‘Took my AmEx to Publix and tried to withdraw $10,000’: Florida couple buys house. Then they learn after closing that it comes with a stalker
A woman has TikTok viewers horrified after sharing the story of how buying her first home with her husband turned into a living nightmare.
In her two-part storytime video, which collectively got more than 390,000 views, TikToker Emily (@quietly.emily) recounts what she calls the “craziest story of all time.”
She begins by explaining that she and her boyfriend at the time moved to Florida in 2021. Shortly after, they got engaged and decided to purchase a house together.
“We bought our first house in Sarasota, Florida,” she says. “And we were super excited about it.”
Emily says the home needed some work, but they were looking forward to flipping it.
She shares what might’ve been the first clue that something was wrong. “We made our offer pretty significantly under asking, and they took it right away,” she says. “I don’t even think there was like a rebuttal there.”
She says the sellers were eager to close as soon as possible, and noticed they acted strangely. “The whole thing was just very weird,” she says. “And we thought that maybe it was a divorce.”
Emily says they started working on the house immediately. Both she and her fiancé had full-time jobs at the time, and could only work on the house on weekends, which left the home vacant from Monday to Friday.
“Do you see where this is going?” she says.
The Event That Tipped Her Off
Emily says she ordered an American Express card and put in her new address for delivery.
“I get a notification that’s been delivered,” she continues. “I’m like, ‘Oh, great. I’m gonna go over to the house and pick it up.”
However, when she arrived, the card was nowhere to be found. “Not in the mailbox, not in the front, on the front stoop,” she says.
Emily recounts contacting the bank and informing them that the card was lost. Their response shocked her. “What do you mean? You signed for it,” they reportedly told her. “And we see right here that we declined a charge of $10,000… You tried to take $10,000 out of the ATM.”
Her mom, who was with her at the time, immediately suggested she go inside the house and look around.
Inside, she found a bathtub full of dirty water, which she says her husband did not fill, and more alarmingly, a newspaper with human feces on it in the guest room.
She recounts hearing someone in her backyard, and she immediately called the police. When they arrive, she says they act “casual.”
“No one broke into your house,” the police reportedly told her. “This is Jane Doe.”
At that point, she enters a mugshot of a woman in the video. “This is the person that was in my house,” she says.
“She stalks this house,” the police allegedly continued. “She used to live here 20 years ago, and the house was passed down to her daughter, who couldn’t escape her, so they moved to the Midwest to get rid of her.”
Emily also remembers the police informing her that unless the woman tries to actively break into her home and harm her, there’s nothing they can do.
Their ‘Stalker’ Doesn’t Give Up
Emily and her husband were devastated by the news, but at the same time, they had already invested in the home. They installed some cameras and hoped she wouldn’t show up again.
“I’m like, there’s no way we’re just gonna catch her on camera,” she says. “Wrong.”
She then included a short clip of the woman trying to enter the home, but without force. She looks around, sees the doors are closed, and promptly leaves.
“You will also notice in this video that she’s wearing a pair of black shoes,” she says. “Those are my shoes. She took my shoes, too.”
Emily recounts that during this time, she also found out she was pregnant, which made her feel even more unsafe to be there by herself.
In the next clip she enters, she shows the woman, accompanied by a man, trying to open the front door. “Now you’re starting to see the anxiety that I had when I was living there.”
Once the house was finished, she says they decided to move in full-time, with her husband arguing that maybe their presence would discourage her from returning.
What Made Them Decide to Sell
Because her husband was working in the medical field, Emily says he was often on call for long hours. This meant she was alone in the house frequently.
One night, she says she saw Jane Doe come to the front door. She says she decided to confront her. “She’s just standing there at the front door,” Emily recounts. “It’s seriously like a [expletive] horror movie.”
“I said to her, I do not want to call the police,” she recalls. “Please just leave me alone.”
What she does next disturbs her. “And what does she do? She licks up the entire glass pan. She did then walk away.”
After that, Emily decided to gather information from the police about what had previously happened in the home. They found out that the woman was “running drugs out of this house,” multiple overdoses, shootings, and more. Eventually, the couple decided to sell the property.
“Just an absolutely insane story, and it is one that I bring up when conversation stalls,” she says.
Commenters Think The Couple Was Wronged
“You should have sued previous owner because that should have been disclosed,” one user wrote. “You might have been able to cancel sale or seek other compensation.”
Another found one part of the story funny. “I lost it at the shoes part,” they wrote. “I’m sorry for laughing but what the heck lol.”
“I’m shocked at the crappy response from the cops, especially in Florida,” wrote a third.
Should the Sellers Have Disclosed Information About the ‘Stalker’?
Evidently, not necessarily. According to local law experts, sellers are obligated to disclose any information that may impact the value of a home, most commonly physical damage or the potential for damage.
Some examples include dangers associated with radon gas, whether the seller is aware of any flooding that may have damaged the property, if there’s a condo or homeowner’s association governing the community, any pending code enforcement actions against the seller, and more.
It appears that issues like a home that comes with a stalker in tow don’t qualify as “damage” in this case.
@quietly.emily Sit down, shut up, and listen to the craziest thing that has ever happened to me. #crazystory #fyp #whydoesthishappen #homebuyingprocess #nightmare ♬ original sound – Emily
The Mary Sue has reached out to Emily via email for comment.
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