Man tried to break into a college student's apartment, leaving her roommates terrified — one thing he left behind made him apologize and pay her $200
A quiet night at home can feel very different when someone suddenly tries to enter your apartment. This was the situation writer and content creator Scout Gray faced when she was in college, when a man tried to break into the apartment she shared with her roommates. Although he never managed to go inside, the incident left everyone shaken and unsure what could happen next. The man left behind something while trying to get away, but Scout did not realize at first how useful it would become. She later shared the incident on Instagram under the username @scoutgrayyy, recalling how the frightening incident took an unexpected turn.
The man had dropped his wallet trying to get into the apartment, giving Scout a way to identify him. He then walked downstairs and urinated all over the front doorstop before leaving. The incident made the content creator and her roommates even more uncomfortable, with everyone wondering whether they were being threatened. Seeing how scared her roommates were made Scout angry. Rather than staying quiet, she opened the wallet and found the man’s name and phone number. She then decided to call him and confronted him directly. “Is this Greg?” she asked when he answered, before telling him to return and clean up what he had left behind. Scout told him she would not return his wallet until he dealt with the mess himself. After cleaning up the mess, he also sent Scout $200 through Venmo.
On the call, she also pointed out that she had his credit cards, making it clear that she had no intention of simply handing everything back. The man agreed to come over, and he arrived about 45 minutes later. For someone who had just scared a group of roommates in their own home, his response was very different from what they might have expected. Standing up for herself gave Scout a sense that she could control the situation instead of letting fear decide what happened next.
The man then arrived carrying his own cleaning supplies and cleaned the area outside the apartment. In the caption, she also revealed that she was 22 at that time, while the man was nearly 35. He was also crying when he returned, which made the encounter even more unexpected after the fear he had caused earlier. The situation ended with another unexpected gesture from the man when he paid money through Venmo.
The only way to stop unwanted behavior is to call it out. In another incident, a group of dancers dealt with a man who repeatedly made offensive comments without getting into a direct argument. One dancer then decided to make him uncomfortable enough to leave on his own. After he returned from the bathroom and picked up his drink, she calmly asked, “How does your drink taste?” When he became suspicious and asked whether she had done something to it, she questioned why he thought she would. Worried that something had happened, he left the bar. Later, camera footage confirmed she had never touched his drink.
For more interesting stories, follow @scoutgrayyy on her Instagram account.