Came home to a paper towel over my webcam twice now, I live alone
Twice now ive come home from work to a paper towel over my webcam in my bedroom upstairs. Only thing unlocked was my window (my fault), which is on the 2nd floor.
First time was about two weeks ago, it was just layed overtop (2nd pic), tonight was the 2nd time, all crinkled up over the camera. Nothing is missing, nothing else is moved or messed with that I noticed. Nobody else that im aware of has the keys to my apartment. Its like someone's trying to pull a "harmless" prank and is just trying to do something super small but super obvious that id notice. I have two cats and they're totally unharmed and acting like nothing happened.
Someone is in the house when you are gone. They are concerned that you use the webcam for security and cover it. This is only the times they forgot to remove it... Just guessing
PLOT TWIST: OP sets up a hidden camera, but because of gas poisoning they forget they did and a couple weeks from now we get a new reddit past 'i live alone but someones been filming me in my apartment. I thought my cats were just putting towels on my computer, but I found a hidden camera'
I have so much other stuff going on in life im too drained, I dont think I have the mental capacity to be as scared as I should be. Genuinely it doesn't feel real and I have myself half convinced its nothing and I managed to get half of reddit more freaked out than I am
Yeah reddit made me realize how dumb I was for thinking it was something harmless, I never thought of the paper towel being used to make extra sure they aren't being recorded by my camera. I took it as a "hey I was here lol you cant do anything about it" type deal, like trying to mess with me or something
Its past midnight and there's nowhere open now, i gotta go buy them first thing in the morning and im gonna leave my webcam on and recording when I leave
I dont leave it recording or anything and I keep the lens cover closed. Only thing I ever use the camera for is when I video call with my boyfriend. Apparently im gonna need to start leaving it recording and see what happens
What's your landlord like? Someone that may be creepy enough to sneak in when he doesn't expect you to be home? Also is it the same paper towel brand you normally use or does it seem like someone is bringing them from home?
Rich older guy that owns a roofing company plus 10+ duplexes. I also cant imagine why, if it were him, he'd choose my apartment out of the 60+ that exist (each duplex has 6 units) unless he's making an effort to go into several. If it were him and he's doing it to make sure im not breaking any rules, id have been evicted already because im not supposed to have pets even though most of my building does đ
And yes its the same paper towels that are downstairs in my kitchen, I actually looked at that earlier to see if it was my own paper towels.
My stomach would drop if i came home and saw this the first time.
I've seen something like this before on Reddit Stories, what i remember is they found out someone was living in their crawlspace or attic, something like that.
You have to check spaces in your home where you don't usually go or never gone to.
Oh it absolutely dropped, but I felt stupid since it was just a paper towel and I ended up convincing myself that I did it in a hurry to leave for work somehow. Now that it happened again I know for a fact I didnt do it, im buying a CO detector and a camera tomorrow as soon as I can
You do any kind of consulting work in DC or international diplomatic stuff? CIA is notorious for coming into apartments just to show they can. If you truly live alone someone has access clearly.
Dude. They think youâll catch them on your camera. And they block it to make sure that doesnât happen. Set up an alternative camera asap. Donât fuck around unless you want to find out the hard way.
Yeah im good, got a CO detector and its definitely not CO poisoning, I have a camera set up now facing my desk and the stairs that lead into my bedroom
Why the FUCK do people, upon discovering evidence of someone uninvited being in their home, just post it on reddit? Jesus christ. Put the fucking phone down, check the entire space for the intruder, call the non-emergency police line to file a report and probably change your locks
Why the FUCK do people assume that posting on reddit is the only thing that they do in these situations? Jesus christ. Itâs perfectly reasonable for someone to do all that stuff but then still be curious about what other people may think is going on. Angrily assuming that they saw this and went straight to reddit only makes you look like a fool
I cant imagine they would, i dont know how they'd manage to perfectly rip a paper towel off the roll, much less get it perfectly sitting ontop of my camera
Do you have an access panel in one of the closets that shares attic space with neighboring units? My sister in law had someone coming into her apartment that way. It was in her daughterâs bedroom to make matters worse.
A) does anyone have access to your home? Landlord? Neighbor with keys? Ex? Family members?
B) it is most definitely time to set up a stuffed toy cam, or some other form of surveillance. When you do, mention it to NO ONE. Purchase it when alone and somewhere you donât normally shop. You donât want to tip anyone off about it incase they are the suspect.
C) get motion sensors you can set up to alert you of windows or doors opening. Also to alert if thereâs motion in the house outside of your pet.
D) Get ready to move. Someone may be stalking you.
You sound like you have a Phrogger or whatever they're called- Search EVERYWHERE, with a friend over so you're not alone. Get cameras. I wouldn't stay in this house anymore Also get a carbon monoxide detector, JUST incase!
Ive genuinely searched every possible corner of the place, its a tiny apartment and there's nowhere anyone could hide that i havent already checked, at least as far as im aware
The first time I genuinely had myself convinced I did it while in a hurry to leave for work somehow?? Now that its happened twice i know for a fact I didnt do it
About two weeks, but a handful of people have said its possible someone's doing it every time I leave and they normally dont forget to take the paper towel back off the camera
Put flour, sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla into a bowl. Mix it up, cut into shapes and bake. The resulting sugar cookies wonât do anything about your mysterious towel toting visitor, but eating delicious cookies may take your mind off it for a bit.Â
Not a joke when I was 12 my mother rented an old mill house and a couple days before we moved in she went into the house and saw two homeless people having sex upstairs.
She immediately contacted the landlord to change locks
Thanks for the awards, friends! For anyone not in the know, check out this famous Reddit post for why you should always check your carbon monoxide detector is working properly or get one if you donât have one. Especially if weird, seemingly unexplained shit is happening in your home. Carbon monoxide gas is odorless and absolutely lethal but thereâs a tiny space before dead where it causes delirium, hallucinations, and memory loss. Be safe out there! (Or in there, as it were.)
A) You're doing it and dont remember. Which raises concern about a gas leak or a health issue. B) Someone else is doing it. Change the locks and get a hidden camera asap. Get a couple of people to come over and check out all crawl spaces in case there's someone hiding on your property. C) This whole post is a troll
Or D) there is a landlord or maintenance person or the maid, doesn't want to be part of some spicy shit OP is doing and they don't clock the comings and goings.
TLDR- A Reddit user was finding unexplained notes in their apartment, believing someone was secretly entering, but it was ultimately revealed to be carbon monoxide poisoning causing memory loss and paranoia. Users in the comments alerted them to this possibility, likely saving their life, cuz there was in fact a crazy amount of CO in their bedroom.
Are you huge and armed and terrifying? If not, call the cops because either someone is in your place right now or someone is accessing your place illegally without your knowledge. This is mighty dangerous.
Honestly, someone is sneaking into your apartment, covering the web cam for fear of being "recorded." You need to get a teddy bear nanny cam thing, aim it at the computer, see what you film.
Who else put it there? Someone IS IN YOUR APARTMENT WHEN YOU'RE NOT.
Maintenance coming in and using your computer. Check your time and dates of data use and system start up see if any activity during times you are not home.
Though in all seriousness, there have been lots of stories of landlords going into people's residences and just chilling there. Using their stuff and eating their food. Get a hidden camera pronto
If u get a hidden camera make sure to watch it somewhere else, in case the person is still hiding. Imagine sitting on your bed and checking the Video just to see someone crawled and under ur bed and didnt moved since then.
How is this 1.7k comments deep and I don't see a top comment saying to check both your browser history and computer logs to see if there is activity while you were gone?
Not only should you check your crawlspaces, have someone do a check of the area surrounding your building.
A friend of mine kept coming home to her toilet being unflushed, and her boyfriend assumed it was just her trying to get out of embarrassing moments by making up stories, despite it happening multiple times over the course of a couple of months. Things would get moved around and food would be eaten, but because nothing was being stolen the police wouldn't do anything. Her boyfriend just kept brushing it off as her being hormonal and anxious from her pregnancy, and because he sucks he wouldn't buy security cameras to appease her.
Then one day she was home alone hanging out in her bedroom, when the door opened and there was a man there.
Luckily nothing happened to her. He was just as freaked out as she was, looked behind him and yelled, "OH SHIT SOMEONE'S HERE!" as he took off running. She chased after him after realizing, hey who's he talking to? and got to the door in time to see him and someone else run into the woods next to her house.
The police did a sweep of some of the land and found out that these dudes were living in the woods barely 500 feet from her home, camping out and doing who knows what (I mean it, we don't know because they had packed up and had just left trash, but you could tell they had tents up) and just coming down to raid my friend's home whenever there was nobody home. The scariest part was that she thought they were watching long enough to have figured out her work schedule, because there had been plenty of days beforehand where she was home alone with no car in the driveway and nothing happened, but this was the first day she was on maternity leave, and normally would have been at work.
TLDR; Have a trusted individual do a sweep of the land surrounding your home.
I think the oddest thing about this post is that you haven't been able to think, for yourself, about whether this is something to be concerned about, and then decide rationally, what you should do about it. There are numerous options, but your critical thinking skills have led you to make a posting about this in a reddit thread instead of pursuing your own opinion about whether this is ok or not ok with you.......Today it's a paper towel over your webcam in your room.....i'm worried about what the next mystery will be......
This has got to be fake because I would be tearing my place apart to find whoever has been hiding there or putting the fear of God into the landlord/maintenence people.
Not extremely proud of this but I had a maintenence guy come into my apartment in the night. Apparently he got the unit numbers mixed up and entered my until by mistake... well, at least that's what he said when I came out of my room with bayonet yelling how he better leave before I gut him. Can't say most of them are eager to do work at my place now, thoughđŹ
My first call would have been to the police. Tell them itâs not an emergency, but that you think someone has been in your apartment and could potentially still be there. They would send someone out to check out your place and they might also bring a Carbon Monoxide Detector with them.
Set up a hidden camera to see if anyone is doing it.
The odds of this happening without someone else getting in there are basically 0. Unless you did it, so like others have said check for carbon monoxide
I once came back home to a running faucet in my bathroom after leaving home for only an hour. Still no idea what was up with that and never had anything similar happen again.
If I've learned anything from Reddit, either someone is in your apartment without your permission, which is a dangerous level of stalking, or you have a carbon monoxide leak and don't remember doing this yourself.
Landlord could be paranoid as he snoops around your apartment i suggest a wireless security camera that auto sends to your phone you could use that web cam
TLDR- A Reddit user was finding unexplained notes in their apartment, believing someone was secretly entering, but it was ultimately revealed to be carbon monoxide poisoning causing memory loss and paranoia. Users in the comments alerted them to this possibility, likely saving their life, cuz there was in fact a crazy amount of CO in their bedroom.
Someone very clearly has access to your house. You need to get on this pronto and call in someone who can actually help. Does the place have hidden cameras or recorders? Has someone duplicated the key? Do you own this house or is it someone from your landlord side making unannounced entries? They could be covering camera because they are an idiot and might think the camera can turn on remotely while they are upto something in your house but not smart enough to take the paper with them.Â
Either way, breaking into someoneâs house is not a âprankâ, itâs a felony. So you better start investigating right this second.Â
I'd set up some other camera for when you are gone. I suggest taking the computer to an IT guy and see what your computer was being used for.... Any theory I come up with isnt a good one. Most are dangerous. This is alarming in any case.
Gas leaks can massively increase anxiety (causing you to cover cameras you may think someone is watching you through), and also cause memory loss.
Use a lighter in your house, if you explode then it'll deffo mean there was a gas leak. No but seriously get a CO detector, even if you have an open flame and you think that's good enough evidence against a gas leak, it isn't.
Let me tell you story about my friend, lets call him Karl.
Karl and I use to work with each other but one day he left. One of the clients he worked with really liked him. So much that he sent me 5x gift boxes to give to Karl. I accepted them and Operation: FuckWithMyFriend began.
I would place one of these gift boxes in random places in his home. Not all at once, no no, that would give the game away to soon. I spread this over a year and a half. Each gift box had a different figurine in it, so I would place said box somewhere strange. Here's a list of places I put them in:
First month - Dog Food Box
Third Month - Behind the TV
Eight Months - behind the picture of his wife and him in a cabinet.
After the third one, his wife talked to me about finding these things and said she was worried someone was breaking in so I told her about it to make sure she was aware she was safe and she grinned and played along.
The second last one was placed after a year in a cabinet only Karl really would use. The wife messaging me with a XD as he was going pretty cray by this stage.
Finally, I placed the last one on the shelf above his computer, staring down at him. For this one he reached out and asked me "Was this you?" I said no, and convinced him that I wasn't the one.
Fast forward to when a group call with my companies clients and Karl is there just to say hi to everyone. It's Zoom so everyone has their cam's on, Karl included. We chat for a little bit then I bring up that Karls been getting weird gift boxes. He goes on a long rant about it, they are so confused by it, they thought the neighbours were playing a prank or the dogsitter.
That's when I look to the client and say, "It looks like he's been enjoying your gifts huh?"
The look on Karl's face as realisation hits. He goes absolutely apeshit for a little bit, not angry just perplexed. The client knew about what I was doing too, everyone was in on it.
Your landlord. They're coming into your apartment unannounced and they clearly don't want you to know what they're doing while they're in there. Time to set up an actual hidden camera.
You may live alone but you have a visitor. Can you get from an entrance point to your computer with out being seen? I'm guessing...terrifyingly...that someone is entering, figuring your camera is on, putting a towel over the camera and doing any number of creepy things in your home.
I would get a pinhole camera ASAP and put it across from your computer, well hidden, and see what in the fuckity fuck is going on.
Remove the paper towel, set your camera to record the next time you leave the house. Find a way to have a copy sent to your phone or the cloud. This way you can see who did it and they cant delete it
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u/Bendyman10 Jan 07 '26 •
someone trying to avoid being recorded as they sneak onto your computer?