Sister now feels unsafe: Peeping Tom Situation

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Real Estate Agent · Washington, D.C. · Member since 2012 · 17k+ posts · 30k+ votes

7y

There is no negligence here. Property owners have no control over the crimes committed by random people. This sounds like an urban enviorment, so crime is to be expected. And for kicks, take a look at a map of sex offenders....they are literally everywhere. You will be shocked when you see how many they are and how close to you they are.

Your sister should offer to pay the rent til the landlord can place a new tenant.

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29 Reply

Theresa HarrisPro Member

Member since 2019 · 15k+ posts · 11k+ votes

7y

@Jimmy M. She should let him know she wants out of her lease as she doesn't feel safe in the unit. If they own the building, perhaps they have another unit she can move into, but unlikely. More than likely, the landlord finds a new tenant for her place and she pays rent until then. Often landlords understand and will try to get it rented quickly.

2 Reply

Kyle J.

Rental Property Investor · Northern, CA · Member since 2012 · 5k+ posts · 5k+ votes

7y

I didn’t read anything in your post that was “clear negligence” on the part of the landlord. Perhaps there’s more to the story that you didn’t include though.

Just out of curiosity, does the window not have a blind or shutter or curtain or anything that can prevent someone from looking in? Seems odd that someone could do this more than once. Just close the window off with whatever window covering is there and they won’t be able to look in anymore.

In any event, she can move whether the landlord lets her out of the lease or not. Nothing is more important than her safety. It just may cost her some money. The laws are different state-to-state, but in most states the scenario as it’s been written wouldn’t justify termination of a lease without penalty.

7 Reply

John Teachout

Rental Property Investor · Concord, GA · Member since 2015 · 3k+ posts · 3k+ votes

7y

A tenant feeling "unsafe" is not necessarily an allowable reason for breaking a lease. That would vary by area. I would suggest putting a request in for an upper floor unit. Is it possible that someone that's "up" would rather be "down"? The police were already notified, is there any expectation that this situation would reoccur?

2 Reply

Caleb Heimsoth

Rental Property Investor · Durham, NC · Member since 2016 · 7k+ posts · 7k+ votes

7y

@Jimmy M. You can pay the rent until someone else moves in, or pay a lease termination fee and forfeit deposit if that is in the lease or you can just move out and stop paying which likely means you’ll get evicted.

I’m a landlord and a tenant and I’ve lived places where crime has been committed right Next to where I live. Short of some cheap security measures the landlord didn’t do anything else

2 Reply

Hip Rodriguez

Chicago, IL · Member since 2016 · 54 posts · 6 votes

7y

@Jimmy M.

Sub-lease the apartment. The Wrigley area is a hot area.

1 Reply

Gina Cardarella

Rental Property Investor · Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2019 · 111 posts · 38 votes

7y

@Jimmy

1st I would get a removable camera that you could take with you and pointed outside your window and also I would invest in secure bars that are removable as well I know it's it's expensive but this is your life we're talking about maybe the landlord would be willing to pitch in if you're a good tenant I know I would for my tenant

3 Reply

Gina Cardarella

Rental Property Investor · Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2019 · 111 posts · 38 votes

7y

@Russell Brazil

I agree with you Russell and I have units we can only do so much. Hopefully the landlord will pitchin and up the security it only increases the value of his building I added bars on my building in LA

1 Reply

Gina Cardarella

Rental Property Investor · Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2019 · 111 posts · 38 votes

7y

@Hip Rodriguez

You better make sure that your lease agreement let you sublet mind does not

0 Reply

Mike Dymski

Investor · Greenville, SC · Member since 2016 · 5k+ posts · 13k+ votes

7y

It's too bad that situations like this are not dealt with properly. The police or a group of men could set up a sting and take care of this guy. Instead, we wait until he does something even worse and then it's too late. We get what we tolerate.

9 Reply

Dennis M.

Rental Property Investor · Erie, PA · Member since 2018 · 6k+ posts · 9k+ votes

7y

So your going to get a lawyer to go after the landlord because some random guy who doesn’t live there is masturbating nearby ? This is crazy and frivolous to think the landlord has control over random weirdos in the area . How is the landlord accountable ?he just rents the building to her . She filed a police report and that was smart ,now she needs to pay till the lease is up to honor her obligation

15 Reply

Lee Bell

Real Estate Appraiser · Isabella lake, CA · Member since 2018 · 628 posts · 491 votes

7y

I suppose it would be illegal to shoot the guy with a paintball gun.

Then call the cops, the perp is marked.

OK, he probably ran off after being shot with a paintball.

But, it won't kill him. If he runs off, no need to call the cops. ;>)

Umm, don't do this.

6 Reply

Effram Barrett

Real Estate Agent · Houston, TX · Member since 2017 · 159 posts · 161 votes

7y

I assume you're citing negligence because your sister made multiple requests and the landlord hasn't done anything? That may be tough to prove but definitely have her look over the lease and know Illinois RE law. In TX, a sexual assault is cause for a lease termination; I'm not quite sure about peeping Tom.

0 Reply

Jim K.

Handyman · Pittsburgh, PA · Member since 2018 · 5k+ posts · 13k+ votes

7y

Originally posted by @Jimmy M.:

Hi, Looking for advice for my sister to get out of her lease before we contact the landlord again. Here's the situation: For the past few weeks, around midnight once or twice a week she thought she heard porn being played by a neighbor very loud and very clear. She took videos, contacted the landlord, let him know how unsafe and uncomfortable she felt with this going on. Landlord responded but did not do much or offer much guidance. Fast forward to last night. A neighbor next door sees a guy outside her window masturbating and playing porn on his phone. This is clearly the situation, someone had followed her and was doing this deliberately outside her window. A police report was filed, they took down all the information, and they think it actually is the same person who had been doing this all over Chicago.

The unit is a 1st floor studio in a 10-20 unit building in Chicago near Wrigley Field.

Our goal is to now contact the landlord with a clear and concise request to terminate this lease, as she no longer feels safe there.. She is going to be staying with us until we find her another apartment that is not on the 1st floor or Ground floor. My brother is a lawyer and has offered to step in, citing clear negligence of safety after multiple requests. What we are really looking for is guidance on how to best approach the landlord to just have the lease terminated so she can move on past this horrible experience. Any guidance or thoughts?

My initial idea is to try to handle it nicely, if he has another building that feels safer and not a ground floor, she would entertain looking at units there to not cause him financial harm. I don't think in good conscious she would sublease this unit now.

Thoughts welcome.

Damn, your sister seems preoccupied with sex in the neighborhood. I could see how it would be uncomfortable, but how exactly does the neighbor playing pornography in the comfort of his own home next door make her feel "unsafe," as you mentioned? Is she afraid the porn is going to come sneaking through the wall to corrupt her innocence? Or is it a blanket assumption that anyone who could possibly listen to or watch porn in the middle of the night is only a half-step away from violent rape? If that's what your sister thinks, then she must live in a lot of fear.

I think this is confirmed by the second part of the story. A neighbor sees someone flogging the log outside her window and (horrors!) playing a blue movie on his phone. Again, there's a whole boatload of assumptions here based on this piece of hearsay, a police report is filed, culminating in the certainty that this is some kind of famed and notorious meat-beating serial sexual predator camping outside.

Your sister is being attacked by X-rated-material-watching monkey-spankers! This "horrible experience" (she listened to a neighbor's story and presumably heard fake moans and groans through a wall, maybe some dirty, dirty talk) is clearly causing her immense psychological harm.

Come on, Jimmy, let's get to the beef. What's really going on here? Did she take the ground-floor apartment and now wants something nicer in what we all know is a very expensive area? Because this sure as hell sounds like a lot of cheap camouflage for what you're going to go to the landlord of this 20-unit building with, a request to move higher. What, has an apartment opened up on the third or fourth floor of this building, maybe advertised for three hundred bucks a month more than what she's paying now, and she wants to break her lease and get in on the new place on the cheap?

I'm finding my suspicions confirmed by how the wording here just dances around this possibility so nimbly...I mean..."she would entertain looking at units there..." WTF, really? In the same building with the lurking nefarious committer of the Sin of Onan outside? With the neighbor whose malevolent smut makes her feel unsafe? Is the presence of a flight of stairs or two going to mitigate the dark danger she believes she's in from that source? Will the prospect of climbing a few stairs frost the neighbor's smoldering gonads in his shorts and rob him of his dastardly courage? And what about the lurking serial chicken-choker with his phone raunch? Your sister's still going to have to go in and out of the door of this building every day. Why stay in a structure which holds so many traumatic horrors for her?

15 Reply

Account Closed

Specialist · Paradise Valley, AZ · Member since 2018 · 3k+ posts · 2k+ votes

7y

Your sister should open the window and yell: 'Man, That's the smallest penis I've ever seen!" He'll leave in humiliation and never return".

14 Reply

Brandon Hicks

Investor · Avilla, IN · Member since 2013 · 796 posts · 769 votes

7y

@Lee Bell

It’s Chicago. Legality doesn’t matter.

1 Reply

Matthew Paul

Severna Park, MD · Member since 2013 · 7k+ posts · 7k+ votes

7y

I have never seen the word "feelings" in a lease .

7 Reply

Mike Dymski

Investor · Greenville, SC · Member since 2016 · 5k+ posts · 13k+ votes

7y

Originally posted by @Jim K.:

Originally posted by @Jimmy M.:

Hi, Looking for advice for my sister to get out of her lease before we contact the landlord again. Here's the situation: For the past few weeks, around midnight once or twice a week she thought she heard porn being played by a neighbor very loud and very clear. She took videos, contacted the landlord, let him know how unsafe and uncomfortable she felt with this going on. Landlord responded but did not do much or offer much guidance. Fast forward to last night. A neighbor next door sees a guy outside her window masturbating and playing porn on his phone. This is clearly the situation, someone had followed her and was doing this deliberately outside her window. A police report was filed, they took down all the information, and they think it actually is the same person who had been doing this all over Chicago.

The unit is a 1st floor studio in a 10-20 unit building in Chicago near Wrigley Field.

Our goal is to now contact the landlord with a clear and concise request to terminate this lease, as she no longer feels safe there.. She is going to be staying with us until we find her another apartment that is not on the 1st floor or Ground floor. My brother is a lawyer and has offered to step in, citing clear negligence of safety after multiple requests. What we are really looking for is guidance on how to best approach the landlord to just have the lease terminated so she can move on past this horrible experience. Any guidance or thoughts?

My initial idea is to try to handle it nicely, if he has another building that feels safer and not a ground floor, she would entertain looking at units there to not cause him financial harm. I don't think in good conscious she would sublease this unit now.

Thoughts welcome.

Damn, your sister seems preoccupied with sex in the neighborhood. I could see how it would be uncomfortable, but how exactly does the neighbor playing pornography in the comfort of his own home next door make her feel "unsafe," as you mentioned? Is she afraid the porn is going to come sneaking through the wall to corrupt her innocence? Or is it a blanket assumption that anyone who could possibly listen to or watch porn in the middle of the night is only a half-step away from violent rape? If that's what your sister thinks, then she must live in a lot of fear.

I think this is confirmed by the second part of the story. A neighbor sees someone flogging the log outside her window and (horrors!) playing a blue movie on his phone. Again, there's a whole boatload of assumptions here based on this piece of hearsay, a police report is filed, culminating in the certainty that this is some kind of famed and notorious meat-beating serial sexual predator camping outside.

Your sister is being attacked by X-rated-material-watching monkey-spankers! This "horrible experience" (she listened to a neighbor's story and presumably heard fake moans and groans through a wall, maybe some dirty, dirty talk) is clearly causing her immense psychological harm.

Come on, Jimmy, let's get to the beef. What's really going on here? Did she take the ground-floor apartment and now wants something nicer in what we all know is a very expensive area? Because this sure as hell sounds like a lot of cheap camouflage for what you're going to go to the landlord of this 20-unit building with, a request to move higher. What, has an apartment opened up on the third or fourth floor of this building, maybe advertised for three hundred bucks a month more than what she's paying now, and she wants to break her lease and get in on the new place on the cheap?

I'm finding my suspicions confirmed by how the wording here just dances around this possibility so nimbly...I mean..."she would entertain looking at units there..." WTF, really? In the same building with the lurking nefarious committer of the Sin of Onan outside? With the neighbor whose malevolent smut makes her feel unsafe? Is the presence of a flight of stairs or two going to mitigate the dark danger she believes she's in from that source? Will the prospect of climbing a few stairs frost the neighbor's smoldering gonads in his shorts and rob him of his dastardly courage? And what about the lurking serial chicken-choker with his phone raunch? Your sister's still going to have to go in and out of the door of this building every day. Why stay in a structure which holds so many traumatic horrors for her?

The guy has followed her home multiple times. The porn is not from the neighbors...it's from the masturbater's cell phone right outside her window.

3 Reply

Jim K.

Handyman · Pittsburgh, PA · Member since 2018 · 5k+ posts · 13k+ votes

7y

Originally posted by @Mike Dymski:

Originally posted by @Jim K.:

Originally posted by @Jimmy M.:

Hi, Looking for advice for my sister to get out of her lease before we contact the landlord again. Here's the situation: For the past few weeks, around midnight once or twice a week she thought she heard porn being played by a neighbor very loud and very clear. She took videos, contacted the landlord, let him know how unsafe and uncomfortable she felt with this going on. Landlord responded but did not do much or offer much guidance. Fast forward to last night. A neighbor next door sees a guy outside her window masturbating and playing porn on his phone. This is clearly the situation, someone had followed her and was doing this deliberately outside her window. A police report was filed, they took down all the information, and they think it actually is the same person who had been doing this all over Chicago.

The unit is a 1st floor studio in a 10-20 unit building in Chicago near Wrigley Field.

Our goal is to now contact the landlord with a clear and concise request to terminate this lease, as she no longer feels safe there.. She is going to be staying with us until we find her another apartment that is not on the 1st floor or Ground floor. My brother is a lawyer and has offered to step in, citing clear negligence of safety after multiple requests. What we are really looking for is guidance on how to best approach the landlord to just have the lease terminated so she can move on past this horrible experience. Any guidance or thoughts?

My initial idea is to try to handle it nicely, if he has another building that feels safer and not a ground floor, she would entertain looking at units there to not cause him financial harm. I don't think in good conscious she would sublease this unit now.

Thoughts welcome.

Damn, your sister seems preoccupied with sex in the neighborhood. I could see how it would be uncomfortable, but how exactly does the neighbor playing pornography in the comfort of his own home next door make her feel "unsafe," as you mentioned? Is she afraid the porn is going to come sneaking through the wall to corrupt her innocence? Or is it a blanket assumption that anyone who could possibly listen to or watch porn in the middle of the night is only a half-step away from violent rape? If that's what your sister thinks, then she must live in a lot of fear.

I think this is confirmed by the second part of the story. A neighbor sees someone flogging the log outside her window and (horrors!) playing a blue movie on his phone. Again, there's a whole boatload of assumptions here based on this piece of hearsay, a police report is filed, culminating in the certainty that this is some kind of famed and notorious meat-beating serial sexual predator camping outside.

Your sister is being attacked by X-rated-material-watching monkey-spankers! This "horrible experience" (she listened to a neighbor's story and presumably heard fake moans and groans through a wall, maybe some dirty, dirty talk) is clearly causing her immense psychological harm.

Come on, Jimmy, let's get to the beef. What's really going on here? Did she take the ground-floor apartment and now wants something nicer in what we all know is a very expensive area? Because this sure as hell sounds like a lot of cheap camouflage for what you're going to go to the landlord of this 20-unit building with, a request to move higher. What, has an apartment opened up on the third or fourth floor of this building, maybe advertised for three hundred bucks a month more than what she's paying now, and she wants to break her lease and get in on the new place on the cheap?

I'm finding my suspicions confirmed by how the wording here just dances around this possibility so nimbly...I mean..."she would entertain looking at units there..." WTF, really? In the same building with the lurking nefarious committer of the Sin of Onan outside? With the neighbor whose malevolent smut makes her feel unsafe? Is the presence of a flight of stairs or two going to mitigate the dark danger she believes she's in from that source? Will the prospect of climbing a few stairs frost the neighbor's smoldering gonads in his shorts and rob him of his dastardly courage? And what about the lurking serial chicken-choker with his phone raunch? Your sister's still going to have to go in and out of the door of this building every day. Why stay in a structure which holds so many traumatic horrors for her?

The guy has followed her home multiple times. The porn is not from the neighbors...it's from the masturbater's cell phone right outside her window.

There's porn coming from next door, too, Mike. It's Attack Of The Porn up in there! She's surrounded by skinflute players! They're coming out of the woodwork!

3 Reply

Mike Dymski

Investor · Greenville, SC · Member since 2016 · 5k+ posts · 13k+ votes

7y

@Jim K. she thought it was the neighbors but it turned out to be a guy following her home repeatedly. May need the OP to confirm.

0 Reply

Jay HinrichsBusiness Member

Real Estate Consultant · Summerlin, NV · Member since 2014 · 45k+ posts · 66k+ votes

7y

Originally posted by @Mike Dymski:

@Jim K. she thought it was the neighbors but it turned out to be a guy following her home repeatedly.

would it not be prudent in this situation to call the cops.. stalker peeping tom this could escalate.

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Rental Property Investor · Brooke Park Drive · Member since 2018 · 1k+ posts · 2k+ votes

7y

Not complicated .. motion trigger flood lights

4 Reply

Amanda Kessler

Member since 2019 · 111 posts · 36 votes

7y

The landlord isn't responsible for the actions of a criminal. However, she should let him know that she wants to end her lease under the circumstances. Hopefully he is a standup guy and will agree to let her end the lease.

1 Reply

George SkidisPro Member

Rental Property Investor · Belleville, IL · Member since 2017 · 875 posts · 529 votes

7y

From what you have said this is not the landlord's problem. Her best bet is to get the unit into rentable condition and allow the landlord to lease it to someone else. Expect a fee for breaking the lease but make sure the unit is in better shape than when your sister got it.

More than likely your sister actually ran into this pervert somewhere else and he followed her home. He sees her moving he will follow her to your home as well. Your sister needs to develop the skill of situational awareness.

Time to cannibalize her social media presence. Remove everything but hi I'm Ruth or whatever. No one should ever post where they are, where they work or when they will be on vacation. Especially women. Guys, because no one wants us most of the time, can get away with tons of stupid things. Women, whether considered pretty by hollywood standards or not, attract attention by their very existence. The reason is rooted in our DNA and is not a fixable thing. Speaking of DNA did the pervert leave a sample under the window for the police

Your sister has acquired a stalker. She needs to follow the rules for this to the letter. She is on her own until the pervert escalates his obsession.

Shut the drapes and blinds at night. I do. My wife and I sleep on the second floor. We close them for two reasons. First my wife is extremely attractive. Secondly, I am not. So my reason is different. Our windows are in sight of others. Why should I run the risk of being accused of being the old geezer who parades around in front of the open window.

Years ago I was a private investigator. We could sneak around and take photos with telephoto lenses of anything and everything, as long as we did not alter the landscape or break the law in any other way. Open windows and photos of people doing what they should not were always within our grasp.

There are no obvious ways the landlord is at fault here. I am not an attorney and do not play one on television. Seek competent legal counsel in this matter.

7 Reply

Jimmy M.

OP

Rental Property Investor · Chicago, IL · Member since 2017 · 21 posts · 29 votes

7y

Thanks all for your guidance here. It looks like the landlord is going to let her out of her lease for a fee. The other option he laid out was to get a subletter in there, but she just doesn't feel comfortable showing it or saying it is an okay spot to live after what she went through.

And to all the trolls on here with smart *** comments... I thought BP was better than that.

14 Reply

Sister now feels unsafe: Peeping Tom Situation

Sister now feels unsafe: Peeping Tom Situation

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