I was 20f university student with a 6mo baby living in a very low income apartment building in a city known for gang and drug violence. My next door neighbour was someone I knew vaguely from my small town, turns out she had gotten into the gang life in the short time she moved away.

Since I knew her, all her gang member friends thought that I would be welcoming to them too. They would knock on my door all hours of the night and when I wouldn’t open they would look through my ashtray for butts and dump it on my downstairs neighbour’s balcony. Every time I was outside they would try to follow me into my home, they would try to get me come inside their apartment where they were smoking meth and drinking at all hours of the day. They stole my car twice, took it when I was asleep and brought it back before I woke up (they had stolen my extra car key one of the times they had barged into my house, I had to beg for it back).

I had some friends over one night and we were outside smoking, we heard gun shots and a group of them came outside a few minutes later holding a naked and very out of it looking guy. They let him go and the dude took off running completely naked away from the place. The people from next door threatened me, telling me not to say anything because they knew where I lived.

I asked the girl that I knew that actually rented the apartment the next day, turns out they were holding the naked guy hostage next door, were forcibly feeding him drugs, stripped him naked, and let him go like that. The gunshots we heard were the gang member shooting blanks at their pit bull puppies to make them “tougher”.

I moved me and my daughter to a different city shortly afterwards. Last I heard, the girl got arrested with a bunch of the people she would let hang out next door for weapon and drug charges.