Armchair Anonymous: Crazy Neighbors
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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!

Anamis. 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've got a cuckoo. It's claustrophobic. They're inches from you in some cases. If you're in an apartment, you're like, oh my God, literally two feet across my door is someone I love.

Don't ever want to be around again for the rest of my life. Yeah. And one 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 feeling. You can't get rid of them. Oh, please enjoy crazy neighbors.

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Hard times come and go Take em slow I had em both But remember one thing You gotta know I'ma keep em shiny

Oh, hello. Katie, where are you? I'm in Arkansas. Oh, wonderful. Home of Mr. 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 all right.

It's just okay. If I were going to be like Northwest, that's like Ozark. That's the 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 second 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 was from Little Rock. Uh-oh.

And so she was competing with me and she won. Oh, boy. Yeah. Why? You just like the name? I think I just liked the name. Little Rock. Yeah. That's cute. 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 the different artists.

That's right. Places 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 two entrances and exits. And then so does our neighbor's driveway. And we share one 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

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. Sure, 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 muumuu, 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 too. - Yeah. - I'm trying to remember what character, there's a weird old lady in Harry Potter. - Yes, Mrs. Squibb 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. - 'Cause 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. One example was she said, don't you just love the night? Oh.

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 as 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 70s. We just saw Wicked, so we're going to call her Mrs. Glenda. Okay. A couple weeks later, after we move in, we go to dinner. We come back and we're dilly-dallying around the house and we see a bullet hole through the window. Okay.

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've got a photo of your open floor plan living room with a dinette. Right, so next to that pasta painting, there's like a nick in the drywall. And then if you look at those three windows to the left there, it came from one of those windows. So it literally went like all the way.

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, okay.

I want to file a report. There have been people watching me and trespassing on my property. 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 Glinda's dancing around with a gun. Go back inside. Oh, oh.

Oh my God. And I was like dancing around with a gun and he was like, go downstairs and I'll come get you. Miss 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 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 fire.

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. Oh, OK. So we're already getting into weird territory. Yeah. If I'm the law enforcement, I'm like, I can't really put these three new pieces of evidence into one cohesive thought. They seem very unrelated.

bizarre. So we get to February. One 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 were like, okay, no problem. That was kind of you. I would have object

Objected. At this point, I'm two months postpartum. So I'm like literally whatever I can do to not have you talk to me. Awesome. Right. So we stop using that 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 one of them. So now I'm even more panicked. And then I realize 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 into her house. She also has a pistol. So she's got a rifle and a pistol. She's very well armed. Yes, which is...

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 advise 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, I was just shooting at the woods. Oh, my God.

Okay. I have to figure out who this person is. Does she actually have children? What about the husband that was in the hospital? Yeah, did he ever return? To this day, we have never seen the husband. Okay, maybe there was no husband. That's not right. We have a lot of theories, obviously. 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 two adult children. One, 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 steal my money and my house and put me in a home. 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 a call. So he gives me her phone number. I call her. She says, we're estranged. Talk to my brother. Oh.

Oh my God. 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 of,

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 Glinda to the house. She starts ringing the doorbell and banging on the front door.

I'm not going to 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 one 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 two big dogs. They start going absolutely nuts. So I'm like, okay, I'm just going to 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 two times. She goes out to the garage area. She goes like she's going to 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. Yeah.

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 non-confrontational. 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. She's walking back to her house, like cussing him out. We call the police, file a police report, et cetera, et cetera. Like we do every one of these incidents. And

All of the days and 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 Glinda comes onto 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 one photo where it looks like she's screaming. 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. 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,

Oh, my God. That's the. A very arbitrary system. 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. She's back.

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. Yeah, 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. 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.

She immediately had this weird reaction. So I don't know if there's a dementia element going on. It kind of 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 face and come up with these crazy ideas and she's got to get over to your property? It could be a lot of things.

It's the guns that really turn into something that needs to be taken seriously. And 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. One lady, this is the one 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. 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.

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 got to be like a state run kind of 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. Like you have to go somewhere. You're Yosemite Sam on your 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 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 it. I mean, you're still right next to each other. It's not great. Oh, man. Oh, boy. I'm sorry. Last thing you think you're going to 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 Grundle. I'm going to 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. All right, you too. All right, bye. Bye.

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Mia, Maya, Miramara, Miranmar. Hello. Nice to meet you. 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. Yeah, I think there's construction that literally started outside the window one minute ago. Welcome to our world. Every time we start to record, it's like, oh, they're going to mow the grass right now. Bring me the

If you'd like me to call back, 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. One of my best friends, Dominica, shout out, she and I were living together. We were living in a typical old Victorian style San Francisco apartment. We were on the first 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 and

Did you get a visual on the upstairs neighbor? What kind of gentleman was he? Sorry, I should have clarified. It 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, one 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 p.m. 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, my God.

This scale's a party, okay. She's an exhibitionist. I just have to say there's something crazier about that than even fucking. 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 was walking up and had bent over to give you a visual and the skirt was lifted from behind. Oh, wow. He's eating her out from behind. Interesting.

Can I ask one 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-20s. 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 going to knock and then step back.

Step back to give her. A little privacy. If it were me, I would probably sprint to my apartment and like shut the door. So we step back, give it a second. And then we walk and they're standing there like almost waiting for us. Oh, wow. Yeah. You think this is a kink? Yeah. I think she's an exhibitionist for sure. I agree. And I had a feeling you guys were going to 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? Well, pretty high if you get eaten out in the lobby. Yeah, pretty high someone's going to see. That's kind of what I said. I said, 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

Yeah. Right. That's my mode, too. You're just cordial in the hallway. 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 and horrified. They want 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 going to go out on a limb and say she might have also had a little bit of a drinking problem herself. She might have. Yeah. I think there was some substance that evening for sure. God, if she was sober, that's scarier. Well, true. Yeah. Yeah.

Wild experience. I think she moved out shortly after that. Okay, wow. 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 six months ago. Congratulations. I did also want to share that our baby boy is named Crosby. Oh.

Oh, wonderful. Sweet. And if it's okay, I'll bring him in. Yes. Oh, my God. Oh, no. He's so cute. Do you have the roundest cheeks, Crosby? Hi, little buddy. He is so cute. Oh, my goodness. Hi. Congratulations. What a beautiful family you have here. Yeah. Very San Diego. Oh, thank you. Yes, this is my husband, Benji. Could be on the cover of American. That's too outdated. American Eagle. Abercrombie? Yeah, Abercrombie family.

Tommy Hilfiger, like maybe by a sailboat. Maybe Ralph Lauren even. Yeah, Ralph Lauren. Oh, we'll take it. All right. Well, nice meeting all of you. Congratulations. Take care. Oh, my God. I want to squish that baby. Yeah, me too. 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, maybe because of.

we'll see. This is about 10 years ago. So there's a few characters, obviously my wife being one of them. She's kind of 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. 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 fun

friends right away. My wife's talking with all the neighbors. Everyone's super nice. There's one particular neighbor right next door to us. Her name's Betty. She's about a 60-year-old Italian woman. Seems really sweet. We kind of 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 kind of 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 of 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 just these things, right? That's very weird. I

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 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 not on a trajectory that's untenable

Yeah. Good fences make good neighbors kind of approach. Just another couple of things that sparked my curiosity in my office was in the front of the house where I could kind of 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. Yeah.

That's a little weird. I don't know if you're supposed to have a relationship with the mailman like that. So spring rolls around and I,

I see an ambulance across the street at Randy's house there. And it turns out he died suddenly. Oh my goodness. At 48? Young guy, you know, he smoked 10 packs of cigarettes a day, it seemed like, and 30 coolers light a day kind of habit. 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 kind of 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 one 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. You can 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, waiting for us to like drive by on the driveway and kind of yell right at the car. She's yelling that my wife killed Randy. Oh my God. She has some theories. Yeah. Wow. That we ruined the neighborhood. Everything was good until you arrived. We're 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 kind of 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 one of the Great Lakes, so you can get some kind of 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

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 kind of backs up and then pulls alongside me.

And this truck was like a farm truck. The doors don't match the paint. There's two gentlemen there. They're real kind of dirty guys. And he kind of 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. Oh.

Is a dead animal. Oh, my God. I've been dragging this animal through my town 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. What kind of 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. It was tied around its neck with like a USB cable and then like a wired mouse. Then...

attached to my bumper. 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 roadkill. And then I'll call him the Home Depot angel. The guy who's collecting the carts comes over, kind of breaks the silence as the crowd is 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. Oh, my God. And he scoops him up, puts him 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 bucks or anything? I was in shock. What I did is a few days later, I gave him a good review. Oh, my goodness.

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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 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 to the police station the next day and was like, I'm not

concerned about this woman hurting us, but that's a lot of diseases on this raccoon. Well, and minimally you go, hey, this is escalating. So they're 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 on.

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 kind of warning us. Even the previous owner of the home kind of just left what they gave her, right? Yeah, they didn't want to take it with them. Yeah.

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 going to pick up five 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 one. I kind of think it's that. You do? Yeah. Like she's like, this is the gift to give new neighbors. 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 have been great if you left it next to the other one. I did. You did? Yeah, that's hilarious. Oh, yeah. There was two sets of Frisbees in this one. Oh, my God. That is so funny. I was not bringing that to my next home. It's kind of like a horror movie. It is. Yeah. But also the broom kind of foreshadowing. Which? Because you needed to clean up eventually. Oh, okay. It was very interesting. Wow. Yeah.

I thank you for letting me tell that story. Hopefully it was somewhat interesting. Oh, it's incredible. 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 of stories now where the perpetrator is a crazy lady. And then this wearing the,

Nightwear out. That's a guaranteed part of the pattern, right? I guess so. Same with 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 kind of created a monster. She's like, you know, can we listen to music once in a while? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

I'm ready to binge on experts on experts and she needs a little bit of tunage and relaxation in between. Oh, that's delightful. Well, I hope you guys take a million 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. 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 face.

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 want to turn homicidal? Great question. I feel like I gave Randy a nice out from Betty. 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. Oh, 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, Pradaline. Oh, I loved it. He sucked us into his rhythm. Oh my gosh. I cannot believe that story is out in the open. All right. Be well. Much love.

Hello. Hi, I'm so excited. We're going to 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 kind of 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. Ooh. And what time is it getting dark? So it's about 4.11 right now. 4.30, it'll probably be pitch blackout. Oh.

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. That's fair. So you have a crazy neighbor story. I do. Yeah. Sorry. Don't break it. I'm very nervous. Oh, 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

I'm an outlier. 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 one year. It was just me and my dog. And one 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.

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 pet my dog, say hi 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 40s. I don't think he works. So I do believe he was on like a social assistance program. And he had formerly been an engineer, which is just some

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 million people, although it's a spread out city. But the area I was in was fairly dense. Anyway, so then fast forward to about six 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 one 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 me through 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'm

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 one 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. And at one point he started doing a religious chant and like a

foreign language and it sounded almost like speaking in tongues. Oh, God. Oh, wow. He was a 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 from my trip, he was...

nowhere to be seen. So I definitely had like a sense of relief about that. But I also kind of lost my sense of urgency. A small aside, during this period that he's away, I was also talking to the office of men about another issue. And she had asked me about him one day. And so I started telling her what I'd been noticing. And she told me that she actually had to start screaming her phone calls because of him because he had been calling her 20 to 30 times a day. March 1, he came back and

And I just had an immediate sense of dread. Like, oh, why did I waste this time? And 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. 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.

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 going to be his 50th. And he wanted to rent out my apartment to do that. What? So that he'd have his apartment and my apartment. Oh my God. And I was like, well, no.

No. And then he's like, well, it's fine. You can lock your bedroom door. I just throw a party in your living room, right? It's fine. He's super pushy about it. I'm like, we'll talk about it closer too. But full on in my brain, I'm like, I'm 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 two drinks over the course of many, many hours. By the time I got home, it was almost 2 a.m., 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 one point he started serenading me. Oh, wow.

It was just wild. Like, I didn't even know what to do. And then he just saw me that earlier that day he had been planning to bomb the building. Oh, oh, oh.

Oh 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 had bought 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, geez. And again, remember, he was...

Oh, boy.

This is horrifying. At some point during this whole conversation, he handed me a stack of journals. There was like six or seven 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

And then finally, another neighbor on our floor came out and was like, why the hell is there a conversation happening at 2 a.m.? 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. Texted my sister being 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 going to 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 have

get you out of here. You need to call the police. But my concern with calling the police was that I'm going to call them. They're going to deem him not a threat. He's going to know that I called the police on him when he three days ago just told me, please don't call the police, call the ambulance.

Yeah. I have to get my ducks in a row and then report it. But they talked with sense 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, deemed him not a comedian. Oh my God. 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 guy? This is what happened. I don't want to 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 one of my friends came, helped me load up my whole apartment in two hours as quickly as we can. While we were there, he did knock on the door and ask if I was...

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

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 going

about to blow up. Not even thinking about it had taken many steps. That's the part I was like, well, he did have the 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 three weeks prior. We're frustrated with this. Also, imagine how frustrated the cops are. There's nothing really they can do. They just got to 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,

I was going to 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, shutting it out and ignoring it for

I hope you move 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 a suburban area. Well, lovely meeting you. Sorry you went through that. Thank you. Monica, I just finished reading your day one gift guide and you're such an incredible writer. Oh, thank you. And Dax, 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 Sherp. That's a hill I've got to climb still, the Crow Hill. All right. Well, be well and great meeting you. Thank you. All right. 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. One night. Well, we got in a fight. Then we smoked crack.

And for the next six 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 three 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. I just fucking got out of here. And he'd be up there for 30 minutes banging on my door, smoking crack. That was a rough six months. And you never answered, right? No. Yeah. There's a weird detail, but he had given me his rice cooker when we were that long TV. Sure.

And then at one point he was at the door and he wanted his rice cooker back. And I'm like, I do want to give him his rice cooker back. But I also don't want to 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 the next day. That's what I was going to say. That would have been smart. Yeah. God, neighbors...

All right. Well, I love you. Love you. You just had a neighbor interact with the cops. I did have an incident. I don't know who listened, so I don't want to say anything. It's ongoing. And I wasn't involved, but there was an incident above me and there were cops. Also, at one of my other apartments, there was a sort of similar cops and firemen came because of a threatening their life situation. 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 Allison 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. So exciting. Yeah.

That's funny to be living in like an entry-level apartment, walk outside, and Sean Penn's hanging in the driveway. I was like. I'm in Hollywood. I've made it. We had that with Dennis Rodman when we moved to Costa Mesa. Oh, really? He was dating one of the girls in the apartment complex. In your apartment complex? Yeah. And you'd see him? Occasionally, yeah. Hard to miss, Dennis Rodman. LA, where dreams come true. They come true every second. All right. Love you. Love you. Do you want to sing a tune or something? We don't have a theme song. No.

Okay, great. We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go. We're gonna ask some random questions, and with the help of our cherries, we'll get some suggestions. On the Flyer Rhyme Dish. On the Flyer Rhyme Dish. Enjoy. Enjoy.

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Hello, ladies and germs, boys and girls. The Grinch is back again to ruin your Christmas season with Tis the Grinch Holiday Podcast. After last year, he's learned a thing or two about hosting, and he's ready to rant against Christmas cheer and roast his celebrity guests like chestnuts on an open fire.

You can listen with the whole family as guest stars like Jon Hamm, Brittany Broski, and Danny DeVito try to persuade the mean old Grinch that there's a lot to love about the insufferable holiday season. But that's not all. Somebody stole all the children of Whoville's letters to Santa, and everybody thinks the Grinch is responsible. It's a real Whoville whodunit. Can Cindy Lou and Max help clear the Grinch's name? Grab your hot cocoa and cozy slippers to find out.

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