The Nightmare Upstairs
My name is Sarah, and I’m 36 years old. I work as a fitness instructor at a gym in Portland, Oregon. After my divorce in 2018, I moved back into my childhood home – a 1,400 square foot house in an older neighborhood that my parents left me when they passed away.
Being single again wasn’t terrible at first. I had my own place, money in the bank, and the freedom to do whatever I wanted. But living alone in a big empty house? That got lonely real fast, especially at night.
That’s when the family from hell moved in upstairs.
The building had been converted into a duplex years ago, and I’d been lucky with quiet neighbors until the Johnsons moved in. Mike Johnson was this absolutely disgusting guy from somewhere down south who ran some kind of sketchy business. The whole family had zero respect for anyone else.
Their schedule was completely backwards – they’d leave around 2 PM and come home at 2 AM, stomping around like elephants. Their teenage son was even worse. When his parents weren’t home, he’d have friends over for gaming marathons. They’d scream when they lost, blast music when they won, and I swear they were jumping off furniture. My light fixtures were literally shaking loose from the ceiling.
Oh, and they had this massive dog that would knock over bottles and drag furniture around when they left it alone. The sound was like someone was renovating with a sledgehammer 24/7.
I tried talking to them. I tried going through the property management company. Nothing worked. Mike would promise to “keep it down” and then it would be even worse the next night.
When Things Got Really Bad
After the kid finally went to boarding school (thank God), I thought my problems were over.
I was wrong.
Mike decided to start raising pigeons. Right outside my windows. In cages that blocked all my natural light and covered my patio furniture in bird crap. The smell was absolutely revolting, and the constant cooing made it impossible to sleep with my windows open.
I left notes, called the landlord, nothing. Finally, I snapped and called the cops at 4 AM after being woken up for the third time that week.
When Mike answered his door – shirtless, gross beard, looking like he hadn’t showered in days – he completely lost it on me. Started screaming about how I was harassing them, how they were “busy people” unlike me. His wife joined in, even suggesting I should just sell them my half of the building so they could use it for storage.
The police made them remove the pigeon coops, but that’s when the real harassment started.
They’d slam doors at 3 AM to wake me up. I’d find vomit on my front door in the morning. They super-glued my lock shut. Someone threw dog poop on my car. They even installed some kind of signal jammer that screwed with my WiFi and made this horrible high-pitched noise.
The cops kept coming out, but there’s only so much they can do with neighbors from hell. Mike and his wife would apologize to the officers, then threaten me the second they left.
I was losing my mind. My boss at the gym was starting to notice that I looked exhausted all the time. I was barely sleeping, constantly on edge, and seriously considering just selling the house and moving somewhere else.
Enter the Perfect Man
Then, on October 7th, everything changed.
I was coming home from shopping when I noticed a new store had opened on the ground floor of our building. Pink storefront, looked like maybe a cosmetics place or something. I was curious, so I went to check it out.
Turns out it was one of those automated adult toy stores. Awkward.
I was trying to get out of there quickly when I saw the Johnsons coming back from a trip, loaded down with suitcases. I ducked back into the store to avoid running into them and having another confrontation.
A few days later, I was leaving for work when I slipped and fell hard right outside my door. Someone had poured water there overnight, and with the October cold, it had turned into a thin sheet of ice. I hit the ground so hard I couldn’t get back up.
That’s when my door across the hall opened, and this tall, gorgeous guy rushed out to help me.
His name was David, and he was like something out of a romance novel. About 30, really well-built, worked as an Uber driver. He’d just moved into the apartment across from me. He immediately helped me to the ER, stayed with me for hours while they X-rayed my ankle (minor fracture), and then drove me home.
I gave him a bottle of wine as a thank-you, but he went way beyond that. He knew I was laid up with my ankle, so he started bringing me home-cooked meals. And I’m talking restaurant-quality food – this guy could seriously cook.
Too Good to Be True
Over the next few weeks, David became my knight in shining armor. He’d check on me every day after his driving shift, help with housework, even learned massage therapy techniques to help with my recovery.
We had so much in common it was almost weird. Same taste in music, movies, food. We both loved hiking and swimming. We even liked the same obscure coffee brand and the same sushi place across town.
When he brought flowers and cooked me a whole romantic dinner to ask me out, I said yes. I mean, how could I not? He was younger than me, never been married, incredibly sweet, and drop-dead gorgeous. Plus, after my disaster of a marriage and the hell the Johnsons had put me through, having someone actually care about me felt amazing.
David was the most attentive boyfriend I’d ever had. He’d pick me up from work every day, have dinner ready when I got home, and he gave the best back rubs of my life.
And here’s the best part – when Mike Johnson tried his super-glue trick on my door again, David caught him in the act. He grabbed Mike, slammed him against the wall, and told him if he ever messed with his girlfriend again, there would be consequences.
The harassment stopped overnight. Having a man around really did make all the difference.
David was also incredibly romantic. We’d drive around the city at midnight just looking at lights, go camping under the stars, even ran into the ocean fully clothed one time just to kiss in the waves. It was like living in a movie.
But you know what they say about things that seem too good to be true…
The Hidden Camera
I’d installed a small security camera by my front door months earlier to try to catch the Johnsons in the act of vandalizing my stuff. After David moved in and everything calmed down, I kind of forgot about it.
Then one day in February, I randomly checked the app on my phone and scrolled through some old footage.
What I saw made my blood run cold.
There was David, standing in the hallway with Mike Johnson’s wife, their heads close together like they were having some secret conversation. She was pointing at my door and patting him on the shoulder with this creepy smile on her face.
They looked way too friendly for two people who supposedly barely knew each other.
That night, after David fell asleep, I snuck into the bathroom with his phone. I knew his passcode (my birthday – how sweet, right?). I opened his texts and found messages with someone whose profile picture looked exactly like Mrs. Johnson.
What I read nearly gave me a heart attack.
The Truth
The messages laid out the entire sick plan:
Mrs. Johnson: “We saw that girl go into the sex shop. She’s obviously desperate and lonely. Perfect target.”
David: “I still don’t know how to approach her. And honestly, if she’s ugly, I’m out.”
Mrs. Johnson: “Go through her trash, idiot. See what she buys, what she eats, what she likes. Then just become her perfect man. Haven’t you seen those romance scammer documentaries? This is easy money.”
She’d even sent him a photo they’d secretly taken of me.
Mrs. Johnson: “We need this house. The whole block’s getting developed soon and property values are going to skyrocket. But that bitch won’t sell. So you make her fall in love with you, then convince her to sell cheap. We split the profit, and you get a girlfriend out of it. Win-win.”
I kept reading, getting sicker with every message. David had been going through my garbage to learn my preferences. Every “coincidence” about our shared interests had been carefully planned. Even the flowers he brought me were based on an online order confirmation he’d found in my trash.
This was a romance scam, but instead of stealing my money, they wanted to steal my house.
And David? He’d been in prison for assault. The injury to his head that made me feel so sorry for him? He’d gotten that in a bar fight with a passenger, not from Mike Johnson.
Even worse, Mrs. Johnson had been coaching him on how to manipulate me: “Women eat up that romantic movie stuff. Just copy whatever you’ve seen in rom-coms. They’re all the same.”
As I was reading this, desperately trying not to throw up, David suddenly walked into the bathroom.
“Babe? What are you doing up so late?”
I had to think fast. If he knew I’d discovered the truth, I had no idea what he might do. So I handed him his phone and snuggled up to him.
“Just checking to see if you’ve been texting other girls,” I said with a fake smile.
He laughed and said I was the only woman in the world for him. That he’d never let me go.
The way he said it made my skin crawl.
The Escape Plan
I didn’t sleep at all that night. I was lying next to a complete stranger who’d been playing a character for months, all to steal my house. And God knows what he was capable of if I tried to expose him.
I decided my best bet was to make him break up with me. So I started being cold, picking fights, and I even had a male coworker from the gym pick me up a few times to make David jealous.
When David confronted me about it, I told him my coworker made better money and that I wanted to be with someone more successful.
David completely lost it. Called me horrible names, then immediately switched to begging me not to leave him. The whole performance was terrifying because I could see how calculated it was.
I told him I needed space and convinced him to go back to his apartment for a few days. Then I went to stay with a friend while I looked for a new place online.
Valentine’s Day From Hell
On February 14th, I had to go back to my house to get some important documents. I was nervous about running into David, so I called my coworker and kept him on the phone while I grabbed my stuff.
I was at my front door, fishing for my keys, when David came up behind me and grabbed me. He said he wanted to spend Valentine’s Day together, that we needed to “work things out.”
When I tried to get away, he forced his way into my house. My phone fell into my purse during the struggle. David kicked the door shut and started choking me, screaming that I was a “lying bitch” who’d led him on.
Everything went black.
When I woke up, I was on my kitchen floor and there was a strong smell of gas in the air. David was lying next to me, unconscious and foaming at the mouth. There was a piece of paper clutched in his hand.
I crawled over and turned off the gas, then opened all the windows. That’s when the police burst in.
Turns out my coworker had heard the whole thing over the phone and called 911 immediately.
The Real Plan
The police investigation revealed the full scope of what these psychopaths had planned.
The paper in David’s hand was a fake suicide note, supposedly written by me, saying that I was so depressed I wanted to end my life – and that I was leaving my house to my beloved boyfriend David.
The plan was for David to strangle me unconscious, turn on the gas, place the note in my hand, and let us both die of gas poisoning. It would look like a murder-suicide where the grief-stricken boyfriend couldn’t live without me.
But David has epilepsy, and the stress of trying to murder me triggered a seizure. He passed out before he could finish staging the scene.
The Johnsons had been researching the development plans for our neighborhood and knew the property values were about to explode. They’d targeted me specifically because I lived alone and didn’t have much family.
Mike Johnson’s wife had come up with the whole romance scam idea after seeing me go into that adult store. She figured I was lonely and desperate enough to fall for the right guy.
They’d studied “pig butchering” romance scams and applied the same techniques, but instead of stealing money, they wanted my house.
The Aftermath
David was charged with attempted murder and got 8 years in prison. The Johnsons were charged as accomplices and got 3 years each.
I sold the house and bought a small condo in a secure building across town. Every time I drive past the old neighborhood, I remind myself how close I came to being another true crime statistic.
Looking back, I can see all the red flags I missed because I was so lonely and desperate for love after my divorce. The harassment from upstairs had made me feel so vulnerable that when David showed up like a hero, I was ready to believe in fairy tales.
But the scariest part? If I hadn’t installed that security camera, if I hadn’t randomly checked the footage that day, I never would have known what was coming. I’d be dead, and everyone would think I’d killed myself in a murder-suicide with my devoted boyfriend.
The lesson? Trust your gut. And if someone seems too perfect, there’s probably a reason why.
If you enjoyed this story, please share it. And remember – real romance happens slowly, with imperfect people who have flaws and histories. If someone seems like they stepped out of a movie, they probably did.
