Why I don't go out after dark.
My house is on the main road in a nice neighborhood, but is secluded by trees and not as visible as the rest of the houses on the street. My back yard is cut off by a wooded area, and the right side of my house has a large yard, but is not visible at night due to lack of street lamps. There is a stop sign in front of my house at a three-way intersection, which the only time anyone really notices my house is when they stop there. Across the street is a field that belongs to the house diagonal to us.
In the day time, it is not unusual to see the occasional jogger, person walking their dog, etc. At night time, since it is a main road and has limited lighting, it is very rare to find anyone on the street. Our neighbors are very quiet and are seen only enough to know what they look line in passing.
We have not had any problems since we moved into the house three years ago, until about seven months ago. My dog, an Australian Shepard, usually stays outside until right before my husband and I go to bed. She had been barking more than usual, but we just put it off thinking there was another dog or maybe even a deer in the yard. We hadn't noticed anything strange in our neighborhood.
On a rainy night, around 9, a friend of mine was coming to visit as she usually did a couple of times a week. She called to say she was pulling in, so I started to walk towards the door to let her in. As I was walking into the living room, she had begun to frantically bang on the door. I opened the door and she nearly knocked me over, quickly closing and locking the door. I asked what was wrong, and she said that when was at the stop sign she glanced over to the field, where our neighbors were growing corn at the time, and saw a man standing there. As she was getting out of her car, he began to come towards her, but she made it to the door before he could cross the street. My husband went out to search for him around the house, but never saw him.
Since then, I saw then man every few days for the next three or four months, standing in the cornfield staring towards my house. It was always right as it was getting dark out. I had called the police, but by the time they showed up there was no trace of him. After the corn was cut down, I did not see him again.
(I'm not sure if what happens next is the same man, but I am scared either way)
Fast forward to about a month ago. My husband works an hour and a half away at the prison. While I was at work, he called me to tell me not to be gone after dark, and to make sure all windows and doors were locked at all times. A former inmate from a few months back had come to the door asking to do odd jobs around the house (clean the gutters, mow the lawn, etc.) and recognized my husband. He, of course, told the inmate no thank you, and asked him to not return. I know that after people get out of jail/prison that they sometimes look for odd jobs, but the strange thing about this its my husband asked a few neighbors if he had come to their homes, and each one of them said that he did not.
About a week later, I was once gain at work and my husband had left for work. My mom, who was watching my baby at my house, called and said that a man came to the door exactly fifteen minutes after my husband had left and said that we were expecting him to come and paint something in the house. He had no supplies, and he kept trying to look around her into the house. She felt very uneasy and told him that he would have to come back another time, since we did not tell her we were expecting anyone. When she described him, my heart sank. It was the inmate.
Since then, we have not seen anyone out of the ordinary, but that does not stop my dogs from barking and us hearing strange noises outside. Our sensor light on the side of the house will come on, which could be attributed to animals, but it seems to happen more frequently than it used to. The past week I have had someone stay at the house until my husband got home from work, and nothing happened, the light did not even come on. However last night, while I was home alone, I opened my back door to go onto my deck for a smoke. I guess the noise from the door opening startled what or whoever was out there, and I heard them run under my deck. I noticed that the sensor light was on. I did not smoke that cigarette or any others for the rest of the night.
Though we have not seen a person, I am still scared to death of what could happen. I will update if anything else happens.
