It was posted on her door when she came back from work.

"What the hell?" she uttered. She was loaded down with bags and had to put them on the floor. She searched for the key to her room in her purse, fumbling as she stuck the key into the stubborn lock. She tore the printed sign off her door. It was simple Arial type with no other information on the postcard stock.

There were always adverts in the hanging cloth pocket that served as her mailbox in the SRO (Single Room Occupancy) she lived in. Though she had a private mailbox (her mail had been stolen before), she still got ads and unsolicited credit card offers in her door "pocket". Election time had been a nightmare...

It was a simple sentence bit it unnerved her.

"I Know Your Secret", it said.

"Are you kidding me?" She said to no one. She didn't have any secrets, at least none anyone would know about. Once inside the 10 x 10 abode, she threw the printed post card on the pile of scattered papers on the folding tray table and then forgot about it.

Later, she received another ominous note...

Her recent adult life had been full of mishaps and she didn't appreciate any outside intrusion coming to muck it up. She been homeless a few times, having to couch surf, camp in someone's backyard and then live in a relative's house before she was kicked out after offering to pay rent, after cleaning, cooking, helping with errands, pet-sitting, yard work and care-giving.

She realized now, people will always treat you like shit, no matter how much you help them. They will throw you out without a second thought to your well-being or state of mind.

She now knew not to trust anyone.

Her mail had recently been stolen and she knew it was someone on her floor, one of the neighbors, who watched her mail so they could steal it. Since none of the SRO's in Chinatown (or anywhere else in San Francisco) had mailboxes, it was a free-for-all for thieves.

Residents had been kicked out of the SRO for: meth cooking (and dealing), prostitution, fake business running and for AirBnB scamming.

People here were crazy. A white guy below her smoked pot all day and night, never leaving his place ever, not even for food or laundry but called for delivery. The Chinese people above her shoved furniture around at 2 AM, scraping and dropping heavy objects on the ceiling before their kid started screaming in the morning around 7 AM. The Chinese woman on one side of her yelled every time she got a visitor in the morning who checked up on her. It was possibly Alzheimer's.

Most of the building was full of old and decrepit Chinese people. When the elevator broke for two weeks, the old people couldn't go out, get food or even use the accessible bathrooms. In case of fire, there is no escape route. The fire escapes don't work and have been cited by the city as a danger. The old people who can't use the stairs would just have to be burned alive.

Only a few (but growing number) of residents are white, non-Chinese. As the housing crisis becomes worse, more people seek cheaper housing: including those formerly white-collar workers trying to make it. Many non-Chinese residents are new to the city and found the SRO rooms advertised on Craig's List. She was pretty sure they (along with her) were hated for taking away potential rooms from Chinese people. Though rent control was in effect (1.6%), few old time residents could afford the new rent, some having lived there in the SRO for over a decade.

She paid $850, on a room advertised 6 months before at $700. There have been a lot of recent vacancies and high tensions among residents...

She had a lot of potential enemies...

The guy below was so loud, laughing and smoking pot at 3 AM, that she went downstairs, and knocked on his door until he answered all bleary and red-eyed, "What?" he croaked. She noticed he kept the door mostly shut and wondered if he had a prostitute in there. She said nothing to him, making sure to take the secret stairway back to her place so he wouldn't see where she lived. She waited a while to enter her room so he wouldn't hear her.

Since there was only one bathroom per floor, many residents had to go out in the night to use it. She had to be careful not to lock herself out, since the hotel-style doors shut and locked automatically on all the rooms.

Another time, a white, drunk resident was locked out and had to call the landlady to get into his room. It turned out he was just so pissed-drunk and wasted that he had used the wrong key.

"Xiè xie", he drunkenly slurred and did a deep bow to her. She shook her head, wrenching her hand away from his grip as he had taken her hand and advised him, "Don't drink so much. Take care of yourself!" She shook her head at him as he stumbled into his room.

She heard and saw this through the peep hole of her door, the one with a green arrow pointing at it where it had previously been taped over. She wondered if anyone could see her from the other side of it. She had hung a cloth curtain from her door outside on a pole, Japanese style, for privacy.

She knew she didn't fit into Chinatown. She would always be a foreigner. But she didn't think anyone hated her enough to threaten her...

There was a lot of psychological anger pent up in people here. It could've been the culture but people rarely spoke their minds. Some had false smiles they wore as they muttered angrily while your back was turned. There is terrible poverty and people are pretty much stuck where they're at. It's not such a great place to grow up either. There are a lot of teenage gangs, drug-use, gambling and yes, prostitution. Even the children know of this and joke about the "Happy Ending" massage parlors advertised in papers and near the bus stop, of which there are many in Chinatown.

Chinatown also borders the strip club joints of North Beach. Above Chinatown is Nob Hill, where residents there look down upon the peons from their lofty height, secure in their trust funds, Mercedes cars and foreclosure scams. Next to Chinatown is the financial district where the Transamerica pyramid looms over all. Techies have threatened the secure sanctity of Chinatown heritage by threatening to take over the century-old buildings, filling them with techno-lofts and "work stations". A techie office design was already in the works to put into the building over-looking the Chinatown square: the formerly famous Empress of China roof garden restaurant. Residents angrily opposed the would-be project while politicians pretended ignorance.

Chinatown is going through major changes and gentrification. Construction on the T-Line subway, near the elementary school, is still not finished. When it is done, more residents will be displaced. Progress rules all.

She had no allies here. She was alone with no family, only a few friends whom she talked to.

She was not prepared for this threat at her door...

Another message came.

"You Can't Hide", it said.

"Who is doing this?" She went to the landlady and knocked on her door but she wasn't there. The building super wasn't around either. She didn't know anyone else in her building to talk to, so she didn't know if anyone else received a note like hers. She walked around all three floors of her building but didn't see anything posted to anyone's door. It wouldn't be the first time she'd been out of the loop about what was going on in the building...

The water had been shut off twice and she only saw the character for water: 水 but it was posted on the elevator, so the context for her was missing. It was until she tried to shower in the communal bathroom that she saw there was no water.

"Shit!" She swore, only dressed in her bath robe and carrying all her bathroom items and towel.

She never knew what was going on around her and was lost, always.

San Francisco is a strangely isolated place. Even with a population that is nearly one million within 47 sq. miles (more if you count the homeless), it was really hard to know anyone or meet people. As with New York, one could live their whole life here and never speak to a single soul.

Yet here was this note, saying, "I Know Your Secret" with the ominous threat, "You Can't Hide". Who would do this? She hardly told anyone where she lived, much less her address at the SRO. Someone had a grudge against her but she didn't know who they were. What had she ever done to them?

Her whole life, she'd always tried to follow the rules and get along with everyone. She'd bought her co-workers coffee, only to have them treat her rudely. She'd sacrificed her time, only to have her boss fire her. She tried to make friends, only to have them forget about her. She helped her family, only to have them throw her on the street! Why did people always hate her? Why did they always turn on her?

She tried to think who would do this...

Who else knew where she lived? Privacy these days was non-existent. Anyone could look up where you lived. Was it a resident trying to scare her out of the SRO? Was it the landlady, scaring her out so they could raise the rent for the next renter? Her lease wasn't up yet but that never stopped them from illegally evicting the residents (or setting fire to their place). Some deranged pervert? They could get into the building but there were cameras around... It couldn't be an advertisement, if so that was really sick!

She couldn't go to the police... she knew before from prior incidents not to trust them. What proof did she have other than the two postcards? Who would believe her? She decided to take matters into her own hands.

She would install her own camera system, since she was at work and couldn't be home to see anyone who would approach her door. It cost several hundred to install but it was worth it. It would be a continuous feed on the recording on the server which she could access with her cell phone. After so many hours you could speed up the footage or rewind it. So far, no one had come to her door. The one day it didn't work was when her phone crashed... Her stupid smartphone had been crashing since she used the bugged dating site, OkCupid. Not even a new battery would fix what was wrong with it. She never got to see the footage and it was that day that another note was inserted into her door pouch.

"There Is No Escape".

Now this was getting serious. She managed to ask the landlady and the super about the notes but they claimed to know nothing about it. She decided to take some time off work so that she could stay and hopefully catch the fiend sending the notes. She would lose money for sure. She already had tons of bills to pay on top of the security system she had installed. Her credit was suffering and Bank of America kept giving her false and delayed balances on her checking account so that she never knew how much she really had. She was always overdrawn. She didn't have time to grocery shop, do laundry or even shower. She had a sink in her room and could wash but that was it.

"God help me if they shut the water off again," she prayed.

She sat and slept by the door to make sure she could catch the person red-handed. Finally, she heard someone at her door. She opened it and yelled, "Got'ya, you goddamn creep!" But it wasn't the culprit. It was the old lady from the room next to hers. All the old woman held was a small straw broom to sweep the dirt from the apartment to the front of the doorstep every morning.

She had put a piece of carpet in front of her door to deter the nasty old woman's habit but the old woman kept on and the door carpet was always filthy because of the old woman. It never occurred to the senile broad to sweep the mess into a dustpan and into the trash, or even to the outside fire escape. The old woman swept the crap in front of her doorstep on purpose (as the old woman did to the other neighbors around her). Nasty, bitter old bitch.

The woman shouted in Cantonese at her which sounded like an angry hen screeching. The old broad went in her room and slammed the door shut.

Talk about your repressed Asian woman!

All they did was slam doors, at the SRO, at the YMCA and at work. Slam, Slam! SLAM! SLAM! They spit a lot too, just like the men. Signs had to be posted at the YMCA and City College of San Francisco to tell them not to spit into the water fountain. They also gambled at the private parlors, where you could hear the tiles clacking off Spofford.

She had slammed her door shut on the old woman. What the hell did she care? She didn't sleep well that night. She kept having nightmares of drunken homeless men climbing up the fire escape to bang on her door.

She awoke to hear someone banging on her door.

Shit!

She leapt up and ran to the peephole in her door. It was only another neighbor and their drunken son (or husband, brother, nephew?), etc. He had been locked out while using the bathroom.

She was losing weight and getting no sleep. She had to cancel her health insurance to save money, (Anthem Blue Cross $345 a month!) as they kept raising it from the previous $70 a month she used to pay when she was 26 years-old to over $300 a month now. She canceled both her phones because she couldn't afford them since she quit her job in order to catch the culprit who was harassing her. She thought about going to the police but decided against it. She would deal with this person herself.

She spoke to no one and only went out to use the bathroom. She was running out of food and eating emergency rations: canned tuna she had packed in her emergency bag in case of earthquake and disaster. The water was shut off once but she had backup water in bottles she had filled before. She stopped paying her other bills and her private mailbox was canceled. No one was in contact with her. She had no internet, no TV and no radio. Soon, they would cut off her electricity. She had only one month left to pay before she'd be evicted. She would be homeless (again!). She was in desperate circumstance.

The next day the super came by with a note. There was only the address and it was to: Resident at #3##. She saw him as he knocked on her door before she opened it.

"Who sent this?" she tried to get information but he only shrugged.

"It was downstairs," he said simply. His English wasn't perfect but she gathered he was just delivering mail. Sometimes she got mail with other people's names on it, those who lived in her place before she moved in. There were several names but one in particular was always, John S. She guessed he was the guy before her and his mail was the most disturbing. Hospital bills, IRS letters of notification, numerous court summons, lab tests from LabCorp (whose vehicle had been parked in front one time), mental hospital bills and counseling centers. Most people in SRO's were in bad circumstances to begin with but this guy seemed particularly unlucky.

She wondered what happened to him that forced him to move out so quickly before his lease was up (he'd been there only six months before she moved in for one year). But she had her own problems to deal with, now concerning this crazed stalker sending her notes... This message read:

"You're Being Watched...".

No shit, Sherlock. Dig deeper, Watson.

It ended with an ellipses, meaning more was to come...

No return address. The person must've gotten into the building and knowing she had her cameras in place (how did they know?), left it on the counter for the super to deliver. But how did the person know the super would deliver it? Unless... the person lived in her building... they saw the camera system being installed. She blocked out the windows to prevent peeping-toms and placed a retractable cloth over the peephole on her door.

There was an empty room on the other side of her which no one lived in, as far as she could tell. She knocked on the door once but there was no answer. Their address on their mail downstairs read One Minute Systems, Inc., a false business they were illegally running out of the SRO. What if the person was secretly camped out and watching her? They never left their place just as she stayed inside. What if they hacked into her cameras and were watching her?

She stopped going out to use the bathroom and used a piss bucket (never mind the details). All she had to do was wait them out. Whoever was doing this would reveal themselves and she had a sneaking suspicion it was this missing person next door to her. They never left their room. Well, neither would she! She would wait this out until the end.

Even if it killed her.

.

.

.

Afterword:

I just got out of the hospital. Severe dehydration, malnutrition and acute exhaustion was diagnosed. I now owe over $20,000 in hospital bills plus tests and doctor's fees. That's all of my savings... gone. I'm staying in a shelter but I don't know for how long. I had to change my address. I finally got my mail... another postcard from the creepy stalker. I now know who it is.

"I KNOW YOUR SECRET. YOU CAN'T HIDE. THERE IS NO ESCAPE. YOU'RE BEING WATCHED... TO SEE IF YOU QUALIFY FOR A BRAND NEW CAR! NO, I'M NOT THE FBI, I'M MR. CAR GUY! I CAN HELP YOU FINANCE YOUR NEW CAR TODAY!"

There is a picture of a fat car salesman leering at me from the card.

A few other residents in the area are filing a complaint as well and the city has been notified. The car salesman is located south of San Bruno and for some stupid reason, decided to do his advertising in Chinatown, known for the lowest rate of car ownership in San Francisco. Delivery people that he hired are also filing for complaints of non-payment and tax fraud. It's also false advertising, misleading product information and mail fraud.

I'm going to sue the fat bastard for pain and suffering. I have a feeling I'm going to win.