7 True Unnerving Home Horror Stories | Home Alone, Intruders and Late Night Stalkers - Scary Stories from Bad Vibes

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
When I was fifteen, I used to take my German
shepherd del Gatto outside whenever he needed to use the restroom.
One winter after Christmas, something unsettling started to happen. For
about three months straight, this tall, lanky, ragged looking man
kept showing up on my ring camera. My parents noticed

(00:34):
the pattern. Every time I stepped outside, just moments later,
he would appear walking past the house, staring directly at
the camera. He'd stop, linger and then quickly walk off.
The last night I took del Gatto out, I saw him.
He wasn't passing by this time. He was heading straight

(00:55):
towards me through the dark. Del Gatto began growling. Heckels raised,
ready to defend. I didn't wait. I ran aside, dragging
dogado with me, slamming the door behind us. I told
my dad he was beyondone at that point, angry and
determined to put an end to it. He already had

(01:17):
a sense of this guy's habits, so this time he
went outside ahead of schedule, just in time to intercept him.
My dad confronted him, demand didn't know why he kept
showing up. The man tried to play innocent, claiming it
was the first time in the neighborhood, and that he
was only admiring in our Christmas lights. He tried to

(01:39):
sound polite, like he was just some friendly passerby. My
dad didn't buy it. He didn't even respond to the
guy's excuse. He just looked him dead in the eye
and said, in a voice that left no room for
an argument, get the fuck out of here, or I'm
opening the door. Dogatta was on the other side, barking
like he was ready to teared through the house. After that,

(02:03):
the man showed up on camera three more times in
a single week, always between eleven PM and midnight. It
felt like he was out there earlier, just waiting, watching,
then silence. For a while, it seemed like he finally disappeared,
until one night. I was downstairs washing my face through

(02:23):
the window open and some music playing. Not the smartest move,
I know, but I didn't want to live in constant fear.
Suddenly my little brother, he was only ten, came rushing downstairs.
He knocked gently on the bathroom door, his voice barely
above a whisper. Can we talk? When I opened the door,

(02:45):
his face was pale, horrified. He pointed behind me and said, look.
I turned and there he was the same man, his
face nearly pressed against the window screen, staring straight out
at me. He didn't flinch, he didn't speak, He just watched.
I don't know how I didn't notice the strong smell

(03:08):
of cigarettes earlier, but once I did, it was all
I could smell. Even then, he didn't break eye contact.
Only when he heard my dad coming down the stairs
did he calmly walk away, vanishing. We called the police,
but they couldn't do much, just file a report, nothing more.

(03:29):
My brother clung to me, crying. He was such a quiet,
sweet kid. Through tears, he whispered. I looked at my
window and saw something black outside, so I ran downstairs,
and not carefully, because I didn't want to scare you.
We live in the south side of Tucson, Arizona. If
you know anything about this area, you know how serious

(03:50):
the homeless problem is. But this wasn't someone just down
on their luck. So to the man that kept coming back,
I don't care what story you were playing in your
head while stalking us. If you ever come back, I
promise you my training won't go to waste, and that
goes for any other creeps out there. This happened a

(04:17):
few years ago, but it's one of those experiences that
never left me, mostly because of how unsettling it was.
Every year, my parents go on a week long anniversary trip,
and since I was twenty at the time, it wasn't
unusual for me to stay home alone. I'd done it
before without any issues, but that year something felt different.

(04:40):
The weirdness started day one. It was morning and someone
came to the front door to deliver something. I didn't
recognize the man, so I decided not to answer. Normally,
packages are just left at the doorstep anyway, so I
figured he would do the same. But instead of leaving,
he I stood there for five minutes. Eventually he walked

(05:03):
back to his car, and I thought that was the
end of it. I waited until he started driving off,
then stepped outside to grab the package. That's when he
stopped his car in the middle of the road, got out,
and walked back towards me, just to hand me the
package personally, no signature required, new uniform, just a beat

(05:24):
up a car and a stranger with no reason to
be that persistent. It left me feeling off unsettled. Fast
forward to the last night of the week, the night
before my parents were due home. I was in the
living room relaxing when I noticed movement outside. It was
just after eleven PM. A large figure was approaching the

(05:46):
front door. The glass on the door was dimpled. You
can't make out features, just fike shapes and shadows, but
this silhouette was clear enough to know that it was
a man. And before I had time to process it,
he started banging on the door, loud and relentless. He
kept at it for almost a full minute, then just
stood there, watching, waiting. He didn't leave for at least

(06:11):
ten minutes, and during that time he pounded on the
door again hard. I was frozen, watching from a distance,
panic rising in my chest. Luckily, my sister lives less
than a mile away. I called her in a panic,
and her husband rushed over to get me. But while
I was on the phone, I realized something terrifying. My

(06:32):
dogs were in the backyard. Our back door is almost
entirely glass. If this person circled around, there would have
been nothing stopping him from seeing in, or worse, getting in.
The dogs were barking like mad and convinced me he
was going to try the gate. I ran to let
them inside and locked everything up. By the time my

(06:55):
brother in law arrived, the man was gone. He got
me out of the house and we headed straight to
my sister's place. That's when we checked the security footage,
except there was none. The camera's normally very sensitive, never
glitchy had been shut off, not just when the man
was at the door, but for a full hour and

(07:17):
a half before he showed up. They were working fine
earlier in the day, and they came back on after
reviewing them. No power issues, no dead battery, just blacked
out during that exact window. To this day, I have
no idea who this man was. I searched the local
news for any incidents nearby. Nothing, no break ins, no reports,

(07:42):
and wall I can't say for sure. Part of me
has always wondered if it was the same guy from
that first day, the one with the package, the one
that shouldn't have gotten out of the car. Was he
trying to rob the house? Was he stalking it or me?
I don't know, and I probably never will, But since
then I haven't liked being home alone at night, not

(08:04):
one bit. This happened last year, around February. I was
seventeen at the time, and for context, I'm a girl.
It was just a regular day. I just finished school
and was home alone, like I had been plenty of

(08:25):
times before. I'm not always scared when I'm alone, but
sometimes for no reason at all, this overwhelming paranoia creeps in.
That day, it hit me hard. Before I tell you
what happened, let me explain the layout of our hallway
so you can picture it as you walk down the hall.
My bedroom is the first door on the left. Right

(08:47):
after that is my parents' room, also on the left,
at the very end of the bathroom, which has a
toilet in it. The bathroom door is weird. It has
this curved, frosted window on it. You can't see anything
clearly through it, but you can see a movement, just
a vague shape and motion, whether you're inside or outside. Anyway,

(09:09):
I was in my room and decided to use the
bathroom since I was home alone. I didn't bother shutting
the door all the way. That's when I heard it,
a creak from my parents' room, then another, like slow
deliberate footsteps heading in my direction. I instantly slammed the
door and locked it. My phone was at ten percent

(09:31):
and I had zero survival instincts. I didn't think it
was that serious. At first, I called a friend on FaceTime,
trying to joke about it while also clearly freaking out.
Then I did something stupid. I leaned closer to the
frosted window to get a better look, and I saw someone,
a man, standing right outside the bathroom. I managed to

(09:54):
snap this photo through the glass. Two people that are
confused about the photo. The top left of the rectangle
looks kind of like a phase, and the black and
red part is the shirt. That's when I really started
a panic. I began to yell, screaming things like and
calling the police get out, hoping to scare him off.

(10:16):
My battery was dropping fast, but I called my dad
and told him everything. He said he was on his way,
but after that call, my phone died. There was nothing
left to do but wait and pray. I sat in
silence for what felick forever, probably around forty five minutes,
clutching the door handle in case he tried to force
it open. My mind kept going to worse places. But

(10:40):
if my dad walked through the front door and the
man ambushed him. Finally I heard the front door open,
then another creak from the hallway floor. My dad called
out to me, told me it was safe to come out.
I unlocked the door, stepped out and found nothing. No
open windows, no one locked doors, no sign a forced entry.

(11:01):
The house was completely still. To this day, I can't
explain it. Sometimes I wonder did I imagine it was
I just paranoid, But then I remember the photo. I
know what I saw, and just to be clear, I'm
not someone who believes in the supernatural, but whatever that was,
it wasn't in my head. This happened about a year ago,

(11:31):
but I just came across a post that reminded me
of it, and honestly, it still gives me chills. At
the time, I was living with my husband and our
three kids, who were around nine, seven and two. We
lived in a fairly rural area in the UK, just
outside a small village. Every night I always made sure
that the front door was locked, and sometimes even put

(11:53):
a chain across just for peace of mind. One night,
I was abruptly woken up by a loud, aggressive banking
on our front door. At first I thought it might
just be someone drunk, confused or maybe thinking this was
their own house, but then the person started trying to
turn the handle My husband was closer to the door,

(12:14):
while I stood frozen halfway down the stairs, phone in hand,
ready to call someone if needed. He shouted through the door,
telling the man that we had children inside and to
go away. Immediately. The man started rambling, his voice slightly slurred,
not extremely, but just enough that it was clear that
he was either high or mentally unwell. He kept asking

(12:38):
for a woman by name, someone we'd never heard of.
My husband repeated that no one by that name lived
there and told him to leave. The man insisted that
we were hiding her and said that he was coming in.
Daring this. We heard all kinds of strange noises coming
from the other side of the door, thumping, scratching, and

(12:58):
one sound I still can't place. It was unnerving. My
husband eventually shouted that I had called the police. The
man responded with a few more frantic bangs and then nothing,
complete silence. We didn't hear him bothering any of the
neighbors either. I stayed up for hours after that, just

(13:19):
in case he came back. I sat with my tennis
racket beside me, ready to use it if I had to.
Thankfully I didn't. In the morning, I went to check outside,
and what I saw made me feel physically ill. There
was a huge dent in the door, far too big
to be from just a fist. There were also fingernail

(13:41):
scratches and blood on the door and surrounding panels, not
an overwhelming amount, but enough that I had to scrub
it off. We took photos. First. Between the door and
the bins was a smashed ashtray, also with blood on it,
shouted into pieces. One of our outdoors had been tipped over,
with the soil scattered everywhere. My best guess is he

(14:05):
tried to use the ashtray to break in, cut himself
in the process, and then fled when he realized we
were calling the police. But that's just speculation. What terrified
me the most was how aggressive and determined he was.
We had no connection to this man, no reason to
be targeted. We told our neighbors. They were all horrified.

(14:27):
One said that they heard something in the night, but
assumed it was just a drunk But when we mentioned
the woman's name, their expressions changed. One neighbor said, oh God,
that's the woman that used to live in your house.
Apparently she had a history with drugs and shady people.
The neighbor guessed that maybe one of her old acquaintances

(14:49):
was still looking for her and hadn't realized she had
moved out. They've even had a few incidents at our
new address. Please showing up, though I don't know the details. Now,
we've installed a video doorbell insecurity system, complete with a
panic button that contacts authorities directly if unanswered. That night

(15:09):
didn't end in real danger, but it so easily could have,
so seriously to the blood covered, unhinged door knocker, she
doesn't live here, and you are absolutely insane. Please let's
not meet. This happened five years ago when I was fifteen.

(15:34):
I'm twenty now. At the time, my great aunt's health
was rapidly declining. She could no longer care for herself,
and after a lot of difficult conversations, the family agreed
that she'd be better off at a nursing home. What
she left behind, though, was a problem itself. Her house.
She had been in extreme horder. I don't say that

(15:56):
to disrespect her, but it's important for what comes next.
The house was practically impassable once she was gone. It
sat abandoned. Only my dad and myself ever checked in
on it. At first, the visits were simple rescue a
few belongings, keep an eye on the place. That's when

(16:17):
we started noticing things were off, Drawers left open, items
clearly moved. At first, we didn't think much of it.
A close family friend of my great aunt had also
lived there briefly and still had a key. We figured
maybe he was dropping in to grab his things. But
then it got weirder. One day we came in and

(16:40):
found stuffed animals, one scattered on the shelf, now lined
up perfectly along the staircase, each one sitting neatly on
a different step. Drawers weren't just open now, they were
ripped apart, their contents dumped across the floor. Dirty footprints
appeared in areas we hadn't walked and no one was

(17:01):
supposed to be there. We started driving past the house
late at night, open to catch something, a flicker of
a flashlight, a movement behind the curtains, anything. It became
a bit of an obsession. I started telling my friends
about it. We were dumb kids back then, and we
thought it was some sort of twisted adventure to stay

(17:22):
out at night and catch whoever was doing this. One
important detail, there was no easy way into the house.
All the doors were locked, all the windows were shut.
Only my dad, myself, and one other man had keys.
So one night, three friends and I brought my two
dogs and decided to stay. We camped out in the kitchen.

(17:46):
At first, everything felt normal, just the usual mess, nothing new.
We ordered pizza and waited. After a while, we decided
to take the dogs for a walk. I locked the
front door behind us funly locked it. We were gone
fifteen minutes. When we returned, one lamp and the furthest
corner of the living room was on. That room was

(18:09):
so jammed with junk anyone trying to reach that lamp
would have had to climb over piles of debris just
to get to it. That's when we knew someone was
in the house. We stayed low in the kitchen, hoping
to listen, maybe catch them in the act. But one
of my friends, let's call her Jane, got too spooked

(18:29):
and decided to go home. We walked her to the
door and let her out. Not even five minutes later,
we heard footsteps on the stairs, creaking, slow, deliberate. It
was clear whoever was up there that we had all left.
We were frozen, listening realizing just how close they were.
Only a single wall separated us. One of my ducks

(18:53):
started barking, and just like that, the footsteps stopped. We
had locked the door between the hallway and stair case earlier,
just after the walk. That door might have been the
only thing keeping him from walking right into the kitchen.
We bolt it out of the house and didn't stop
running until we got out front. Once we caught our breath,

(19:14):
we called the police, and then we heard it, a
man's voice, quiet muffled, speaking to someone, probably on the phone.
We looked up and saw the second story window cracked open.
Someone had opened it. We knew for a fact that
no windows had been left open. We could only make
out fragments, but one of the things was clear, been caught.

(19:38):
That's all we heard. It took the police thirty minutes
to arrive. When they searched the house, they found nothing,
but with the time he had he could have hidden.
There was one room filled for a ceiling with cardboard boxes.
Anyone could have been inside. That's when the real mind
games began. Notes began to have peer around the house,

(20:01):
smiley faces, flowers messages that read catch me. He installed
a small alarm under the front door that would buzz
whenever someone entered, so we knew if we were back.
He trashed the bedroom beyond recognition, smashed furniture, left things
in strange, disturbing arrangements. He defecated in a toilet and

(20:24):
placed a flower on top of it. We started checking
the house multiple times a day. Nothing, no signs of him,
but the evidence was always there. Someone was coming back.
Eventually we gave up. We figured if we backed off,
maybe he would too, and for a while he did.

(20:45):
But four months later one of my friends drove by
and said there was a figure behind a curtain just watching.
We were pulled right back in. This time, seven of
us decided to go back, determined to find out how
he was getting in and where he was hiding. The
house was still locked, still sealed inside, the kitchen was

(21:07):
filled with rotting food, and in the living room another surprise,
he had defecated it in a cardboard box like a dog.
We split up. Four of us checked the main house,
One friend stayed outside. My friend Carl and I went
to the old stable, which had a hole in the
wall connecting to the attic, a hole we had never

(21:28):
been able to locate from the inside. Carl started tossing
the small stone in the hole, hoping he would hear
it hit somewhere to help us find the right spot.
Then it knocked back. We saw the cardboard flex from inside,
like someone was hitting it back at us. I shouted
to the front outside, asking if anyone had gone up

(21:51):
to the attic yet. She called back, no, everyone still downstairs.
Carl and I looked at each other, then we ran
straight to the the group. If it went to the attic,
now we'd catch him. There's no way out except past us.
We thorned up the stairs through the attic door open

(22:11):
and found nothing. After that we gave up for good.
We realized we might not want to know what would
have happened if we actually caught him. He never physically
harmed us, but the constant mind games, the watching, the messages,
the filth. It was too much. Our parents weren't happy

(22:32):
that we had been going there in the first place.
We stopped. The house sat for months again silent, until
eventually it was put on the market. It's since been
cleaned out and is now being renovated. But to the
man living in there for almost a year playing games
in the shadows of my great aunt's house. Let's not meet.

(23:00):
I got home around midnight, closer to one actually, after
another long shift at the bar. My neighborhood is usually
dead quiet at this hour, small, suburban, peaceful, the kind
of place where no one's ever really out layd. I've
been working nice for three years, and in all that
time I can count on one hand how many times

(23:23):
I've seen someone walking around that late. If Ever, so
when I saw someone on the sidewalk, it immediately felt wrong.
I was sitting in my parkd car in front of
my house, still on the phone with my boyfriend, just
taking a moment to unwind before heading inside. Nothing unusual,
just me, the quiet and the glow of the street lights. Then,

(23:46):
out of pure habit, I glanced at my driver's side mirror,
and that's when I saw movement. There were legs swaying
slightly with each step, and a bright light bouncing in rhythm,
illuminating in the ground beneath them. It looked like a
phone flashlight, but was intense too bright. Focused. They reached

(24:08):
the sidewalk and suddenly stopped. Then the light lifted slowly, intentionally,
and it aimed directly into my mirror right at me.
My blood ran cold. Still on the phone, I cut
my boyfriend off mid sentence, whispering for him to hang
up while I scrambled for my keys. My hands were shaking.

(24:30):
I couldn't find them. Panics set in fast. I don't
know why, but I was terrified to look up again.
Something in me convinced me that if I did, the
light would be right outside my window. I finally felt
the keys in my palm, shoved them into the ignition,
and floored it. I didn't even look back, just turned

(24:52):
the corner in s bed out of the neighborhood. Once
I was a block away, I noticed the light had
disappeared gone. I tried explaining it to my boyfriend, but
the fear was still clinging to me like static. All
they could think about was getting further away where they
had stopped. There's a cluster mail box near by, one

(25:14):
that they could have duck behind, but beyond that there's
nowhere to hide. No fences, no trees, no parked cars,
just empty sidewalk wide open. As I drove past the
surrounding blocks, I didn't see a single person, not one.
And that's what gets to me. The way they froze,

(25:36):
the way the light lifted perfectly, like they knew exactly
where I was, exactly how to hit the mirror. Like
it wasn't random. It felt deliberate, predatory. Maybe it was nothing.
Maybe I was paranoid. I do read a lot of horror.
My brain knows how to create monsters in the shadows.

(25:58):
But the way I reacted, that instant gut level dread,
the kind that doesn't wait for logic, tells me I
wasn't overthinking it. I wasn't safe so that the person
whoever you were shining up blinding light into my side
mirror at one am, that's not me. I'm a man,

(26:27):
and I live alone in an apartment. For context, I
am a pretty polite and personable guy. I usually say hi,
hold the door, that kind of thing. Tonight, as I
was walking into my building, a woman I've never spoken
to before and barely recognized greeted me with a hello.

(26:48):
I nodded, returned to greeting, and continued towards the door.
Then she asked me how I was doing, how my
weekend was going. Casual enough, I figured it was just
friendly small talk, so I answered, But right after she
followed up with where do you work? How long have
you lived here? Something about the way she asked caught

(27:11):
me off guard. Not rude, not aggressive, just off still,
I answered, thought maybe she was trying to be neighborly
in her own way. Then she abruptly shifted gears. No
one has ever helped me, she said, I've never been
offered help in my whole life. I'm trying to better myself,

(27:33):
but no one will help me. People don't invite me
to fun things, and I like fun things. I wasn't
sure what to say. I stumbled out something like that
sounds really tough, trying to be kind without engaging too deeply.
She jumped back in immediately, more frustrated now and desperate.

(27:55):
I don't have friends, no one helps me. I'm just
a nice person. Trumpled out fast, no pause, like she
was reciting something she had been saying to herself over
and over and the entire time. She wouldn't blink, wouldn't
break eye contact. She edged closer and governed herself between
me and the door. I wasn't trapped, but I felt

(28:19):
like I could be. The hair on the back of
my neck stood up, my skin crawled. That's when my building.
Super stepped outside and called to me. She said she
needed me for something. She brought me inside, away from
the woman. Once we were out of earshot, she told
me plainly, don't talk to her. I told her I

(28:42):
thought the woman might just be lonely, maybe awkward, maybe
neuro divergent. I've worked with people on the spectrum before,
I spent time with those who struggle socially and mentally.
It didn't feel right to just assume the worst, but
my super was firm avoid her. It's been a few

(29:02):
hours since. I still can't shake the feeling, that tightness
in my chest, that gut instinct that something wasn't right,
And I keep turning it over in my mind. Was
she just odd? Was she struggling? Or was there something more.
I don't want to unfairly treat someone like a pariah
just for being different, But my gut is screaming be careful,

(29:27):
and honestly I trust that voice.

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7 True Unnerving Home Horror Stories | Home Alone, Intruders and Late Night Stalkers

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