Landlords and tenants can have tense relationships at the best of times, but for Chris Bautista (@bautistud), it was on a whole other level. In a now-viral TikTok, which has now amassed 1 million views as of Saturday, the TikToker laid out the evidence that made him think his landlord was spying on him.
“I’m really curious if this has happened to anybody else, but I’m fully convinced that an old apartment had cameras installed in it by my landlord, and he used to use that info to like f**k with us,” he began.
He started by explaining how he has never met his landlord in person, and that he learned about the property on Craigslist. He said looked around the apartment, but the landlord refused to meet him, instead leaving the keys out for the tenant when he decided he wanted to rent the place.
“He’s like, ‘My mom owns the place. But I’m going to take care of all the business stuff,’” the TikToker added.
However, it wasn’t long until things started getting weird.
“Every time we were home alone, the place had that f**king undeniable feeling that we were being watched,” he said. “You know, that instinctual feeling you feel in the pit of your stomach.”
Upon conversing with his roommate, he discovered that she felt the same, but they had no proof that anything untoward was happening.
But then, strange things started happening in the apartment, he claimed. At night, he’d put his apartment key on the keyring, but then, after work, find it mysteriously on his bedside table. Then, after his roommate’s boyfriend mentioned his deceased father, the father’s name showed up in her bio on MySpace.
@bautistud !PLEASE WATCH! The ending is so creepy, has anything like this ever happened to you?? #landlord #creepystories ♬ original sound – Chris Bautista
Then, there was the most unsettling experience of all. The TikToker described how, while he was home alone in the shower, someone unexpected came in.
“I hear my front door open shut and I hear steps coming up the stairs of my apartment. And I’m frozen because I know my roommate is for sure gone,” he said. “And I was like, ‘Who the f**k is in my apartment?’ And the voice says, ‘I’m here to fix the light.’ And I was like, ‘There’s no light that needs to be fixed. Get the f**k out of my apartment.’”
After this, Chris and his roommate had enough, and they both moved out of the apartment. But years later, Chris said he discovered the landlord’s mother had been dead since the nineties, he was lying about her being alive, and he owned the building the whole time.
Chris said he also later discovered that the landlord worked in surveillance, which made him suspect the home intruder was never there to fix the light, but to fix cameras to spy on him instead.
Viewers in the comments section were just as appalled as Chris, with some sharing their own theories as to what was actually happening.
“I’m so sorry to tell you this, but he was probably selling access to the livestream of your appt,” one surmised. “Thats why he offered such cheap rent.”
“As soon as you said craigslist, I knew there was cameras,” another wrote.
One jokingly asked, “Was his name Norman Bates?!” referencing the protagonist in Psycho.
