I’m constantly waking up in the middle of the night thinking someone or something is lurking outside my bedroom window. The trees and branches look like a creeper standing by the window…and then I can’t sleep for the rest of the night.
Lucky for me, it’s never actually been someone trying to break in. But these AskReddit users have some creepy tales to tell.
1. Silhouette
“My wife and I were awakened in the middle of the night by what sounded like a loud scream in our backyard. What really freaked us out though was there was a silhouette of someone on the drawn window blind.
I ran through the house to grab my highest power flash light then back to the bedroom. I tried looking out the adjacent window but didn’t see the person even when I used the flashlight, but the person’s silhouette was still on the drawn blind. I finally decided to pull the blind back, fully expecting some freak to be on the other side but no one was there.
It turned out to be an owl sitting on the fence silhouetted by my neighbor’s garage light.
Awakened by scream, thought some freak was looking in our window, tuned out to be an owl.”
2. OH SH*T
“Used to live in a basement apartment in a reasonably nice end of town. Had been there a few months, no issues. One night (late summer), I was laying in bed, watching a movie, whilst the dog had adopted about a month prior was laying on my feet, sleeping. (110 lbs, senior Rottie x).
Window was open, as I normally opened it in the evening for fresh air when the weather was decent. About 10 PM, I hear nothing, but my dog snaps awake, snarling, flies at the open window, knocks the screen out and all I hear is “OH S**T!” I look out the window, and there is a screwdriver on the ground.
Turns out this guy was trying to break in, using a screwdriver to quietly remove the screen. Moved to an 8th floor unit very, very shortly afterwards.
(Also got my dog back about an hour later, un-injured. RCMP had gotten a few calls (including mine) about this guy seen at other complexes around my neighborhood and one picked up my dog along the way). They also caught the guy, and from what I understood, he was wanted on multiple warrants.”
3. Shooter
“Live in Detroit right on the border between a safer neighborhood and “Detroit” Detroit, so I tend to see quite a bit from my window.
Maybe not creepy, but the scariest would have to be getting an alert for an active shooter and only to see a guy matching the exact description just wandering around across the street.”
4. Scary
“A man walk in his yard with a gun drawn, aiming it at windows of different houses. He was arrested after someone called 911.”
5. Terrifying ex
“I was sitting on my bed trying to ignore the texts my abusive ex was sending me. I was dating my now husband, and my ex didn’t take kindly to it. He was sending me text, after text switching between being apologetic and threatening me. I was sitting on bed. The bedhead was against the window and I was leaning on it.
Eventually I grab my phone and text back, telling him to stay the f**k away from me, when I hear his message tone go off right behind me. I, while shaking, open the curtain and he was right there in the bushes. Nothing too good unfortunately happened after. I opened the front door, like an idiot, to tell him to go away. He burst through. I was home alone. I reported to the Police but nothing was done. I did manage to get a transfer with work though and never saw him again.
Last I heard, he is in prison.”
6. Flashlight in the face
“Not me but my mom, she has a sliding glass door that she sleeps with open because my cat used to wake her up wanting in and out of it at all hours of the night. Well, one night she wakes up with two men in her room and a flashlight in her face, she jumps up and realizes it was two cops, they asked her if anyone came in, apparently someone on the run ran through our backyard while she was asleep with the door open, and luckily enough the guy didn’t notice and ran on.
She just leaves her actual door open now, my cat can deal with it.”
7. That’s…odd
“A very well to-do looking man who didn’t appear to be drunk, walking down the street at about 2am. He stopped, got down on his knees, and started having a conversation with the darkness through the grills of a sewer drain. I couldn’t hear what he was saying. It appeared to be a two-way conversation, he would pause, nod, gesticulate from time to time. Lasted around 20 minutes.
And no, he didn’t drop anything down there, I saw the whole thing. I have no explanation.”
8. Pregnant and alone
“My husband and I rented the upper floor of a house and another couple rented the bottom floor. They usually went to work early and didn’t come home until the dinner hour. I was very pregnant and alone at home during the day. I had just gotten out of the shower, towel barely wrapped around me, to see that someone was outside my bedroom window in my side yard. He didn’t see me because he was trying to lure the neighbor’s dogs to the fence by shaking a bottle of pills at them. He was wearing a large trench coat, underwear and no shoes.
I called 911 kinda naked and they came immediately. Turns out my downstairs neighbors had a house guest. Which is fine, I guess, but he really was trying to drug the neighbor’s dogs. Who knows why because they were quiet sweet dogs. Neighbors were called and they kicked him out immediately and apologized for scaring me. Still, I had a friend come over while I was there alone that day.”
9. Neighbor
“My neighbor (older woman) looking right through it. With her hands on the glass to see better, like this.
I got out to ask her if she needed help. Her response was “No, I’m just looking.” and she walked away. After she probably stood there for four hours (my brother saw her standing there earlier).
She did this every day for half a year. Turned out she was mentally ill and absolutely harmless. But it creeped me out and made me paranoid for a few weeks.
One day she was gone for a few months. She’s back now but doesn’t look through my windows anymore. Now she’s standing on the ground-floor, looking through the door outside. I miss her.”
10. Dad!?!?!
“Not seen but heard–what sounded like a young woman pleading and crying. It was a hot summer night in Chicago so I had my windows open.
“PLEASE NO! NO OH GOD NO!” Followed by a gruff male voice shouting back. I go outside to investigate, holding a hockey stick. I walk up the alley between my house and the neighboring apartment building. Nothing. No lights on, no more voices.
A few nights later I hear the same voices. “PLEASE I’M BEGGING YOU DON’T DO IT!” followed by MUFFLED ANGRY MALE SHOUTING
I walk out again, hockey stick in hand. Again, nothing. I walk into the neighboring building’s back yard to see if someone is there. Nothing. I say “can anyone hear me?” in as calm a tone as possible, holding on to the hockey stick for dear life. Nothing.
About a week later, in the middle of the day, I hear this voice again. “COME ON PLEASE! PLEASE!” I go outside and stand on my front porch. There, I see a young teen boy, pleading with his dad, who I can clearly hear now. “I told you once, I told you again, you don’t do your homework, you don’t get to play XBOX!” The dad walked to his car, Xbox in hand, with this kid screaming bloody murder from the front porch.
I wonder if Batman ever had to deal with this crap.”
11. Sad
“my neighbors bathroom light on. obviously it doesn’t sound creepy initially, but to this day the story it still gives me chills.
growing up in my childhood home, we had a neighbor who was very… eclectic, but very nice. 99% sure he was on a lot of heavy drugs, and he would leave for weeks/months at a time cause he traveled and worked with the circus. he was also a heavy cigarette smoker. he would take baths every night and i could sometimes faintly hear his loud smokers cough from my window. one night i saw his bathroom light on, heard him cough a little, then it was quiet. the next night the light was on, but he was oddly quiet this night… no coughing. same thing the next night, and the next, and the next, and the next…..
come to find out, he had suffered a heart attack while he was in the tub and had been in there dead for almost five days. his body was only discovered because his roommate came home and found him 🙁 makes me so sad to think he died all alone.”
12. A gang thing
“When I was a teenager I woke up one night to fighting outside and this one guy was hitting this other guy with a belt all crazy talking about how “he stood up for him” and all this…the weird thing is the guy just was taking it and not fighting back…I think it might have been some sort of gang thing…”
13. Oh my god!
“I was awakened by this scratching noise to find a creature that I can not for the life of me recognize as anything I’ve ever seen at my window trying to pry it open with tiny paws. I looks like a cross between a weasel and a rat but I will never forget the fur on this creature. It look like it hadn’t cleaned itself in days and its fur made this creature unrecognizable to the point that I need to put my face about two feet from it with only a plane of glass between us just to see if I can recognize it.
It clearly wanted in but thankfully, the apartment window is secure. I recall there being a second one, but it wasn’t any more recognizable to me in the slightest.”
14. Not a pleasant sight
“A man urinating from his roof.
Ugh so disgusting.”
15. Don’t do drugs
“In high school, I lived in an apartment where the first floor was downstairs, so ground level was about half way up your wall, meaning your windows were basically just above the grass.
My blinds were shit, and couldn’t be rolled up because of it. I had to yank them out of the way to crack the window at all, and that lead to one of the slats cracking. Maybe an inch tall, 5 inch wide strip was missing.
One night, I heard a lot of chatter, then people walking away. After about 15 minutes of dead silence, with me facing the window, I noticed something moving and shut my laptop.
Some dude was just peeking in that strip like that’s totally a normal thing to do, watching a teenager play habbo probably.
When I moved, he stepped back, laughed, and walked away. Creepy fucker. I think it was an older brother of someone who lived in the complex but I’m not positive.
Honorable mention to the methhead that lived above me who had finger looking nipples and paper thin,translucent night gowns, just standing and staring at nothing, rocking back and forth. I expected her to teleport like 10 feet while I blinked or something. She’d sometimes smoke a blunt and just let ash fall onto herself, wiping it away when she was done smoking then walk over the broken glass and cracked up concrete barefoot about half the time.
Drugs are a hell of a drug, kids.”
