From stalkers and strange men to drug addicts, sometimes we find ourselves in unbearably uncomfortable real life situations. These are the strangest that have ever occurred in Michigan.

From the archives of Reddit's Let's Not Meet forum:

  • Heroin Addict Trespassing in Kalamazoo Home

    /u/sicknallard

    A group of 5 guys was sharing a historic house near downtown Kalamazoo. Following an night when they had friends over,

    The next morning, around 7 am, my roommate is going downstairs with one of our friends that slept over, he wants to make a sandwich and can only find a big bread knife (it had been a while since we had done the dishes) and walks into the kitchen, where the door to the basement also is. As he gets into the kitchen he saw the friend guy standing at our front door. The guy freaks out a bit because my room mate is holding a fairly large knife, my roommate asks him why the hell he is standing in our kitchen and he replies with that he got locked out so he came into our house to sleep in the basement. After hearing that my roommate tells him to get the f**k out, and he does without hesitation, we then call the cops to make a report. A little later we go down into the basement and on the floor is a message written in chalk from the guy apologizing for sleeping in our basement along with some creepy drawings and the phrase "living dead boy." The message also contained both me and my roommates name, which also kinda freaked us out. He had slept there the entire night and none of us knew.

    Getty Images
    Getty Images
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  • Saved by the School Bus Driver in Northern Michigan

    /u/sequinedseafoam

    When she was just 7 or 8,

    I woke up one morning and got ready for school like I usually did. My bus picked me up around 7 a.m., right when the sun was starting to come up a little, but there were still spots of darkness deep in the woods. I was the only kid who was picked up at my bus stop, so I would stand at the edge of the woods and wait until the bus came. My mom or dad would have to drop me off about 5 minutes before the bus came and high tail it to work in order to make it there by 8:00. It's not that they felt completely comfortable doing this, but they didn't have many options. We lived in a safe area (or so we thought), and the bus arrived on time 99% of the time, so they weren't too worried that anything would happen to me in the five minutes I was left alone.

    So I'm standing there, cold as sh!t, waiting on the bus to come, watching the sun rise slowly in the sky. It's still a little dark out, but yet bright enough for me to see what's around me. I saw the lights of the bus in the distance, on time as usual, and it came to a stop right in front of me. My bus driver, Mrs. Teresa, opened the door, said "Good morning," and gestured for me to hop on.

    I walked to my seat, put my stuff down, but noticed that the bus wasn't moving yet. Mrs. Teresa still had the door ajar, and she just sat there, learning slightly out of her seat, staring into the woods. After a good minute or so, we were off and on our way to school after picking up a few more kids.

    Arriving at school, Mrs. Teresa escorted us in, which is something she never did, and I remember seeing her slip into the office and talking to one of the secretaries. I went through my regular school day and was picked up by my dad in the car rider line, as normal. When he picked me up, though, he started asking me all kinds of questions: "Bus pick up go o.k. this morning?" and, "Did any cars stop or blow the horn at you as you waited?" Strange questions that he never asked me before.

    That next morning, my parents didn't take me to the bus stop. Mom dropped me off at school before going into work at a later time. This continued, alternating a drop off by my mom or dad, for the remainder of the school year. At the same time, I noticed they changed my bus stop.

    Years later I found out why my bus driver went into the school that day and why my bus stop was relocated: When Mrs. Teresa picked me up that morning she saw a man standing in the woods behind where I was, just staring at me. She alerted the school secretary, who alerted the transportation office for the school district, and then the police. The police investigated and found some items wrapped up in a t-shirt back in the woods: a hunting knife, rope, a rag or washcloth, and tape. The police never found out who that shit belonged to, but my bus driver, my parents, and the police felt certain that whoever it belonged to had the worst intentions, probably for me.

    I think about this often and wonder what would have happened to me had my bus driver been a few minutes late, or had she not noticed the man standing in the woods after I boarded the bus.

    Because of this incident, the school district changed my bus stop to be located right in front of my house...that way I could stay in my house until the bus pulled up. No more standing by the woods for me. I resumed riding the bus the next school year.

    John Moore/Getty Images
    John Moore/Getty Images
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  • Sex Traffickers on the State Line

    /u/kmp514

    The I-75 corridor which stretches from Sault Ste Marie in Michigan to Miami is one of America's main highways for sex traffickers, with incidents having prevalence around Detroit and Toledo.

    Right after getting over the border to Ohio, I stopped at a Pilot gas station to pee. I had stopped here before without incident.

    After parking at a spot near the front door, I figured I was just running in for a minute, so I left my purse and my phone in the car. My paranoia usually doesn't allow me to do this, since anyone can punch through a window or rig a lock, but after locking my keys in my car one time and unsuccessfully being unable to do either of these things, I figured there was no way anyone could break into my car.

    I went inside in search of the bathroom, and went down the hallway with showers and private bathrooms usually reserved for truckers by accident. As I walked further down, and Indian man literally jumped out of one of the private showers/bathrooms and said "You need to use bathroom? You go in here."

    I looked in and all of his shit was still in there, towel on the floor, shower stuff, toothbrush on the sink, everything. I told him "No thank you!" and bolted down the hallway, which happened to be a dead end. He followed me and said again, "You go in here!" pointing to his shower. I again said "No I'm good!" and he said, "You sure? You go in here." He was gaining on me and I BOLTED by him and found the women's restroom, and was relieved to have a mother with four small children in there with me, took the fastest piss of my life, and bolted out the door, past other people who were blissfully unaware of what just happened.

    After I got in my car I locked the doors and looked around to make sure he hadn't followed me outside or that a car wasn't following me, and immediately called my boyfriend who screamed, "SEX TRAFFICKERS FIND VICTIMS THERE ALL THE TIME!"

    The entire 3 hour drive to my parents' I looked over my shoulder.

     

    Thinkstock
    Thinkstock
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  • Paw Paw's Man in the Woods

    kalmi88

    A group of college students were driving home, likely to Kalamazoo, from a party in rural Van Buren County near Paw Paw.

    Suddenly the headlights illuminated a man standing on the side of the road, outside the clearing in the woods. I immediately moved the car over to give him a wide-berth, and slowed down, since he was right on the edge of the shoulder, and we got a pretty good look at him. Raggedy and scraggly are words that fit perfectly. He had long hair to his neck, although the headlights washed out the color, and I remember thinking that he had no coat on, and while it was warmer than average, it was still January in Michigan. He was hunched over and looked to be probably about 50 years old. He had just an incredibly peculiar posture and air to him, and even in briefly seeing him, it was creepy to see someone standing out on the side of the road like this. We drove past him and I immediately go "holy sh!t, did you see that?" to my friend in the front seat.

    "That guy right there? Yeah."

    I looked up into my rear view mirror. The man had moved into the middle of the road and was just standing there, but without any light, it was impossible to see which way he was looking. Since we had started to go back down hill, I quickly lost sight of him. We started to rationalize what a guy was doing outside in the woods, in January, at about 10:45 PM, but a reasonable explanation was hard to find.

    About 5 minutes of uninterrupted driving later, and with multiple theories having been cogitated on, we came to where our exit to the highway was. I had to stop and get gas before we hit the highway. This was just off the overpass where we'd be getting on the highway from, and there were a couple gas stations and a McDonalds, and that was it for the area. I parked my car at a pump, and my two friends went inside to pay as I filled up...periodically glancing to the pump to see the price, when I heard the crunch of gravel behind me. I heard a door open and shut, and then saw a car come into my view and parked in front of the store. At the time, I didn't think much of already hearing a car door open and close, but after the car parked, I saw a man get out and go inside.

    There was a click, my gas pump stopped, and my car was full. I took out the pump, and turned to face my car as I twisted the cap on my gas line.

    I was instantaneously hit with a feeling of my stomach burning with anxiety. There, at the next pump closest to the street, was standing a ragged, scraggily man with hair to his neck, simultaneously hunched over and leaning against the pump. I was sure that it was the man from earlier. He was staring right at me. I wasn't sure what to say, and had immediately stopped what I was doing and just stared back.

    After a second or two, he flashed a really sinister looking grin, and kept staring at me. I stared back still, frozen, not sure what to do. I knew he couldn't reach me before I either got into my car or into the store. That's when I heard the store door open behind me and my two friends walk out, they were talking, but immediately stopped. "Holy sh!t it's the guy," I heard one of them say.

    He smiled even wider, which I wasn't sure was possible, still just standing there, staring at me. He had big eyes, and I noticed his hair was graying, and his shirt was stained and had holes in it. I didn't want to take my eyes off him, so I didn't see my friends as they approached, but the friend who had also originally seen the guy said we should get in the car and leave. We hopped in and drove off, and I remember us anxiously watching the rear view mirror as we drove the whole way back on the highway to town, and onto campus and to our dorms.

    Now, the parking lot for our dorms was up a hill and around a corner, about 100 yards away from the building itself, and you can't see the entrance to the building from the parking lot, or vice versa. After I parked the car, we all just kind of sat in the car for a few seconds. Finally, the friend in the back seat goes "oh come on, we're making this into a big deal when it's probably just some prank."

    We got out of the car, and I will tell you, we walked really, really fast to the dorms.

    Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
    Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
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