We can imagine many of the 70 million people tuning into Netflix’s Baby Reindeer probably thought something like that could never happen to them, but a viral TikTok is proving them wrong.
Rio Yager, a TikTok and Instagram content creator, decided to share her history with a stalker situation that happened about two years ago that isn’t too dissimilar from the story of Martha and Donny at the heart of the television phenomenon. Then a video of the unnamed woman incessantly ringing her apartment doorbell was viewed 16 million times.
The events date back to September of 2021 when Yager had just started dating her boyfriend. One night, the downstairs neighbor — whom the influencer described as being in her 30s and wearing a tight black dress and high heels — came to their doorstep with a bottle of tequila to apologize for the construction work noise she had made the previous day.
Per Yager’s retelling of the events, they accepted the bottle and the apology despite not having heard any noise and disregarded the whole strange interaction until the woman showed up again early in the morning in nothing but a bath towel in an attempt to get inside the apartment. Yager’s boyfriend’s roommate “slammed” the door in her face, rejecting her advances, only for the lady to contact them again a month later by leaving several Morse code notes on their doormat.
Much like Baby Reindeer‘s Martha, the translation of the notes revealed nonsensical and grammatically incorrect messages about a romantic/sexual relationship the neighbor had allegedly made up in her head. “Who are you and what exactly do you want from me?,” said one of the notes. “If you truly want me, call me!,” said another. “I will accept Tony, Leandro, or David,” the noted continued.
Then began the incessant doorbell ringing — the last straw that finally made the group call the police. “We were scared of her so we wouldn’t even open the door,” Yager told her followers. Neither the police nor the apartment complex management provided any real help.
The former visited the neighbor but told Yager and the two boys that they couldn’t do anything unless someone got hurt (again, very similar to what Baby Reindeer‘s Donny was told at the police station). As for the latter, Yager explains that, even though management also revealed that the woman had been bothering other people and was late on rent payments, because there were stricter eviction laws during the pandemic, they couldn’t help.
Yager, her boyfriend, and the roommate were eventually forced to move out and never heard from the stalker again. In another somewhat positive parallel with Baby Reindeer, the influencer chose to conceal the person’s identity to keep them from getting hounded by TikTok users — and did so perhaps more successfully than Richard Gadd.
Additionally, when faced with numerous comments about people who claim they would have fought them if it was them getting harassed, Yager reiterated that violence was never on the table because the woman was obviously struggling with mental health issues and they “didn’t want to escalate the situation.”
“You’ve handled this beautifully. Telling your story but protecting her at the same time shows you are such a compassionate person. Even though you’re traumatized, you understand she is ill,” one commentator praised.
TikTok loves a good storytime video, filled with crazy twists and turns, but we’re ultimately happy Yager and the two men got out of the situation safe and sound. Mostly, the whole thing has made us thankful for our neighbors, though. They might be necessarily loud sometimes, but at least they’re not into Morse code notes.