Maintenance work was happening in another housing unit at her apartment and she assumed he wanted to fix something related to that.
A woman shared a scary experience of a creepy man trying to break into her apartment while she was in it. Bee, a 36-year-old Louisiana resident, said a maintenance man who worked at her apartment building had tried to "come in" just to see her face. Bee freaked out and later, shared the series of messages that sent a chill down her spine. She was living in a privately owned apartment building where a maintenance worker had come to work on a neighbor's house, reported Buzzfeed News.
Maintenance man at my last apartment: pic.twitter.com/cu28tjSEdl
— Judgie Bee Jonez (@ThunderCatHeaux) October 4, 2021
I hope y’all see how comfortable these men are at using their positioning to threaten Women.
— That girl. (@_jasminwats) October 4, 2021
The neighbor has just moved out of his unit and the owner was carrying out some repair work. One of the workers texted Bee, "Good morning girl. How you doing." She assumed that the worker needed access to her apartment to possibly fix something shared by the two housing units. Instead, he responded, "Just to see your face," before adding "I miss you." The alarm bells set off on her head. Unsure what to respond, she wrote with 'oh lol.' She was already wary of him. "When I responded 'oh lol,' it was the same as an in real life nervous chuckle," said Bee. "I literally did not know how else to respond to that kind of message from a person I was not interested in. Even the nicest person can be harmful."
That “oh lol” is every girl being so uncomfortable but afraid to be rude
— aj PA-C (@j_thePA) October 5, 2021
She then let him know that he wasn't welcome, replying, "No. Sir." He didn't care for her message and said he was coming in. "I'm coming in," he messaged. When she asked to not come into her apartment, he ignored her message once again and replied, "Just opened it." Bee then told him in no uncertain terms that she'd call the cops on him. That's when he stopped but ended the conversation with a laughing smiley like that was going to make it any less creepy.
And how he “could watch over me” in my apartment from his office (we were on opposite sides of the pool)
— Bonnie F (@BonsTheDivaCat) October 14, 2021
Bee knew full well that there have been far too many stories of men stalking sexual and gender minorities resulting in sexual assault and death, to continue living in the apartment. Bee was scared he would return sometime and decided to move places. "I broke the lease a month later and blocked him. I felt unsafe, [so] I moved as soon as I had the resources to do so," she said.
When I was married my ex & I started wondering why food kept running out so quickly. One day I came home early to find the maintenance man in my kitchen making himself lunch. I immediately went to the office and they did nothing. We moved soon after.
— Joyfulndiva (@Joyfulndiva) October 14, 2021
She added that informing the owners wasn't an option for her as "they didn’t care about anything but the rent." She added that other tenants had complained about different things but they were never taken seriously. After she shared the ordeal and the screenshots, men rained in on her post with comments questioning her on various things including 'giving' her number to the maintenance man. Bee said that it was common for apartment buildings to share communication over text and pointed out how the maintenance had misused the information to text her and even attempting to break into her home.
Bee put out a follow-up video explaining elaborating on the situation. "He and the property manager had all of our phone numbers. It wasn't because I gave him my number. I didn't engage with him. he literally used his access as a maintenance man to harass me. This is the larger story. And y'all are still turning this around like. It had something to do with me. No. I'm just nice. I say 'Hi. Bye. How're you doing.' That's all it took. Y'all need to stop victim-blaming," she said. Another wrote, "A while back I had a maintenance request to fix our front door lock. Just happed to set up a hidden camera in my bedroom. When I got home from work the video showed the workers going through all the stuff in my room and even took pics of some things. Both fired and charged with burglary."
Everyone saying "why does he have your number?" Or "why is he comfortable talking like that in the first place"...🗣️EVEN IF SHE GAVE HIM HER NUMBER, FLIRTED, OR FUCKED THAT MAN HE SHOULD NOT COME INTO HER APARTMENT UNINVITED
— Chivirica (@la_ROCA__) October 4, 2021
Women began sharing similar harrowing experiences they had faced. One person wrote, "I’m glad shit like this is being exposed… scary af…when I lived in my 1st apartment by myself my building manager UNLOCKED my door and let himself in one day “to check about bugs,” cops did nothing, the landlord did nothing and I was harassed by him for the next year of living there."
Bee said she was she wasn't surprised to see so many stories of men misusing access and harassing women at their homes. "Even though I wasn’t surprised, I was saddened and angered that so many women could relate. ... Some men just feel entitled to women," she said.