So thursday night, I came home to my really hot apartment (due to the lovely weather last week and the fact that my only windows are skylights that can’t open). I live alone, so I took off a lot of my clothes and was watching tv. I’m home for no longer than 30 minutes when I get a weird feeling and look up to see a man peering down threw my skylight which is directly above me! He did the whole deer-in-the-headlights for a second than ran off. Freaked out, I call a friend who advised me to call the cops. Normally I try to avoid dealing with the HRP, for various reasons but this time it seemed like the right thing to do.
An hour and a half after my 911 call, two female officers show up. They talk to me for less than 2 minutes, going on about how they have vaginas so they fully understand my situation, woman-to-woman kind of bullshit before they leave me alone and make me wait for them on my back steps while talking to tenants in the neighboring apartment complex for nearly half an hour, when the pervert could have been anywhere near by..
Finally we get back to my apartment where they proceed to tell me that they deal with worse cases all the time (nevertheless reminding that they’re “not trying to minimize the situation”), and perhaps I shouldn’t be laying there on my own couch, in my second story apartment only in my underwear, because y’know, guys will be guys. I started getting upset and tried to explain to them that this is how it starts.. those “worse cases” they were talking about.. one day someone’s looking in your window, soon enough they’re in your bed. Their response: “So what, you’re a physcologist now? What do want us to do about it? Arrest every guy in the area with a baseball cap on?” It’s not like most of us haven’t witnessed the cops in this city do stupider things.. Anyway I ended up giving them their card back, telling them that if they aren’t going to do anyting, then get the hell out (which they promptly did) and called up the biggest guy friend I have to come over.
I would personally just like to thank the Halifax Regional Police for all the assistance you’ve been to me over the years.. And warn all the other young ladies living alone in the Quinpool Road area and the whole city for that matter, these sexual deviants are everywhere, and don’t expect the police to do a thing about it, unless perhaps you’re one of the lucky ones and the perv actually gets in and does something to you, then they might really considering looking for him.
—Almost-more-angry-with-cops-than-perv-in-the-skylight
This article appears in Apr 30 – May 6, 2009.
First of all…that’s super creepy.
But…what would you have wanted them to do, other than perhaps treat you with a little more respect? You saw some guy who ran off….I guess he had a baseball hat. Not much they can do except look around to see if he is still there. They aren’t going to sit with you all night or leave a squad car there. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to arrest someone you can’t identify.
What they might do is increase patrols of the area and record your situation so they have data on how often this thing happens. Just because they don’t do things the way you think they should have, doesn’t meant they are not doing their jobs.
yeah, sounds like you’re just a stat at this point.
Tough to track a guy down with no description over an hour after he took off. He could be anywhere by that point.
They’re not your own personal security guards. Shitty that this happened to you but the cops did all they could do in that situation.
You should set up a camera to record a view of your skylight. Peeping Toms tend to be habitual and once they have found something of interest, they may check in from time to time. The police might be more helpful if you have video evidence.
How could he be looking through your skylights? Was he on the roof? I don’t understand how this worked.
I’m with miles on this one. I would think the cops have a good idea on danger levels of this sort of thing. Someone peeping for their first time (however creepy it is) isn’t likely going to pose a physical threat. The cop’s talked to your neighbors, and if they had heard complaints of similar circumstances with a man of this description or with other complaints in the area, or made by you yourself, than they might have done things differently(maybe all they could do is issue a warning to others to be on the look out). With no reason to see a high level threat, they can’t waste their limited resources, taking away from people with a higher level of threat to themselves or others.
I agree that there is not much more that they could have done in that situation, however, I recommend keeping your windows closed and shades shut at all times from now on, and keep a sign outside your apartment area that says trespassers will be reported – (alluding to stalking).
The Police can’t be bothered with something unless it has the opportunity to get their names in the paper where they will become heroes of the city…I was sexually assaulted by a drunk business man and the only thing the cops would do for me was to call two police stations ask if the guy looked familiar and then came back to me saying that they didn’t know who the guy is but I can continue to look for him myself and contact them when I find him. Well I found some information where he could be found and informed them if they could try looking there and their response (after i finally got through to someone since everyone either kept transferring me to someone else or hanging up on me), “this is a big city, we can’t waste our time going around looking around for this guy.”
i think that the point of this post is to make obvious the neglectful and laissez faire attitude the police have towards non-violent crimes in this city. so what, there was nothing the cops could do, but why are we putting up with comments like “it could have been worse”?
we need to be protected both physically and emotionally in this city. we need police who have respect and sympathy/empathy for the victim(s).
Haligonians can’t expect reportings like this to lead to arrest every time, but we should expect our police force to do every thing they can to instill confidence in the victims of this city.
boys will boys? OMFG I can’t believe they said that! Don’t hang naked in your own home? Maybe those bitch cops forgot the reason they became cops in the first place. Shameful. I say lure the pervert in and have your big buddy beat him within an inch of his life and then call the cops, even ask for them by name so they can check their own “serve and protect” handiwork… they can clean up the mess. Obviously that’s all they’re good for.
I can’t believe I’m going to say this but I kind of agree with Kay.
If you can’t hang naked in your own home without made to feel you’re doing something wrong then we’re all fuk’d.
There are worse cases out there. A friend lived in the basement level of a Main Street apt. and would randomly have guys in masks run up to the window, yell and expose themselves for a few seconds before running off.
And they did it quite often.
My advice to you is, please cover up, there will always be some creeps peeping at you when u walking around naked with ur windows open, its just an apartment after all not the PlayBoy mansion.
The OP mentioned she only has SKYLIGHTS that don’t open, Ace Boogie.
I don’t really see how wanting to lounge in your underoos or even naked in your own home is a bad thing.
Bust the fucker for trespassing. …but that is all.
…creepy? Yes.
…criminal, beyond trespassing? No.
What would you say if someone were looking at you using binoculars from their own place? I would say get some damn curtains (or clothes), frost your skylight…whatever it takes to make you happy.
You have to right to stop others from touching you etc., but not to stop them from looking.
…again, though, there IS a crime here, and I consider ‘trespassing’ very serious.
Not to undermine the situation, but I wonder if the guy might have had a legitimate reason for being on your roof in the first place? Could he have been fixing the roof? Inspecting something? Was he your super?
If I was up working on a roof and saw a women lounging naked through a skylight, I’d probably take a second to look to. And before anyone jumps down my throat – you would too and don’t even try and deny it!
That aside, I don’t think the cops could have done anything else. Your description is non-existent and given the time passed since you saw him, he’s long gone. I like the ideas about setting up a camera or something, because if he is a peeper, he will be back.
It seems unlikely to me as well that someone would randomly be on your roof, hoping to catch you naked, especially if you said this was just because it was particularly hot that day so you aren’t running around naked all the time. How easy is it to get on your roof? Do people need to get up there for something? Can you just restrict the access?
Buy one of those sticky things that go on your window to obcsure the view. They still let light in, but no one can see inside.
I’m the OP for this post.. I’m going to clear up a few questions about my post..
Obviously, I didn’t expect every cop on the force to drop what they were doing that night and start looking for this 20-30 year old white male in a baseball cap. But I would have liked to be taken seriously..
It was around 1am, no one was up there fixing the roof, I talked to my landlord. Would your landlord send a guy to fix the roof of an all female tenant apartment complex where each apartment only has skylights in the girls bedrooms and living rooms at 1 in the morning? I think not.
And for the person suggesting I set up a camera, being a 19 year old, paying for a 1 bedroom Quinpool Road apartment on my own, off minium wage, I would definitely say that’s out of my price range.
And no, it wasn’t an isolated incident, it happened to my neighbor the week before, and I’m not sure if she reported it. I haven’t seen her since, I don’t think she’s been staying there and I haven’t been since it happened to me.
I guess the reason I posted it this is was just to give the other females in the area a heads up, and just to let out some anger over the way the cops treated me and the situation.
I don’t have any options to cover my skylight, it’s way too high up, all I can do is move.. (thankfully my lease is up at the end of May!)