I thought the trash at my door was just a petty prank, until I found out my neighbors had done it before. It wasn’t random, and it definitely wasn’t harmless. This time, though, they picked the wrong person.
Okay, buckle up, because I need to get this story off my chest.
My name is Maria.
I’m 30, single, and I live alone. I have a remote job in digital marketing, which sounds more glamorous than it actually is. Mostly, it’s me in sweats, hunched over my laptop, with coffee stains on everything and playlists looping in the background.
I’m not a social butterfly, and I never have been.
I didn’t need new friends or fresh starts; I just needed space to breathe without constantly looking over my shoulder. After my last relationship ended in a crash I never saw coming, all I wanted was peace, a place where no one knew my history, my heartache, or my habits.
So when I found a small house just outside St.
Paul, Minnesota, it felt like winning the lottery. It sat on a quiet street, close to coffee shops and a park for my morning runs. The mortgage stretched me thin, but at least it was mine, a place I could finally call home.
The neighbors mostly kept to themselves.
There was a woman with a Pomeranian who never said hello, a retired man named Mr. Whitley who smoked on his porch and sometimes glared at me without saying a word, and a few frat boys around the corner who threw parties sometimes.
Our interactions rarely went beyond polite nods or the occasional small talk about the weather.
It didn’t seem like the kind of place where people got involved in each other’s lives, let alone played games like that.
Or at least, that’s what I thought.
Until the trash started showing up.
At first, it was just one bag — small, sloppily tied, and sitting by my front door like some sick joke. I kicked it aside, assuming someone had dropped it there by mistake.
The next day, there was another.
On the third day, I stood frozen in my doorway, staring at the torn plastic bag with what looked like moldy pasta and a paper towel soaked in something dark. My stomach turned.
I muttered to myself, “What the hell is going on?”
By the end of the week, it wasn’t just gross; it was vile.
One morning, I found a dead fish at my door, its eyes clouded, and the stench so overpowering that I gagged and ran back inside.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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