First let me start by saying that a couple years ago I was diagnosed with general anxiety disorder and have moderate social anxiety. Its unbelievably difficult for me just to pick up the telephone and call someone, let alone go to Costco on a Saturday afternoon (you'll never see me at Best Buy on Black Friday) or approach a complete stranger and dominate the conversation. But today I did something that I never would have imagined I would ever do even just six months ago by becoming a bad ass and taking matters into my own hands. I was a nervous wreck and my knees were shaking and I was sweating like a pig but I sucked it up and did it.
Now on to the story.....for a couple weeks now there has been this white SUV with out of state license plates parking in front of my house and the guy sits there for hours talking on his cell phone. I work in IT and noticed that our home network would start slowing down whenever he was there, out internet would even drop out completely. So I assumed the guy had hacked our wireless and was mooching our internet, I changed the SSID of our wireless to "**** YOU MR ARIZONA!" so he would get the hint and reset the passkey to a 30 character alphanumeric (number of possible combinations is 38 to the 30th power) and our network problems immediately stopped. But the guy still kept coming and just parks there talking on his phone for hours at a time at all hours of the day, including late at night when we have our windows open. How do we know he isn't peeping on us?
This is especially concerning to us not only from a network security standpoint but also from a personal sense of safety standpoint. We live out in the boonies about a half mile from the nearest neighbor and cell phone reception is spotty at best, but nobody ever stops here to talk. Just this one guy. You can understand why we were feeling a little freaked out. I called our landlord and they recommended we call the sheriffs office but they were next to useless. They said that there are no laws to prevent someone from pulling over on the side of the road to talk on their phone and even said that unless we caught him red handed looking in our windows there is nothing they could do to help us.
So today I got pissed off and took matters into my own hands. My therapist says I need to force myself to go into situations that would normally give me a lot of anxiety and this was exactly that. When I saw that he was there I got my camera and walked right out in front of him and started taking pictures of him and his vehicle. When he confronted me about it I flat out told him I was taking pictures of the guy who has been stalking our house for weeks and he debated me saying he is on public property and blah blah blah. Out of a mile long stretch of road, why would you pick this one small spot to stop? We went back and forth for a while and he said he was new to the area and this was the only place he could get a signal on his phone so that he can conduct his business, he never would tell me what his business was though. And when I asked him if he had a land line at his house he said yes, but he was not able to get long distance on his street which I know is a crock of ****. Apparently he doesn't know that I work IT and know how phone networks work and am good friends with the local field technicians. The dude even had the gall to lie to me and say my landlord gave him permission to be there.
In the end, we came to the agreement that he wouldn't park in front of our house any more and he apologized for making us feel uncomfortable.
I am so proud of myself though, I need to toot my own horn. Literally 3 days ago I was in a restaurant and couldn't find the restroom and was too afraid to talk to an employee to ask where it was so I just walked around until I found it myself. Today I psyched myself up and told myself I could go outside all by myself and confront this unknown person and that it wouldn't be the end of the world. I was so afraid that the guy would get out of his vehicle and beat the **** out of me but he never did. And when I came back in the house and he drove away I was buzzing so high from the adrenaline rush that I couldn't sit still, I just kept pacing around my house for a half an hour. I can't wait until my next meeting with my therapist to tell her what I did!
Thanks for reading, I'm just so proud of myself that I had to put it into words.
Now on to the story.....for a couple weeks now there has been this white SUV with out of state license plates parking in front of my house and the guy sits there for hours talking on his cell phone. I work in IT and noticed that our home network would start slowing down whenever he was there, out internet would even drop out completely. So I assumed the guy had hacked our wireless and was mooching our internet, I changed the SSID of our wireless to "**** YOU MR ARIZONA!" so he would get the hint and reset the passkey to a 30 character alphanumeric (number of possible combinations is 38 to the 30th power) and our network problems immediately stopped. But the guy still kept coming and just parks there talking on his phone for hours at a time at all hours of the day, including late at night when we have our windows open. How do we know he isn't peeping on us?
This is especially concerning to us not only from a network security standpoint but also from a personal sense of safety standpoint. We live out in the boonies about a half mile from the nearest neighbor and cell phone reception is spotty at best, but nobody ever stops here to talk. Just this one guy. You can understand why we were feeling a little freaked out. I called our landlord and they recommended we call the sheriffs office but they were next to useless. They said that there are no laws to prevent someone from pulling over on the side of the road to talk on their phone and even said that unless we caught him red handed looking in our windows there is nothing they could do to help us.
So today I got pissed off and took matters into my own hands. My therapist says I need to force myself to go into situations that would normally give me a lot of anxiety and this was exactly that. When I saw that he was there I got my camera and walked right out in front of him and started taking pictures of him and his vehicle. When he confronted me about it I flat out told him I was taking pictures of the guy who has been stalking our house for weeks and he debated me saying he is on public property and blah blah blah. Out of a mile long stretch of road, why would you pick this one small spot to stop? We went back and forth for a while and he said he was new to the area and this was the only place he could get a signal on his phone so that he can conduct his business, he never would tell me what his business was though. And when I asked him if he had a land line at his house he said yes, but he was not able to get long distance on his street which I know is a crock of ****. Apparently he doesn't know that I work IT and know how phone networks work and am good friends with the local field technicians. The dude even had the gall to lie to me and say my landlord gave him permission to be there.
In the end, we came to the agreement that he wouldn't park in front of our house any more and he apologized for making us feel uncomfortable.
I am so proud of myself though, I need to toot my own horn. Literally 3 days ago I was in a restaurant and couldn't find the restroom and was too afraid to talk to an employee to ask where it was so I just walked around until I found it myself. Today I psyched myself up and told myself I could go outside all by myself and confront this unknown person and that it wouldn't be the end of the world. I was so afraid that the guy would get out of his vehicle and beat the **** out of me but he never did. And when I came back in the house and he drove away I was buzzing so high from the adrenaline rush that I couldn't sit still, I just kept pacing around my house for a half an hour. I can't wait until my next meeting with my therapist to tell her what I did!
Thanks for reading, I'm just so proud of myself that I had to put it into words.
