I moved out of my house because of the things my neighbor did.

I used to live in a nice, big house out in the country with my boyfriend. Of all our neighbors, there was one who stuck out: he always wanted to be friends with us, so he could watch our house for us. He was married with 2 kids, but his wife worked at a local hospital and he was unemployed. I was 25 and my boyfriend was 26 at the time, so we were much younger than him. We always thought it was weird that he kept asking my boyfriend to go fishing with him, and I was glad he didn't ask me to join since I didn't like the man in the first place.<br><br>We always felt like we were being watched whenever we were outside. I think my feeling of unease about it was even worse since I had been the victim of stalking before. This neighbor was especially suspicious because we would see him outside gardening or doing yardwork even on Sundays when it was just too hot outside. One day I saw him sitting on his deck in the middle of the day for a few hours looking through some papers, and I thought he looked at me out of the corner of his eye. <br><br>I always had the feeling that he was on our property at night because our 2 cats would meow at the windows even after we locked them inside, and our possum would make his presence known by biting holes in my most expensive belongings left on the floor. One night, my boyfriend and I were eating dinner when we heard a knock at the door. We weren't expecting company, so we were both confused and the dog started barking. My boyfriend went to look through the peephole and said it was our neighbor, frantic and pounding on our front door. When my boyfriend opened it, our neighbor immediately burst into the house and said that he had smelled something burning from our house. I didn't smell anything, but my boyfriend said that he could smell it too. All of the lights in the house were flickering, and our neighbor and my boyfriend were searching around to see where the smell was coming from. I looked outside, barely able to see through the darkness, and I saw a bunch of men surrounding our house. I didn't see anything lit on fire or any smoke. When I tried to bring this up to my boyfriend, he said I was being paranoid and that it was probably raccoons in the walls. NOTHING was burning in that house. The only thing that I could think of that would cause house fires in the walls were possums chewing on electrical wires.<br><br>The next morning, I woke up to hear our neighbor talking to my boyfriend in the living room. I was mad that my boyfriend let him in the house without me knowing. He was showing my boyfriend some papers in a cardboard box and it looked like police reports. I was getting dressed for work but I stopped and listened. I heard him say that our street was patrolled by a lot of single men, and since I was a young woman, I should be careful. I never gave him permission to walk inside my house before I even woke up, so it was my fault for not setting boundaries. I went into the kitchen and my boyfriend immediately told me what he said. I saw the box of papers and read the first one which was a police report about a peeping tom arrested in the neighborhood. <br><br>I felt so violated. I yelled at my boyfriend for not telling me our neighbor was in the house and I went back into my room and called out sick to work for that day. Our neighbor left and my boyfriend wanted to go fishing with him. I told him hell no I was going with him because I didn't want him in the house while I was away at work, but he didn't want me to go. I stood my ground and said I'm not leaving my house empty with him in the neighborhood. So we both went with our neighbor to go fishing. A few hours later the sun started to set and our neighbor said he would catch a ride home with some other men who were there so we could go home. On the car ride home, my boyfriend told me he was probably just trying to be a "dad". He also told me that our neighbor told him I was a "smart girl for putting my foot down and not letting him come in the house". That sentence stuck out to me because it was so weird. I never told him explicitly that I didn't want him in the house, I only told my boyfriend that. It gave me bad vibes.<br><br>Not long after that day, my boyfriend went out with his friends and I was home by myself with the dogs. It was a weeknight and I had work the next day, so I didn't stay up too late. When I went to bed, I double checked all the locks. I fell asleep and woke up to the sound of the dogs whining and scratching at the front door. I was groggy and tired, so I didn't even check to see who was there. I only looked through the peephole and opened the door because I thought it was my boyfriend coming home early. The next thing I knew, I was face to face with our neighbor, and it scared me so bad I jumped back. <br><br>He said he was there to check on me and make sure everything was okay. I told him that everything was fine and I was safe now that my boyfriend was home. They were NOT in cahoots. I lied so he'd leave me alone. I was too tired to argue with him and I didn't want to make him angry. I shut the door and locked it and went back to sleep. I didn't hear anything else that night. <br><br>The next day I told my boyfriend what happened. He was livid, I think what really made him angry was when I told him that I didn't smell any smoke the night our neighbor burst into the house. I think it finally clicked in his head that our neighbor was a crazy stalker who wanted to have sex with me. I told him that I wanted to move. I didn't want to be in that house anymore. He agreed. <br><br><br>It's been years since we moved and we're both doing well. Our neighbor had a house fire that burned down his house a few months after we moved. Not sure if it was a possum or what.<br><br><br>Our neighbor whose name is Christopher is the man I don't want to meet again.