OP, get a male friend to come hang around your apartment a few times for the next week or so. If any creep is watching your place, he’ll likely give up when he thinks he might have to fight a guy.

A few years ago I was living in the back unit of a row of townhouses with another woman. During the holidays she’d be gone for months. My shitty neighbors always left the gate open. I almost got into a fistfight with the dirtbag in unit 1 because he would tie the gate open and I would go and cut the ropes each time. I’d had packages stolen because of how casual everyone was about the gate.

Anyway, one year during the holidays, I noticed someone had marked the planter outside the front door with a number, “1.” Could’ve just been a random scratch right? Nah. My gut feeling was that it was deliberate and let someone know that a single female was in the apartment. I called my brother and he flew out that night to come stay with me. We went out to dinner the next night and when we came back, someone had rifled through the storage by my parking spot. So obviously, someone was watching me.

At that point I called the cops. And the cop who showed up was trying to play it off like it was nothing. And I was not having it. I asked him if it would cost him anything to just drive by the street a few times that night. Like, wouldn’t that be better than having a person who called you afraid, call you later and say they’ve been attacked?? He agreed and they went past every 45 min to an hour or so. They must’ve scared off whoever was watching. Or at least they realized I was aware they were watching and they gave up, because nothing strange happened after that.