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Episode 105

24m 24s

Episode 105

Two disturbing true stories are shared in a horror podcast titled *Radio Rental*, each illustrating the unsettling experience of being watched without consent. The first involves a child who, while trying to fall asleep, discovers strange CCTV-style images on her family’s TV, showing footage of her own home—including a clear image of herself in pajamas—originating from an unexplained HDMI input. No cameras or recording devices were found, leading to speculation that a landlord or unknown entity was secretly monitoring the household. The second story details a woman whose car is intruded upon with no forced entry, and whose family photo is cut into pieces with scissors, left scattered in the vehicle. The incident is described as malicious and targeted, with no material theft, suggesting a psychological attack. Both stories emphasize deep fears around privacy, surveillance, and the violation of personal space. The podcast, hosted by Vince and others, blends horror narratives with real-life elements and psychological depth, warning listeners of potential triggers. It also promotes a premium subscription, Tender Foot Plus, offering early access and bonus content. These experiences underscore a pervasive sense of unease about being observed in everyday environments, raising questions about privacy, technology, and the ethics of surveillance.

Transcription

3495 Words, 18543 Characters

English
Hate waiting a week for the next episode of Radio Rental? Subscribe to Tender Foot Plus to get early access to episodes, add free listening, and even some bonus scary stories. Visit tenderfootplus.com for details. The following podcast includes scary stories with content that could be triggering to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. Take a break from the same old boring blockbusters and experience a new kind of movie night with Radio Rental. At Radio Rental, our videos come to life in your living room. Defy all logic and reasoning and make you question your own reality. This is not your ordinary video rental store. At Radio Rental, we carry one of our kind videos so frightening, so mind-bending, you won't be able to sleep at night. You've gone. Radio Rental. Hey, man. Welcome to Radio Rental. I'm Vince. Again, as you can see on the name plate on my vest, Radio Rental is a video rental store, but we specialize in horror. And in the back, we have a collection of secret tapes. All true horror stories told all by real people, hard, hard stuff. Doesn't get any harder than that. I'll assume that you want to watch one of these tapes. Good. That's good. Real good. Because Vince wants to watch one of the tapes, too. Not that I'm pumped about it. I'll grab one. How about this one? Now, okay. Off the counter. You're making me awfully upset that you're not moving. Okay, thank you. All right, first tape. Letter rib. ♪ ♪ I was in sixth grade at the time, so I was probably around 11 or 12. My family was originally in a rent-to-buy situation, which didn't go out the way they wanted it to. And we had to move really quick into another house. It was a really big house. We ended up getting four bedrooms, three bathrooms, and it had this really large living room with an overlock. It was gorgeous. I do remember meeting the landlord. They came to the house once, I believe, when I was a kid. And they didn't seem like bad people. They were just older folks. My parents' bedroom was the biggest bedroom in the house. Their master bedroom had a very big living room that attached to it, and then it would leave to a hallway where their closets were. And since we had that big living room, me and my siblings always used to have sleepovers over there. I'm one of six girls, so that's just how we kind of bonded. So we'd always have movie nights there, and we'd like hang out. It was great. At the time, my family was like super not into technology. I've been programming since I was nine. So any time they needed help with something, it was me who had to help. This was a time where streaming was becoming really popular, like the Roku, Netflix, all that kind of stuff. So my parents had switched from cable to Roku's that connected directly to the TV. So it was a sister sleep overnight. Everybody had went to bed. I was the only one up. I could not fall asleep without the TV on. It has to be on, at all times, for me to fall asleep. We had lost the original remote to TV. We had to physically get up, and on the side of the TV, there's HDMI input settings, and you have to press it until it reached the HDMI input setting where the video was being broadcast. So that night, I got up. I went to go change HDMI settings. When I hit the second HDMI setting, input comes on TV, which never happens because there's nothing plugged into the HDMI setting because we don't have cable. Something pops up on the TV that I've never seen pop up before. That's where I see all these image panels of different CCTV footage. So confused of what it is I'm even looking at. I take a couple of minutes to comprehend it, and I'm staring at each image. I remember being very greeny, and it was very low quality. Each image is a different part of a house. One is a kitchen. One is the living room. There's a couple other ones throughout the house. A basement. I had no clue what I was looking at. The first thing I'm assuming is that it's a cable image. Maybe my parents got cable again, or there's another input setting. The last panel was a little bit of a smaller living room, and it looks like there was someone in the panel. Somebody was looking at a TV. I noticed the pajamas specifically that they were wearing very distinct. That's where I noticed that it was me. I'm looking at imagery of my own house. What I can only say to be was camera footage. It's all of our things and all of our belongings. I was so scared, my stomach dropped. I was small enough to jump and hide behind the TV stand. That's what I did, so I didn't have to look at these images anymore. I switched that last HDMI setting and put it back on to the Roku. Then I run back to bed and go to sleep. I do this thing, which I still do when I'm really scared. I just go underneath the covers and I fall asleep as quickly as possible, because you can't be scared when you're sleeping. So the quicker I fall asleep, the less I will have to be scared or worry about it until the morning. The next day, I was trying to figure out where these supposed head cameras could be, so I looked around the house. I'm looking everywhere that I saw the footage originally showing. It looked like the cameras were placed in the foyer where you walk in, the basement where you would be watching TV or watching a movie, the main living room where everybody would sit, the kitchen, where it would point to everyone where they were eating, and then my parents master bedroom living room. I took my hand and I rubbed against the wall to see if I could find anything and I could not find anything, nothing. I'm looking through all my parents' phones to see if they could find any recording apps of camera footage apps or on their browsers if they have anything that's like a streaming for a camera, and I literally could not find anything. I looked all day, that day, nothing. I didn't tell my parents because I guess at the time I was just way too scared. When I did tell my parents, they were pretty mad that I didn't tell them at first about what had happened. Like I said, I just cannot believe my parents can install anything. They can't even do Wi-Fi. It was a rented house, so there was no way that they were allowed to put anything up like that, especially install something in the house. We had very strict rules. When it comes to that, we would always have people who had to contract and come over, especially because it was like a rented place we can't hire own staff to do all that kind of stuff. We have to have the landlords do it. My theory is that, for some reason, the landlord really wanted to watch. All of us make sure the property isn't being broken somehow. But at the same time, as like a kid of six little girls growing up in a house, I think that is a very creepy way to ensure that your property stays safe. We're all kids and these people who we do not know were pretty much watching us. I feel like after I had found the videos, I kind of like did like shift the way that I acted in that house. As I'm in college and a computer science student now, it really kind of disturbs me a lot more. I just think of being like watched in that house. I think of all the moments where I was like doing something personal or just even eating dinner or being around my home watching TV and thinking about the fact that somebody could have access to what I'm doing right now and watching me and watching what I'm doing right now. And that definitely scares me a lot. Oh wow, that's really terrible. You should definitely never watch people without their permission. Just totally, completely unrelated. Don't look in the top right hand corner of the store. There's not a, there's actually a big spider's nest up there. Large spiders, you don't want to look at it. It'll freak, okay, let's take a break for ads. Do you have a dark curiosity? Heart Starts Pounding, Horror's hauntings and mysteries is a weekly podcast hosted by me, Caitlin Moore. Each week I'll take you on a dark journey through terrifying true urban legends, bizarre true crime cases, chilling tales of backwards horror and more. So if you're looking to join a passionate community of the Darkly Curious, check out Heart Starts Pounding on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, stay curious. A reporter receives a shocking tip about something that happened inside a woman's prison. He starts asking questions and what she in covers is far bigger than one disturbing event, a deeply entrenched system that people it protects and the women who risk everything to challenge it from the inside. Snap Studios and KQED present. We are Jane Doe, a three-part investigative series listen on Snap Judgment, wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, we're back. Hopefully no spiders jumped on your face. Let me just take a little sip of my energy drink. It calms me. Oh, there's a friggin' Lego in my energy drink. Malachi, are you trying to assassinate me? Best of luck, Vince is smarter than the average bear. Anyway, let's get that tape in. So this happened when I moved to a new city. I didn't know a lot of people I only knew my boyfriend and then we knew a couple of his distant family members there. Where I moved was, it looked like any other very safe suburban neighborhood. I mean, I didn't know a lot of my neighbors 'cause it was a mostly older neighborhood. That year I asked my friend to come visit me for my birthday 'cause I didn't have a lot of friends down here. And so she did. She was here for a couple days. We went out and then the next morning I was going to drive her to the airport. And the night before when we went out, I had parked right outside my cul-de-sac. And I had never parked there before, but there was no problems that I thought were going to happen. I woke up the next morning, we were going to drive her to the airport, we were going to get some breakfast before. We walked out to my car, we opened the door, and it took a second for my brain to process what was going on to understand that something was wrong. I'm a pretty messy person, so I thought maybe my car was just like super messy. Everything was just piled into like the passenger seat floor. My glove compartment, my two sides of my door, my like everything. Everything was piled onto the floor. I knew that it wasn't just me like being messy. Someone had been in my car and moved to things. And that came in like a eerie feeling. We were like that's really weird, like my car must have been broken into. But the windows weren't broken, and like there was no signs of like force entry or anything. I thought okay weird, I must have just like left my car in lock to like so stupid of me, whatever. But I'm like very, very OCD about locking my car. That never, I mean I would never do that, but I thought you know, ever makes mistakes. I was really kind of looking around like seeing what might have been stolen. I started listening really, really weird things. Like I was dumb and left a couple like some cash in the car, and that wasn't taken. I left my AirPods in the car, and that wasn't taken. So then I'm thinking what kind of thief is coming into my car and like not taking like things that are just sitting on the seat. Maybe they got scared off before they could take anything, they just rifled through my car, whatever. So I get a big trash bag, and I'm like growing things away, just like trying to figure out you know if anything let's take in. I have a picture that I keep in my car all the time of me and my family. It helps with like homesickness, I just look at it when I'm driving. I was probably two years old in the picture, and it's like me, my parents, my grandparents, my aunt, like whole family. I always wanted to just keep little memories. Anything I could have my family around me. So when I missed them, I could look at a picture of them. It was like they were kind of there with me. That was one of the only family pictures I had physically, which was why I kept it with me so much, because we just didn't print out a lot of them. Everything was in one pile, so it's not weird for like one thing to be out of place. But something in my brain was like, where's that picture? I just can't find the picture. And then I find parts of the picture, heads of my family members, just like sitting on the ground. Okay. There's just perfectly cut out pictures of my family's heads. This is so creepy. Perfectly cut out, not whipped. It was like someone had sat in my car and cut them with scissors. I'm a little dramatic, and I start crying, because I'm like, this is so scary, like this is so weird. We never were able to find the rest of the picture. And as we were kind of like dealing with that, someone walked up to my car, and they asked me if I had a break in. I said, yeah. He introduced himself as my neighbor. I didn't know a lot of my neighbors at the time. He said, was a picture stolen from your car. Yeah, that was the only thing that was taken. And he said the same thing happened to me. And he was able to describe to me how it happened to him basically, which is kind of how I pieced together. Why am I when those weren't broken and what happened to me? Where his car was, he was able to get some ring camera or video footage like when it happened to him, but unfortunately like where I was, there was no camera facing my car. But when he did check his cameras when his car was broken into, all it caught was a man walking by the car. He stood there for a couple of seconds. All the lights in the car went on, and then the guy went in. And he had no idea how the guy got in. There was no breaking of any windows. It didn't look like he was unlocking anything. And I'm pretty sure that that's the exact same thing that happened to my car. I'm sure there's like some tool that people use for criminals like breaking the cars, but it still really freaked me out. I have no idea still how this happened, how this happened to this other guy. And I've been really terrified to like park my car there ever since, because I don't know, it's just outside of my circle. And I feel like maybe this guy just kind of hangs out outside my cold assack. It wouldn't have scared me so much if it didn't feel so malicious and targeted. Why would you want pictures of my family? We did find the scissors from the first aid kit in my car, which is how he cut the faces. Some guy just came by, sat in my car for however long, and took the time to do that and then left. And it scarred me forever. I think about it a lot. I don't understand the motive. He obviously didn't want to steal anything because he didn't. He just wanted to freak me out, I guess. I have a feeling that this is definitely not the first or second time that he's done it, but I just wish I knew like what he wanted or like what he was really doing with it, because it's not something you hear every day, like criminal steals pictures from people's cars. He didn't want anything but that picture, so I wonder what he does with them. I imagine that he does have some kind of wall or like sick room or something that he has these pictures in. And I'm in there somewhere, which is just so unsettling to me. I can't figure out the why. I want to so bad and I can't figure it out. [MUSIC] Would it be totally bunkers if that guy had a whole wall of other people's family photos? Maybe he cuts out some of their faces and he puts himself in those photos. Maybe he just peruses the aisles at the Goodwill store picking up family photos and inserts himself in to be a part of their family, I don't know. Is that kind of sweet? I think it might be, let's take a break for ads. [MUSIC] Did you know that if your spouse goes missing but you don't tell anyone, that's not necessarily a crime? That surprising fact is that the heart of the brand new season of Bearbrook, the award-winning true crime podcast from New Hampshire Public Radio. I'm your host, Jason Moon. In season three of Private Matter, we investigate another New Hampshire mystery. A beloved Christmas tree farmer with dementia vanishes from his small town. His wife never reports him missing. Can he still be found? >> If you knew Jay as well as I do, he's private, he doesn't want everybody to know his business. >> I don't believe you. >> I kind of revert back to that Bearbrook saying, what if we were to just come across something? In a room down she said, I found him. >> Follow Bearbrook on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. >> Looking for a horror podcast that isn't murdered to get through? >> Then check out another Fingr Horror Podcast. Our show where paranormal and true crime stories collide with unfiltered commentary. >> I'm Monique Sanchez, and I may be trading. Each week, Monique and I share one paranormal story and one true crime case, from unexplained phenomena to true tales of murder and mayhem. We find the stories you haven't heard before and research them obsessively to bring them to life. Follow our watch on other Fingr Horror Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. >> Thanks again for stopping by. I appreciate it when you stop by because it means that I get to watch another one of the tapes. I don't think it's probably good for me to watch them alone because I might get addicted and addictions of hell of a drug. Anyway, I'll see you around. That better not be another fucking Lego, I just stepped on. Oh, it's not, it's a used syringe. [MUSIC] >> Radio Rental is created by Payne Lindsay and brought to you by Tenorfoot TV. Showrunner is Meredith Stedman. Lead producers are Eric Kintana and Stephen Perez. Executive producers are Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright. This episode is hosted by Tony Cavalero. Writing by Meredith Stedman. Original score by Makeup and Vanity Set with additional score by J. Ragsdale. Sound design makes him master by Stephen Perez and Cooper Skinner. Editing by Eric Kintana, Sean Nerny, Stephen Perez, Meredith Stedman and Cooper Skinner. Our production manager is Jordan Foxworthy. Cover artwork by Trevor Eiler and Rob Sheridan. Radio Rental merchandise by Byron McCoy. To shop Radio Rental merch, visit shop.tenorfoot.tv. Special thanks to Orrin Rosenbaum and the team at UTA, as well as the Nord Group and the team at Odyssey. If you have a Radio Rental story that you'd like to share, please email us at [email protected] or contact us via the form on our website radiorentalusa.com. Follow us on Instagram at Radio Rental. On behalf of the Radio Rental store, we'd love it if you'd subscribe, rate, and review. As always, thanks for listening.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. A young girl recounts a terrifying experience in her sixth-grade home, where she accidentally activates a hidden HDMI input that displays strange CCTV footage of her own house, including a clear image of herself in pajamas.
  2. The footage shows multiple rooms with surveillance-like coverage, but no cameras or recording devices were found, leading to the unsettling theory that an unknown party—possibly the landlord—was monitoring the family without consent.
  3. Another listener shares a story of her car being broken into with no forced entry, where family photos were cut out of a memory picture with precise scissors and placed on the floor.
  4. The car incident reveals no stolen items, suggesting a targeted, malicious act designed to psychologically terrorize the victim, possibly with a motive tied to a disturbing personal agenda.
  5. Both stories feature themes of unseen surveillance, distrust of authority, and a deep sense of violation, highlighting how ordinary environments can become sites of psychological horror.
  6. The podcast emphasizes caution and listener discretion, noting content may be triggering due to its disturbing and real-life nature.
  7. Radio Rental offers early access to episodes and bonus content through its premium subscription, Tender Foot Plus, promoting engagement with its horror storytelling.
  8. The narratives explore broader themes of privacy, digital intrusion, and the fear of being watched, reflecting a growing societal unease about surveillance and personal boundaries.

Summary:

Two disturbing true stories are shared in a horror podcast titled *Radio Rental*, each illustrating the unsettling experience of being watched without consent. The first involves a child who, while trying to fall asleep, discovers strange CCTV-style images on her family’s TV, showing footage of her own home—including a clear image of herself in pajamas—originating from an unexplained HDMI input. No cameras or recording devices were found, leading to speculation that a landlord or unknown entity was secretly monitoring the household.

The second story details a woman whose car is intruded upon with no forced entry, and whose family photo is cut into pieces with scissors, left scattered in the vehicle. The incident is described as malicious and targeted, with no material theft, suggesting a psychological attack. Both stories emphasize deep fears around privacy, surveillance, and the violation of personal space.

The podcast, hosted by Vince and others, blends horror narratives with real-life elements and psychological depth, warning listeners of potential triggers. It also promotes a premium subscription, Tender Foot Plus, offering early access and bonus content. These experiences underscore a pervasive sense of unease about being observed in everyday environments, raising questions about privacy, technology, and the ethics of surveillance.

FAQs

Tender Foot Plus offers early access to podcast episodes, free listening, and bonus scary stories. It's a subscription service for fans of the Radio Rental podcast who want exclusive content.

Yes, the podcast features scary stories with content that could be triggering for some listeners. Listener discretion is advised, especially for those sensitive to horror or disturbing themes.

Radio Rental specializes in horror stories, including real-life true accounts of terrifying experiences, often involving unseen surveillance or psychological unease.

The girl discovered strange CCTV-like footage on her TV when trying to change HDMI settings. The images showed her own home, including a panel with her family, which made her extremely scared and led to a deep sense of being watched.

The woman found her family photo cut out and scattered in her car, with parts of the faces perfectly cut with scissors. A neighbor confirmed a similar incident, and the only evidence was a man standing by the car with no signs of forced entry.

You can email your story to [email protected] or use the contact form on the Radio Rental website at radiorentalusa.com to share your own experience.

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