"Don't Call the Police!"

Last winter, at about 8 pm in the evening on a Sunday night, there was a knock at my front door. My front porch light was burned out so I couldn't quite see who the person was. I didn't open the door; instead, I called out, "Who is it?"

"It's your neighbor. I locked myself out of my house. Let me come in." A male voice shouted.

My first instinct was to step away from the door and firmly state, "No." I didn't recognize the voice and I didn't like the demand he made to come in my house. Then I was confused; what was he asking?

"Wait, what's wrong? You locked yourself out of your house?" I took a tentative step towards the door.

"It's more than that but if I tell you, you'll think I'm crazy. Let me in." Something about the whole thing made me feel very uncomfortable. I was confused and my instincts were shouting internally at me to not open the door. Before I could say anything, he pounded on my door again. I shouted out, "No. You can't come in."

"Fine," he said. "I'll just wait here until you come out. I'll wait here for you until you leave for work in the morning." Suddenly my heart started pounding. WHAT? And then he shouted, "Don't call the police."

I ran for the telephone as he pounded on my door. I dialed 911 and was immediately put on hold! A real person didn't even answer, just a recorded message telling me to wait! The man was pounding on my door, shouting at me. I turned off the lights so he couldn't see me and ran upstairs with the phone, trying to peek out the upstairs window to see who this person was. He was standing so close to the front door that I couldn't see him from the window.

Finally, the 911 operator came on the line. Almost apologetically, I described the situation. "I'm not even sure if this should be a 911 call but he's really scaring me." She validated the call, saying that I definitely had a reason for calling. The police were on their way. He continued to yell at me through the door but my heart was beating so loudly and I was so focused on the 911 operator, I couldn't hear him. It took the police nearly 5 minutes to get there- it was a looong time.

I saw the three police officers' flashlights and I could hear them through the door as they approached. The scary man was standing with his face pressed against my door. An officer called out, "Hey buddy, what are you doing?"

The man shouted at the police officers, "You can search me but I'm not moving from her door."

"What?" said a policeman.

"I can't move from her door. I'll explode."

Oh. My. God. What?!? The 911 operator was still on the phone with me and she heard what he said. "Get away from the door!" She shouted at me through the phone. "Get away from the door, get as far away from the door as you can! But don't go outside!" I grabbed my dog and ran her upstairs to a back bedroom. Did this guy have explosives? What the fuck was he talking about? I ran back down stairs and grabbed my kitty Lucy and ran her upstairs to the back bedroom. I was shaking and terrified.

The 911 operator relayed to me what was happening. "They're searching him, he doesn't have any explosives, doesn't have a weapon." I went back downstairs and peeked out the window. It took the three officers to literally carry the man away from my door. They laid him down on the sidewalk in front of my house. They talked to him and he told them about how he'd been implanted with computer chips that were going to take over the world. He told them he had things he wanted to give me. Toys he wanted to give me. He wanted to tell me about the end of the world. Blah blah blah.

They eventually took him to a psychiatric hospital. The whole ordeal lasted about 3 hours. Of course, I was totally freaked out. Turns out he IS a neighbor and he's obviously seriously mentally ill. The psychiatric hospital released him that night. He came home and, according to neighbors, spent most of the early morning hours banging rocks against a wall and screaming. The police came back 3 or 4 times that week. I was a mess. I called in sick to work for the entire week. I was afraid to leave my house. I was afraid to be at home. It was pretty freaking traumatic.

Eventually he was hospitalized for about a month. And then he came back.

He has a mullet. When he came back from the hospital, he had shaved it into a mohawk. It's grown back into a mullet. He scares me. I wish he would move away. Every time I see him I think about how ill he is and I hope that he's taking his medication. When all this happened last winter, I had notified my HOA and they warned him that any further egregious behavior was not acceptable. But if someone is that sick, with serious psychotic delusions, can the HOA really regulate egregious behavior?

Tonight, I was in my backyard with Sophie and I heard someone yelling at someone/something, "Get the fuck back in the house!Fuck, fuck, fuck!" I peeked over my wall. There he was, by his car. I think he was yelling at his dogs, two little Chihuahuas that he walks everyday. He carries one in a baby sling when he walks them. I quickly went back into my house. I don't want to draw his attention to me, ever.

I never used to be scared of him but everything is different now. I still see him sometimes walking his dogs. He walks by my house. I don't like it. I have a house alarm now and some mace. He makes me nervous because I won't know if he's gone off his medication unless he freaks out again. I don't like being part of any one's psychotic delusions.