Man Claims His Landlord Broke Into His Apartment & Set Up Cameras To Watch Him And His Roommate
Be cautious of who you rent your home from.
pixelshot / Canva Pro Many people would flee at the first instance of something strange and unsettling happening upon moving into a new home, but one man and his roommate dealt with several oddities in their apartment before they knew it was unsafe to stay.
The former tenant took to TikTok to share his theory that his landlord installed hidden cameras in his apartment to watch him and his roommate.
15 years after moving out, Chris Bautista explained on TikTok that he originally found the two-bedroom apartment for a good price on Craigslist — which many of the commenters pointed out as the first red flag — and the move-in process was weird, to say the least.
Upon reaching out to see the apartment, the man claimed he didn’t meet his tenants in person and would leave the place unlocked for Bautista to look at.
When Bautista decided it’d be a good fit, he asked to meet the landlord so they could move forward with a lease agreement, but the man again avoided an in-person meetup and said he’d leave them the keys and they’d sort out payment later.
The landlord claimed his mom owned the apartment and he was only responsible for managing it. Despite the man’s detectable peculiarity, Bautista and his roommate moved in. But as they settled into the new place, they felt an ominous sensation.
“Both my roommate and I at the time, independent of each other, every time we were home alone the place had that… undeniable feeling that we were being watched,” Bautista said. “You know that instinctual feeling you feel in the pit of your stomach? We felt it every single time.”
Bautista and his roommate voiced their concerns with each other, but after they did, unusual events followed.
Bautista noted how the landlord appeared to be messing with the tenants in the most subliminal ways, causing them to feel crazy.
First, Bautista returned home from work one day and noticed his house key was missing from his key chain. Confused, he assumed his roommate must have been responsible, so he called her, but she claimed it wasn’t her. After arguing over how it happened, Bautista broke into the apartment, only to find his key sitting on his bedside table. He let his roommate know, and they were both mystified.
Bautista speculated that the landlord must have broken into their apartment in the middle of the night, removed his house key from his key ring, and placed the key ring back in its place.
In another instance, Bautista recalled that his roommate's boyfriend had opened up to her one night while in the apartment about his dad who had passed away.
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The next day, Bautista’s roommate was out of town visiting her mom, and she checked her MySpace page when she noticed an unfamiliar change in her bio. Under the "Who I’d like to meet" section, where she had some of her favorite artists and celebrities listed, at the very end of the list was the name of her boyfriend’s dad, and she knew for a fact she hadn’t added him.
She called Bautista frightened and confused, but he wouldn’t have been able to log into her account or even know the name of her boyfriend’s dad. They believed the landlord had likely been listening in on the roommate's private conversation with her boyfriend.
The two were considerably alarmed.
After one frightful incident, Bautista officially had enough.
Bautista was usually on a routine schedule every weekday that kept him out of the apartment, with classes from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. and work from 11:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. One night during spring break, he parked a little farther from his place than usual since he arrived home late. The next morning, since he didn’t have class, he was home alone getting ready for work. He was getting out of the shower when he heard someone open the front door and begin walking up the stairs.
His roommate was out of town, so he knew it couldn’t be her. He asked, “Hello?” and the steps stopped right in front of his bathroom door. Bautista asked who was there, and the voice of the intruder replied, claiming to be there to “fix the light.”
Bautista told him no light needed to be fixed and demanded the stranger get out of his apartment. The man apologized and quickly scurried out the front door, but Bautista was “shaking with frightened adrenaline.” He called his roommate to let her know what happened, and she advised him to get out of the apartment.
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Shortly after, the landlord called Bautista apologizing for the inconvenience, claiming it was one of the other apartments that needed a light fixed. While this was a seemingly smooth cover-up, Bautista noted the oddity of the landlord not only providing the wrong apartment to the repairman but also giving over the wrong apartment keys as well. Following his suspicions, Bautista asked the other tenants if anyone needed a light fixed, and they all said "no."
This led him to believe no light needed fixing, and the landlord inconspicuously entered the apartment — assuming no one was home since Bautista's car wasn't parked in its usual place — perhaps to repair the hidden cameras.
Bautista and his roommate finally decided it was time to move out.
The roommate called the landlord herself to let him know they were moving, and he tried to reason with them to stay, saying they were great tenants, but she held her ground. The landlord then asked about Bautista, insisting he should stay, and even offering to lower the rent for him so he could afford it on his own, but she denied this unusual offer.
Years later after moving out, Bautista was sharing the unsettling stories of the apartment with some friends, when he came to a disturbing conclusion.
One of his friends looked up the address of the apartment and found out the landlord and his mother’s name, additionally discovering he worked in security and surveillance.
On top of that, the friend also uncovered that the man’s mother, who he claimed owned the building, had actually passed away in the '90s.
While many might deny the validity behind Bautista’s story, it does not negate the caution people should always take when moving into a new place.
Especially considering the odd circumstances of their move-in, Bautista and his roommate should have approached the move with more vigilance, but they are lucky to have left when they did.
It’s uncertain what was truly going on in their apartment, but there are actually several cases of tenants suspecting their landlords of spying on them through hidden cameras.
While it’s normal for landlords to install surveillance cameras for the sake of safety and security, “they are not allowed to spy on tenants inside their rental units.” It’s illegal for landlords to do so without tenant consent, and they must always disclose any security measures in their lease agreement.
There are many unsettling reasons the landlord may have been spying on Bautista and his roommate, and one person made their own inference in the comments. “He was probably selling access to the livestream of your [apartment]. That's why he offered such cheap rent,” the person said.
Make sure to take cautionary steps to ensure your privacy and safety whenever staying in a rental home or Airbnb, like inspecting each room, scanning for signals, looking for a lens, listening for sounds, and checking wi-fi.
Francesca Duarte is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team based in Orlando, FL. She covers lifestyle, human-interest, adventure, and spirituality topics.