goes a bit before that. So, I was living in an apartment.

I had been there about 1 year. It was just me and my dog. And 1 day, I'm out for a walk a few streets away and a man came running up to me and he introduced himself. He said he had just moved in across the hall from me, and he recognized me, so he wanted to come say hi. And that was fine.

It was like a couple streets over, so that was a bit weird. But for the next year and a half, there was no issues. He was neighborly. I'd run into him occasionally. He'd pet my dog.

He'd stay high through the door to my dog sometimes. I didn't know much about him, but I did pick up a few bits over time. So he was in his late forties. I don't think he worked, so I do believe he was on, like, a social assistance program. And he had formerly been an engineer, which is just something that, the back of my mind for later.

He had mentioned an out of town boyfriend, and he'd sometimes be gone for a few weeks at a time to go visit him, but I never saw the boyfriend come our direction.

Can I ask really quick how many people live in Ottawa? How populated is the town you're in in this story?

Ottawa has a 1000000 people, although it's a spread out city, but the area I was in was fairly dense. Anyway, so then fast forward to about 6 months before the event in March, and I am starting to notice some odd behavior and it continues to escalate over the next several months. So, like, 1 thing, like, his hair was perfectly normal and it started to get just wilder and wilder. And, like, by the end, it was just bleach blonde and completely unkempt and crazy.

Oh, wow.

I started to notice that I was running into him more frequently, and then it ramped up to being, like, almost every time I left my apartment that I'd be running into this guy. It felt suspicious. I go out and then he knocked on his window to, like, wave to weeks in the window. I was just starting to feel nervous. It's now early February, and I had mentioned to my mom, like, I think I might start looking for somewhere else to live.

I just getting, like, a bad feeling, but wasn't super urgent about it. And then 1 night in early February, there was an incident in the hallway. I was in my living room and the walls are, like, paper thin. So I could hear everything in the hallway, and the police showed up. It was not a peaceful situation.

There was lots of yelling. I could hear physical struggle out there. Oh, god. And at 1 point, he started doing a religious chant in, like, a foreign language, and it sounded almost like speaking in tongues. Oh god.

Wow. He was, like, white French Canadian. Yeah. So for about half an hour before the police did take him away, and I was leaving for a trip the next day and would be gone for a week. I was like, okay.

When I get back, I'm looking for an apartment. But then when I came back to my trip, he was nowhere to be seen. So I definitely had, like, a sense of relief about that, but I also kinda lost my sense of urgency. A small aside, during this period that he's away, I was also talking to the office admin about another issue, and she had asked me about him 1 day. And so I started telling her what I'd been noticing, and she told me that she'd actually had to start screening her phone calls because of him because he had been calling her 20 to 30 times a day.

Oh, wow. March 1st, he came back, and I just had an immediate sense of dread. Like, why did I waste his time when he was away and not get out of here? And, again, I took my dog out, got in, and I went in as quickly as I can. So I shut my door, but then 15 seconds later, he knocked on my door.

Oh. And I

knew he had just seen me come in, so I, like, answered it. But he was coming to apologize for the incident that had happened in February, And he explained to me that his nurses had been changing his medication and it had been setting him off and that he had made comments about self harm, which is why the police had showed up that night, and he had been in the mental health hospital in Ottawa. But then he proceeded to say, if anything happens again, please don't call the police on me. Please call the medics instead. But he then proceeded to go on about a birthday party he wanted to throw in May.

It was gonna his 50th, and he wanted to rent out my apartment to do that.

Oh, okay.

What? So that he'd have his apartment and my apartment.

Oh my god.

And I was like, well, no. And then he said, well, it's fine. You can lock your bedroom door.

And just throw a party in your living room. Right?

That's

fine. She's super cushy about it. I'm like, we'll talk about it closer to you, but full on in my brain, I'm like, I am not going to be here

anymore. Yeah.

Then March 3rd, I was out at a concert with friends. I was not driving that night. I had parked at my friend's house, and she was driving and driving me home after because the next day I was going back to her place anyways for a birthday. So I didn't have my car that night. The potential was there for me to drink, but I was not drunk.

I had 2 drinks over the course of many, many hours. By the time I got home, it was almost 2 AM, maybe 1:30. So, again, my dog had been by himself for a few hours, so I go let him out. I'm coming back in, and he comes out of his apartment. So he kind of blocks me from my way in, and he was very, very clearly high on something.

He was super giddy and high energy jumping around. He was going from topic to topic. At 1 point, he started serenading me. Oh. It was just wild.

Like, I didn't even know what to do. And then he drops on me that earlier that day, he had been planning to bomb the building.

0. 0. 0.

0 my god.

Wow. He let that slip out.

He was telling me, and then he shows me, sitting right in his doorway, the supplies he'd got to do it.

Oh my god.

The thing that sticks out in my mind is, you know, those propane casters that you'd use for, like, a torch, they're kind of narrow, about a foot tall. There was about a dozen of those.

Oh, jeez.

And, again, remember, he was an engineer, so I'm, like, he probably had to know how to do that. But he told me then he had changed his mind because he heard my dog, Whipper, and decided he didn't want my dog to get hurt. So that's what made him change his mind about it and that he was going to return the supplies the next day.

Oh, boy.

This is horrifying.

At

some point during this whole conversation, he handed me a stack of journals, and it was, like, 6 or 7 of them, and he asked me to hang on to them. He said, you can read them, but please don't give them to anybody, especially not the police. And then finally, another neighbor on our floor came out and was like, why the hell is their conversation happening at 2 AM? So I then slipped into my apartment and locked the door. I had no car.

So I completely panicked. I read a couple of pages of the journals, and then I slammed them shut. I was like, this is too invasive. I can't text my sister and be like, do you still have a spare room? And then I just shut down and went to bed.

I was like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. So then the next day, I was just blocking it out, and my friend came over. I finally told her, and she's like, we need to get you out of here. You need to call the police. But my concern with calling the police was that I'm gonna call them.

They're gonna deem him not a threat. He's gonna know that I called the police on him when he, 3 days ago, just told me, please don't call the police. Call the ambulance. Yes. I have to get my ducks in a row and then report it.

But they talked to a fence into me, like, what if next time nothing stops him? There is other families in here. So I packed up a bag, took my dog, left, called the police, and they did exactly what I expected, showed up, gimped him, not a Oh my god. Fridge and then left. I'm done here.

I'm not living in this apartment anymore. Luckily, I have good parents who live nearby, so I was able to go there and I emailed the office admin again being like, remember our conversation about this, but this is what happened. I don't wanna live here. I'm paid for the month of March. Can I just break my lease at the end of it instead of the regular 60 days we have to give in Ontario?

So they let me out of it. My parents and my brother and sister and 1 of my friends came, helped me load up my whole apartment in 2 hours as quickly as we can. While we were there, he did knock on the door and asked if I was there. My dad and brother answered. I was there, but they said I wasn't.

He said, I apologize. I hope she's not moving because of me. Then he asked for his journals back, and we passed them out the door. That was the end of my bomber neighbors.

Did you ever find out anything more about this? I mean, the notion that someone else just moved in

I know.

Across the hall.

I really hope he got some help and was able to get stable medication or something. I'm glad these programs exist that some people who need help can get social assistance on housing, but I never want to live.

But, also, how is he deemed not a threat when he had just told you that he was about to blow up the

even thinking about it.

Had taken supplies.

Yeah, many steps.

That's the part. I was like, well, he did have some materials. And, again, I was like, maybe that's on me that I waited not quite 24 hours, but 20 hours. Maybe the supplies had been removed by the time the police showed up. But I know he was known to the police.

Obviously, he had been taken in by them 3 weeks prior.

We're frustrated with this. Also, imagine how frustrated the cops are. There's nothing really they can do. They just gotta keep responding to these people, but there's a whole protocol.

Probably everyone is extremely frustrated.

Right. He hadn't actually committed a crime yet. You're allowed

to own those propane cylinders and whatever other materials.

You're in a position where you're trying to assess who is just a little nuts but not actually violent?

They straight up said it.

Oh, it's gonna blow up the building.

Yeah. Then I don't know what else more anyone could do. That's a full threat.

Yeah. This time, he decided, oh, he likes my dog, and he didn't want him to get hurt. But I'm like, what about the little baby that lives upstairs?

Oh, wow. Well, Sarah, I'm glad you got out unscathed. That's a very stressful and long time of being stressed.

Oh, scary.

Yeah. It's kind of my thing, though, of shutting it out and ignoring it for a while. Sure.

I hope you moved to, like, 12 acres, and you're just in the center of it with a huge buffer.

I'm not quite in 12 acres, but I do now have my own house in, suburban area.

Well, lovely meeting you. Sorry you went through that.

Thank you. Monica, I just finished reading your day 1 gift guide, and you're such an incredible writer.

Oh, thank you.

And, actually, I saw the little mouse that you drew.

Did you like it?

I did very much.

If I can create a crow of its quality, then it'll end up on a sherb. That's a hill I've gotta climb still, the crow hill. Alright. Well, be well and great meeting you.

Thank you.

Alright. Take care. This brought back a memory because, you know, I lived in the same apartment for 10 years, so I saw a lot of people come and go. And I had a dude that lived below me and across the hall. He had just gotten out of prison.

He was originally from Hawaii, and this is the gentleman that I smoked crack with

Okay.

1 night. Well, we got in a fight, then we smoked crack. And for the next 6 months that he lived there before I believe he went back to prison, I would be in bed, and there'd be a knock at my door at, like, 3 in the morning, and I would look out, and he would be in the stair landing, smoking crack, and knocking on my door. And I would look through the peephole, and he'd say, I see you peeping. And I'm like, oh, jeez, man.

He's fucking get out of here. Oh. And he'd be up there for 30 minutes banging on my doors, smoking crack. That was a rough 6 months.

And you never answered. Right? No. Yeah.

There's a weird detail, but he had given me his rice cooker when we were

Uh-huh.

That long game. And then at 1 point, he was out the door, and he wanted his rice cooker back. And I'm like, I do wanna give him his rice cooker back, but I also don't wanna interact with him because he's smoking crack in the hallway.

Yeah. Fuck. What did you do?

I put the rice cooker on his doorstep.

Gonna say. That would have been smart.

Yeah. Oh,

god. Neighbors are wild.

Alright. Well, I love you.

Love you.

You just had a neighbor interact with the cops.

Did have an incident. I don't know who listened, so I don't wanna, like, say

It's ongoing.

And I wasn't involved, but there was an incident above me, and there were cops. Also, at 1 of my other apartments, there was a sort of similar cops and firemen came because of threatening their life situation. Yeah. I think people know I have a neighbor issue currently.

Yeah. Yeah. What about when you walked out of your old apartment and Sean Penn was in the driveway?

That was exciting.

That makes up for all the other stuff.

That's true. I had a neighbor for a second that was dating Zac Efron, and her roommate was Sean Penn's daughter.

Oh, so you saw Zac Efron as well?

It was always, like, Al since I saw him walking. I'm pretty sure his car was blocking my car, and I couldn't go to my improv show.

Oh, but it was worth it.

It was worth it.

Yeah. So exciting. That's funny to be living in, like, an entry level apartment and walk outside, and Sean Penn's hanging on

the driveway. I was like I'm in Hollywood. I've made it.

We had that with Dennis Rodman when we moved out Costa Mesa.

Oh, really? He was dating

1 of the girls in your apartment complex? Yeah.

And you'd see him.

Yeah. Occasionally.

Hard to miss, Dennis Rod. Yeah.

LA, where dreams come true.

They come true every second. Alright. Love you.

Love you.

Do you wanna sing a tune or something? I'm gonna have a theme song. Oh. Okay. Great.

We don't have a song for this new show, so here I go, go, go. We're gonna ask some random questions, and with the help of armchairies, we'll get some suggestions.

I'm a fly a rind dish. I'm a fly a rind dish. Enjoy. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

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These days, life is all. Luckily, with Bank of Ireland's current account and Visa debit card, you get all your day to day banking covered for just €6 a month. So you can tap, pay, and send in euro with no surprises. Easy. Search Bank of Ireland current account to find out more.

Terms and conditions apply. Send via 365 online and phone. Government stamp duty applies to debit cards and checks. Bank of Ireland is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.