Have you ever felt like someone was following you? That can be really unsettling and even scary. What would you do if you thought your next door neighbor in your apartment building was listening through the walls and following you?

In this story, one renter is convinced that her neighbor is being really creepy, listening through their shared wall, copying her behavior and schedule, and even following her when she leaves her apartment.

She wants to move, but the landlord isn’t willing to relocate her to another apartment unless she pays a $500 fee.

She’s not sure what to do.

Keep reading for all the details about why this renter feels unsafe in their own apartment.

Landlord trying to charge me $500 fee + higher rent to escape a neighbor who is stalking/tracking my movements. (NY)

I live in a studio apartment in New York State with extremely thin walls.

I’m assuming my neighbor’s unit has the exact same layout, and he has developed an unsettling obsession with tracking my movements through the shared wall, as I hear him wherever I move in the apartment.

He doesn’t seem to have a job and rarely leaves his apartment, and when he does, it’s to walk dogs or it is for no more than an hour at a time.

Instead, he spends his time listening through the wall and watching the building.

This sounds creepy, but I have to wonder why OP is convinced her neighbor is doing this on purpose.

Because it’s a studio, I have nowhere to go to get away from it.

Everywhere I move in my space, he follows on his side. He matches my sleep schedule exactly, waking up when I wake up, going to bed when I do (different times according to my work schedule), and even stages theatrical, performative yawns through the wall.

I try drowning out my movements with music, tv shows or white noise but it only does so much without having to put it on full volume and risking a noise complaint (given how thin the walls are).

OP thinks the neighbor is following her everywhere she goes.

On top of that, he suspiciously times his movements so that he is wandering around the building or lurking in common areas right when I am coming back from work to have conversations.

When I’m doing laundry on my off days, getting groceries or food delivered or simply throwing garbage, he suddenly appears.

It is a constant, exhausting violation of my safety and privacy.

Her property manager isn’t very understanding.

I brought this to my property manager because I feel completely uncomfortable.

The manager totally minimized the situation, chalking it up to “standard neighborly behavior” or “coincidences.” However, in his email response, he told me that if I feel unsafe I should file a formal police report.

Here is the corporate scam part: He says they are “happy to relocate me” to another unit in the complex, but they want to charge me a $500 transfer fee, make me pay for all the cleaning/moving costs out of pocket, AND raise my rent by an extra $100 every single month thereafter.

If I want to just break the lease and leave, they want me to forfeit my security deposit and keep paying rent until they find a new tenant.

She’s not sure what to do.

I am planning to go to the police station after work today but where do I go from here?

My lease is up in November and I plan on leaving the building and moving back to NYC regardless but this is driving me crazy and don’t think I can handle this for 5-6 more months until the lease is up.

ANY kind of advice would be greatly appreciated!

Why is she so convinced the neighbor is copying her and following her? I have to say I’m skeptical, kind of like the property manager.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

One person offers some advice.

Someone else has a couple suggestions.

But this person doesn’t think the police will be able to help.

And another person thinks OP could just be paranoid.

It’s hard to know if any of this is really happening or not. The neighbor could be listening through the walls and stalking her, or maybe she’s paying way too much attention to the neighbor instead of simply living her life. Is she actually the creepy one listening through the walls? She doesn’t know the neighbor’s schedule. He may not be copying her schedule or following her at all. It really could be a coincidence.

If she wants to make sure he’s not listening to her, she could try playing music in her apartment when she’s there and when she’s not home so he can’t hear what she’s doing and won’t really know her schedule. Since he hasn’t really done anything wrong, there probably isn’t anything the police can do.

It’s hard to know if she’s paranoid or if the neighbor really is creepy.