For years I sent out a monthly newsletter and had a sign up box on my website. I used Constant contact and thought it was very cool that you could see who opened the email, how many times and if they clicked through to my website.
I had an individual who regularly read my newsletter, always clicked through. I always think of it as fishing and got excited that we had a biter. Finally the day came and I got a call from a man who was interested in staging his home to put on the market come spring. I recognized the name immediately from my newsletter stats (he was the clicker) and thought yeah! It finally worked.
We set up an evening appointment because he worked during the day. And get this... his home was in the most expensive subdivision in my town! I was giddy. For about four days leading up to the appointment, I kept getting a yucky feeling. I really wasn't too keen on the evening appointment, because it gets dark early. I kept pushing away the feeling because of the prospect of the job. (And he said his wife was going to be there). The day finally arrived for the appointment and I couldn't stand it any more. I called a fellow stager and asked her to come with me. She agreed.
When the guy answered the door, the house was dim. Now it is an almost 2M dollar home, I didn't expect all the lights would be on, but it creeped me out that it was dim. And there was soft music playing. (I know people play music, but it was classical and kinda creepy) And his wife was suddenly called out of town. It may have been my imagination, but he seemed a little off guard that I had brought a guest.
We toured the house and it was immaculate. I say every house needs to be staged, but I was hard pressed to find anything with this beautiful home. The tour lasted a half hour, he said he'd discuss everything with his wife and he would get back with me. I've never heard from him and he stopped reading the newsletter.
You all may be thinking when am I going to get to the part where he attacks us, but that never happened - thank God. I truly feel deep down it was because I had brought the other stager. The level of creepyness in that house cannot be expressed into written word.
I think about this story of mine every time I go on an appointment. I've made it a practice to leave the address and contact information of where I am going and always have my cell phone in my pocket, mace in the other and a sharp ink pen in my hand (I think a pocket knife would be too obvious).
I know we've talked about safety on here before; I just wanted to send out another reminder to listen to your gut and protect yourself before going into a stranger's house.
Posted by 
;)
;)
