A Chicago woman says she was terrified to find a stranger lurking outside her apartment complex on her Ring camera — and now she’s sharing a necessary safety tip for girls who live to tell the tale their very own.
Musician Mary Alice, 25, dished details of her chilling encounter with the unidentified man outside her Windy City home in a TikTok that has clocked greater than 27.2 million views because it was posted on March 31.
The TikToker told viewers she noticed a person hanging round her complex earlier that day.
“He just gave me bad vibes,” she ominously declared, saying she assumed he was not a resident of the apartment block as she had never seen him before.
She said the stranger appeared again when she returned home that evening — and he struck up a conversation.
“I got out of my automotive at night, and he tries to make conversation with me about my headlight since it’s out at once,” the singer-songwriter explained. “[I said], ‘Oh, yeah, I do know. I just must get around to it. Whatever.’”
Mary Alice said she made it safely into her apartment, locked the door behind her, and didn’t turn her light on.
She decided to examine her Ring camera and was terrified by what she saw.
“He [the man] is standing on the street, which may be very near my apartment constructing, looking at my constructing,” she stated. “He didn’t leave for five minutes.”
Mary Alice claims that the person went from standing in an empty parking spot outside the complex to “hiding behind a automotive,” where he “waited” several more minutes before leaving.
The TikToker told her followers that the person now knows what automotive she drives and the apartment she lives in — she wants others to remain secure and vigilant.
“If you go home at night, don’t turn your lights on immediately after you get in your apartment, especially if people can see the windows of your apartment from the road,” Mary Alice implored. “Because if someone’s following you home, they’re gonna know what apartment you reside in.”
Viewers were disturbed by the story and thanked her for the crucial safety tip.
“I’m so glad you considered that,” one wrote. “It might’ve never been my first thought. You certainly just saved plenty of people.”
“I even have smart lights so I can turn them on from my phone,” a safety-conscious commenter chimed in. “I normally turn them on way before I get home as I’m at all times scared that somebody is likely to be inside.”
Mary Alice doesn’t appear to have provided updates on the sinister situation on social media, but she did post a video in April sharing her lock, alarm, camera and light-weight bulb recommendations.
Within the caption of her initial video, which has recently resurfaced and commenced trending on TikTok, she implied it wasn’t the primary scary encounter she had had.
“I’m so uninterested in feeling like prey,” she wrote. “My lights are only on in my bathroom now since it’s the one room I even have with no windows.”
The Post reached out to her for comment.
