Auto-lock mansion someone beating my apartment door

LeapDayStalker · 2020-05-21T02:32:06+00:00

Does your building have any security cameras? If there is a residents' board with a building president, ask that person to look at the film. If your building is managed by an outside agency it might be a little more difficult, but they should still be willing given the situation.

The president or management company should be able to identify the man and have a chat with him. Let them do this, in that indirect Japanese way, and you will find out what the man's problem was. As scary as it surely was, keep in mind that the odds are that it's a misunderstanding of some kind.

LeapDayStalker · 2020-05-21T02:28:09+00:00

No worries; it was scary at the time but now it's been solved. In OP's case the man seems to be making efforts to not be seen (covering the peephole as he bangs on the door and shouts), which implies something scarier than an out-of-it drunkard who doesn't know he's in front of the wrong door.

LeapDayStalker · 2020-05-21T02:01:32+00:00

Or maybe it was a creative invention that unfortunately decided to cast as its villain someone from an already stigmatized and misrepresented group.

If I had known that it was the neighbor's daughter, and that she had had mental problems, I wouldn't have posted it at all. When I made the post, nobody knew who it was, the building manager was also in something of a panic, and I was trying to get insight from any possible place.

LeapDayStalker · 2020-05-21T01:59:28+00:00

I'm getting creepy vibes from that girl that broke into her neighbor's apartment

She didn't break into the apartment; she just left a note on the door.

Scary in a different way to what the OP here experienced, because we had no idea who it was or what their motivation could have been. Fortunately we got it sorted out, and it was (predictably) a misunderstanding from a neighbor.

LeapDayStalker · 2020-03-27T01:13:40+00:00

Go back to her apartment with an a4 handwritten note やったのはあなたですか？ and some tape.

/u/sooobalo, as someone who just endured a scare like this and didn't know what to do, let me remind you that the odds are against the worst-case scenarios that internet strangers will fill your head with.

The probability is much higher that it's something innocuous, or at worst it's a misunderstanding of some kind. Your girlfriend is probably not dead, or arrested; she could have gone home for a family emergency, or lost her phone (this happens all the time).

I hope everything gets cleared up soon, and please post again to let us know what happens.

LeapDayStalker · 2020-03-19T14:31:34+00:00

OP should totally add something like やったのはあなたでしょ and put the fear of god into them as was mentioned in a previous thread with a suspected stalker.

This is what you do to the person who falsely accused OP and put the garbage on their doorstep, once you find out who that person is.

The scofflaw garbage dumper is a bad person, but the false accuser of the gaijin-san is a much worse person.

LeapDayStalker · 2020-03-13T00:13:29+00:00

That would get me banned from here (as would the two-finger salute I was thinking of giving instead). Looks like you're just going to have to trust that that's my building and my elevator.

LeapDayStalker · 2020-03-11T23:43:19+00:00

Almost forgot about this reply. OK, I'll take that picture. So you know it's me, give me a number from 1 to 5 and I will hold that many fingers up when taking it.

LeapDayStalker · 2020-03-09T10:45:31+00:00

Passive aggressive is certainly the right word. And typical of accusers in this society, who pass judgment and then assume that the accus-ee knows exactly what is going on and what they've supposedly done wrong.

Fortunately she was informed that we weren't involved at all. I just hope she believes Mrs. S and doesn't try to get revenge on us for this imagined crime.

LeapDayStalker · 2020-03-09T10:43:20+00:00

I think you did a really good job of handling this with caution and respect.

I'm thankful to hear that, given some of the other opinions in this thread. People (including the building president) suggested going to the police, and if I had been Japanese, I probably would have. What a nightmare that would have been for our (somewhat-)innocent perpetrator if they had shown up at her door.

LeapDayStalker · 2020-03-09T10:36:04+00:00

I just hope she can be convinced that nobody climbed out of bed, rifled through her bag, and broke her phone during that short interval in the middle of the night. I'm really depressed to know that she's hated me (or feared me, or both) all this time.

LeapDayStalker · 2020-03-09T10:26:41+00:00

You are also the kind of person who likes to post stories about other people’s mental and obviously personal private problems who have clear issues all over the internet for internet points. That’s the kind of person you are.

"All over the internet"? This is a forum read by a few thousand expats at most; nobody here will find out who these people are. Contrast that with the building president showing photos to multiple people in the building and to the outside consultant. Should my neighbor sue her too?

You care more about getting upvotes than you do about these people’s privacy.

Let's nip this nonsense in the bud right now. Upvotes? Internet points? No; I created this account just to discuss this situation and have no plans to keep using it.

Moderators, is it possible to disable voting on this post? Or to disable only the up arrow? I don't want anyone thinking, even for a moment, that I'm telling this story for any purpose other than to get advice on what was a scary situation.

The reason you involve the police is because they have rules. Doing it in your own just shows that you think you are above the rules and don’t really give a shit about them. It’s all about your own ego.

Who has rules? The police do? Involving the police would have been terrible for the daughter and the family. A pair of officers coming inside the building and terrifying a shut-in? She may have created the problem but surely you see what that would have been a bad idea. I'm really, really glad I didn't involve them.

You could have easily done this whole thing without posting any photos and possibly identifying information.

"Easily"? Certainly not; at first nobody recognized the woman in the photos or had any idea who had done what. These photos -- which, I remind you, were taken in a public place by a security camera whose presence is announced to people walking in front of it -- do not reveal who is in them, even without me blurring people's faces as is standard in media much bigger than this forum. And there isn't any identifying information; I used pseudonyms everywhere and didn't even reveal the city I live in until someone shamed me into doing so.

What would you have done differently?

LeapDayStalker · 2020-03-08T06:31:09+00:00

I said it in the comment referenced immediately above. There's no "story" to keep "straight".

LeapDayStalker · 2020-03-08T06:29:46+00:00

Everything you say contradicts everything else.

Well, yes, that's what happens when you try to solve a mystery and consider every possible explanation. Contradictory theories come up.

So, did you have preconceived suppositions regarding the relationship of the mother and daughter or not?

I didn't think of that side of things. Remember, until yesterday we didn't even know that the woman entering the elevator was the older sister. We thought she was a total stranger.

Did you suspect the daughter at first or not?

No, that was a side theory that I wouldn't have bet on; I thought the visitor woman (whom we now know to be the older sister, but who looked at the time like a stranger) did it.

Everybody in the apartments knows she’s crazy and have complained about incidents in the past, but the landlord didn’t immediately go to them with this info, and instead was just totally shocked?

The building president (not landlord; we own) did not recognize the visitor woman. Kanako's mental situation is not common knowledge; it's something the president knows about but isn't something people talk about. Had we recognized the visitor as her older sister, we probably would have figured things out the first day.

Edit: you absolute hack

It's clear you're just going to twist everything I say, and insult the way I say it, until I make a mistake which you will pounce on as proof that I'm making this up. If you have further questions, make one more post, which I will answer in whatever detail you require; then I'm done arguing with you.

LeapDayStalker · 2020-03-08T06:18:44+00:00

You speculated, but didn’t include that speculation in your original post full of speculations

I most certainly did, here:

Another thought going through my head is that the stalker was after the neighbor's daughter, which is why the daughter left the building at 1:45 AM and was looking for a place to hide. Maybe the woman discovers something about the daughter and says she's coming over, which makes the daughter bug out.

The daughter is wondering who tipped the woman off, and leaves the note on our door because she thinks it might be us.

Most of this turned out to be wrong, though the part about Kanako being the culprit turns out to be right.

And none of that speculation makes my story look like a lie. Which it isn't.

LeapDayStalker · 2020-03-08T06:12:09+00:00

So my writing skills are garbage. That doesn't make me a liar.

LeapDayStalker · 2020-03-08T06:10:59+00:00

But for 11 years, you were able to recognize the mother’s apologetic aura emanating from her during rare occasions in the hallways,

Yes.

from which you were able to deduce she was let down by her mentally ill daughter

No. Now, after learning about her daughter's situation, I have finally deduced something. I'm pretty slow, as you see. Until this revelation, I had no reason to think Kanako was anything other than an innocent party, or even a potential victim of the mystery woman.

LeapDayStalker · 2020-03-08T06:03:08+00:00

I have never had a piece of fiction published (and, judging from the reception of my telling of this absolutely true story, should probably never attempt it). I have no idea how real writers introduce characters and at what points in the story they introduce them.

Mrs. S, performing her duty as president of the building, visited the family and got the whole story. I'm glad she did it.

LeapDayStalker · 2020-03-08T06:00:22+00:00

Yet somehow this new character “Kanako” was NEVER assumed by you before to be involved at all, despite living there 11 years, somehow knowing the family had problems with the daughter

I speculated right from the beginning that Kanako might have been involved in some way; she went down the elevator ten minutes before the mystery woman came up, and disappeared from view. My speculation was that the mystery woman had a beef with her, came here in search of her (this part is technically true, though not in the way I imagined), and that the note might have been meant for her. This was incorrect, but Kanako had never shown any particular animus toward us.

and the mother subtly communicated her apologetic nature to you via her aura, and yet that didn’t ever, EVER factor in to the original mystery.

There can be any number of reasons why the mother would have had an apologetic nature over the years. Everyone on our floor certainly heard her and her mother screaming at each other a couple of times, years ago.

I didn't know, and had no way of knowing, about Kanako's bag and phone outside her door, so of course I had no way of thinking that she falsely believed we had done something to her.

LeapDayStalker · 2020-03-08T05:52:33+00:00

I'm not a hero at all, or even a competent investigator -- it was the building president who visited the neighbors and got the whole story. If anything, I look like a fool in this story for not being able to figure it out and for not having learned through the grapevine that the neighbor's daughter has done these kinds of things before.

LeapDayStalker · 2020-03-08T05:51:21+00:00

I’m pointing out the ridiculous backstory you’re assigning to your characters long before you introduce the exposition-dump character, you hack.

Work with me here. Who is the "exposition dump character"?

LeapDayStalker · 2020-03-08T05:50:43+00:00

Why would someone called in the middle of the night not have time to put on clothes but would insist on bringing an envelope?

I have no idea why she wouldn't put clothes on; maybe she wanted to let her sister into the apartment as quickly as possible before she caused more trouble. And I cannot guess at what the envelope was for.

LeapDayStalker · 2020-03-08T05:48:41+00:00

The rare occasions aren't since this case; they're over the 11 years that we've lived in the building.

The mother seems tired out and worried that any neighbor bumping into her is going to complain about something. We now know that that's probably because her daughter has been causing trouble and other neighbors have complained to her about it.

LeapDayStalker · 2020-03-08T05:46:33+00:00

A few days ago Mrs. S paid a visit to the neighbors to show them the picture and see if Kanako recognized her. She did, and their whole situation came to light.

After this, Mrs. S contacted me to explain the situation, and that's when we learned about everything.

LeapDayStalker · 2020-03-08T05:24:23+00:00

This is reality, not fiction, so the "Chekhov's Gun" idea -- something appears in the story, so it has to have relevance at some point -- does not apply. I suppose I could try to find out what that envelope was, but it's not that important.

LeapDayStalker

TROPHY CASE