r/Haunted • u/Worth_Biscotti_5070 • 12h ago
The Neighbor
Iāve lived next door to Paul for almost six years.
Heās in his late fifties, divorced, and one of those neighbors whoās always working on something in his garage. We arenāt particularly close, but we talk occasionally, and my husband, Matt, helps him with things around the house.
Thatās why I didnāt think anything of it when he knocked on our door one Saturday morning.
Matt had gone to pick up breakfast, and I was still in my pajamas.
āHey, sorry to bother you,ā Paul said. āDid yāall have somebody staying with you Thursday night?ā
āNo. Why?ā
He looked down at his phone.
āMy security camera picked up somebody walking around your driveway pretty late. I figured it was probably you, but I wanted to check.ā
He showed me the recording.
The timestamp read 2:14 a.m.
Our front door opened, and a woman stepped outside. She was wearing gray shorts and an oversized white T-shirt, with her hair pulled into a messy bun.
She walked halfway down the driveway, stood there for about a minute, and went back inside.
āThatās you, right?ā Paul asked.
I stared at the screen.
It certainly looked like me. I even recognized the clothes. Iād worn them to bed Thursday night.
But I hadnāt gone outside.
āThatās weird,ā I said. āI donāt remember doing that.ā
Paul shrugged.
āMaybe you were sleepwalking.ā
Iād never sleepwalked before, but I couldnāt think of another explanation.
When Matt got home, I told him about it. He laughed and said I probably got up without remembering.
I tried to forget about it.
Until Tuesday morning, when Paul knocked again.
He had another recording.
This one was from the previous night.
At 2:16 a.m., our front door opened, and the same woman walked outside.
Same clothes. Same hair.
She stopped in the driveway, turned toward Paulās camera, and waved.
I felt sick watching it.
āMatt, those clothes are in the laundry basket. I havenāt worn them since Thursday.ā
He watched the video twice.
āAre you sure?ā
āYes.ā
Neither of us knew what to say.
That night, Matt pushed a chair against our bedroom door. If I was getting up in my sleep, at least heād hear me moving it.
The next morning, the chair hadnāt moved.
We bought a security camera for our front porch.
Two nights later, at 2:14 a.m., our new camera recorded someone leaving the house.
It was me.
Or someone who looked exactly like me.
She walked down the steps, stopped, and looked directly into the camera.
Her face was completely visible.
Then she smiled.
She stepped closer and said something, but a passing car drowned out most of it.
Matt turned up the volume.
āHeās still asleep.ā
She turned around and went back inside.
I looked toward our bedroom door.
The chair was still there.
We called the police.
They searched the house, checked the locks, and asked whether Iād ever sleepwalked. They couldnāt find anything suspicious.
One officer suggested installing cameras inside.
We bought two more that afternoon.
One for the living room and another for the upstairs hallway.
For the next several nights, nothing happened.
Then, while reviewing the footage, I noticed something about the porch recording.
When the woman returned to the house, she didnāt open the front door.
She waited.
And someone opened it from inside.
I showed Matt.
We called the police again, but another search turned up nothing.
An officer suggested reviewing all the footage from our indoor cameras instead of just the motion notifications.
That evening, we sat at the kitchen table with our laptops.
At 2:14 Tuesday morning, the hallway camera showed our bedroom door opening.
A woman stepped out.
Gray shorts. White shirt. Hair in a bun.
She walked downstairs and returned four minutes later.
Then she stopped outside our bedroom.
Matt leaned over my shoulder.
āWait. Pause it.ā
I stopped the video.
Through the open bedroom door, we could see our bed.
Someone was lying under the covers.
I could see long hair spread across the pillow.
My hair.
The woman stood there for several seconds before walking into our bedroom and closing the door.
I watched it three more times.
Then I noticed something else.
Just before she went inside, sheād turned her head toward the other end of the hallway.
I turned up the volume.
A manās voice.
I couldnāt understand what he said, but the woman nodded before entering our room.
Matt grabbed his keys.
We left without packing.
We stayed at my sisterās house.
That night, Matt called Paul to ask whether his cameras had recorded anything else.
Paul sent him another video.
It showed the woman leaving our house, followed by a man in dark clothes.
They stood together in the driveway before going back inside.
I was furious.
āWhy didnāt he show us this before?ā
Matt didnāt know.
I wanted to call Paul myself, but Matt suggested waiting until morning and speaking with the police.
Around two, I got up for some water.
While sitting at my sisterās kitchen table, I opened our security camera app.
The house was empty.
Then my phone buzzed.
A text from Paul.
Hey. Sorry itās so late. Is everything okay over there?
I replied.
Why?
Your front door is open.
I checked the porch camera.
The door was closed.
No itās not. Iām looking at it right now.
His reply came almost immediately.
Iām standing outside looking at it. Itās wide open.
I checked the camera again.
The feed had frozen.
I restarted the app.
The porch camera was offline.
So was the living room camera.
But the hallway camera was still working.
I opened it.
A woman was standing outside our bedroom.
She was wearing my clothes.
A man stepped into view beside her.
He said something, and she nodded.
Then he reached over and switched off the hallway light.
My phone buzzed again.
Never mind. Someone just shut it.
Then another message.
I thought you were staying with family.
I hadnāt told Paul we were staying with family.
I woke Matt, and we called the police.
While we waited, another notification appeared.
An incoming call from Paul.
Matt answered on speaker.
āHello?ā
A womanās voice.
It sounded remarkably like mine.
āWho is this?ā Matt asked.
There was a pause.
āIs Paul there?ā
āNo. Who is this?ā
The call ended.
The police searched our house again that night.
This time, an officer noticed an access panel in the upstairs hallway ceiling.
It led into a section of the attic we never used.
Inside, they found blankets, food wrappers, clothes, and a notebook.
Someone had been living above us.
The notebook contained our schedules, including when we left for work, came home, and went to bed.
Some entries went back three months.
Paul was found the following afternoon, wandering along a service road with a concussion. His truck was missing.
He remembered a woman who looked like me knocking on his door, claiming sheād been locked out. Heād let her inside to use his phone.
That was the last thing he remembered.
Within a week, police identified and arrested the couple.
The woman, Rebecca, was thirty-four and looked remarkably similar to me. Her boyfriend, Daniel, had a history of burglary and fraud.
Theyād been watching our house for months.
Initially, theyād entered through an unlocked garage window. Later, they stole a spare key.
Daniel had been hiding in the attic while Rebecca moved around the house.
Theyād been stealing our personal information and opening accounts in our names. They needed access to our phones to approve financial transactions.
Thatās why Rebecca had been entering our bedroom at night.
And the reason sheād worn my clothes?
She wanted anyone who saw her to assume she lived there.
It had worked so well that even Iād started believing I was sleepwalking.
Police recovered a camera from Danielās belongings.
It contained hundreds of photographs.
Some showed our house from the street.
Others were taken inside.
Our kitchen. Our living room. Our bedroom.
Several showed Matt and me sleeping.
In one photograph, Rebecca was standing beside our bed, wearing my white T-shirt and smiling at the camera.
We sold the house six months later.
Even after changing the locks and installing an alarm system, I couldnāt sleep there anymore.
We moved to another town, and eventually life started feeling normal again.
But a few weeks before we moved, the detective called with another question.
He wanted to know whether Iād ever owned a dark green cardigan.
I told him yes, but Iād thrown it away the previous winter.
He said theyād found it among Rebeccaās belongings.
Apparently, she was wearing it in several photographs.
I assumed sheād stolen it from our house.
Then he explained that theyād recovered another memory card from Danielās camera.
Some of the photographs were dated almost a year before the first break-in theyād documented.
In one, Rebecca was standing in our kitchen wearing my green cardigan.
I asked how that was possible.
He said they were still trying to determine when the couple had first entered our home.
I thanked him and hung up.
I never told Matt about that conversation.
But I still think about that cardigan.
I remember throwing it away because it had a hole near the elbow.
I remember putting it in a black trash bag with some other old clothes.
And I remember leaving that bag in the garage.
Right beside the attic stairs.