A little over two years ago I moved into an older, low rent apartment in downtown Dickinson, North Dakota.  Considering that my truck got stolen in 2017 from this neighborhood by a methamphetamine addict, my bicycle got stolen last month, and more attempted thefts continue, there hasn’t been much of a cost savings from renting this cheap apartment.

However, if you were to regularly read the Dickinson Press newspaper articles under the headings “Police Blotter” or “Crimes & Courts”, you would see that theft, burglaries, and vandalism happen all over the City of Dickinson.  In fact, some of the newer and more expensive apartment complexes experience an even greater amount of  theft because the residents there have more and better things to steal.

I continue to live in my older, low rent apartment in downtown Dickinson because I like this two-bedroom apartment itself, and there is no point in me paying more money for a newer apartment in a different part of town, if the amount of theft and vandalism is going to be the same or even worse there.

In my recent previous blog posts, I went on and on about the successful theft and attempted theft of my property where I live.  I wrote that I eventually began talking to the drug addict women who live at the Drug House down the street, in order to try to learn who had stolen my bicycle and who keeps attempting to steal my property.

I already described and explained that I became attracted to one of the drug addict women at the Drug House, because unlike most of the women in Dickinson, she was thin, small, cute, diminutive, friendly, and she would talk to me at length without trying to get away.  This particular girl who I described in my previous blog post, she was not as bad or as dangerous, as one of the other drug addict women who I became even more interested in.

On the evening of June 25, one of the residents of the Drug House was seen using his phone to take pictures of what was in the back of my truck, appearing to be prospecting or shopping my property before he stole it.  A couple of hours later, due to a dispute, four or five Dickinson Patrol Officers had to chase this same individual and taser him a hundred feet away from my truck.

The Dickinson Police then had to detain and question about five of the other residents and visitors to the Drug House, out on the street where I live.  A couple of days later, one of the women residents of the Drug House, she came walking up to me when I was outside working on my vehicle parked on the street.  I was interested in asking her what was going on, what had happened, and who was it who keeps stealing my stuff.

At first, I didn’t notice much about this young woman, I was more interested in trying to ask her questions in the right way to get information, without causing her to walk away.  I soon realized that she wasn’t in a hurry to get away, she seemed willing to tell me anything I wanted.  I felt bad for her, because she was being so cooperative, I didn’t want her to get into trouble with the drug people that she was living with by being an informant.  She didn’t seem to care about her own safety.

Maybe she was just telling me what she thought I wanted to hear.  Maybe she was making things up.  Maybe she was sick of the drug people that she was living with and was angry with them, I don’t know.  I began noticing more what she looked like.

She was nearly my height, only an inch or two shorter than me.  She had blond hair that went down a little past her shoulders.  She was wearing a white color, light summer dress, with a V-neck, a high side split on the skirt, and she was wearing cowboy boots.

What I noticed most about her, was that she was skin, bone, and muscle, with no fat on her.  Her neck, shoulders, and arms just showed muscle, like a young professional dancer who practices five or six hours every day.  I admired this about her, though I supposed that her physique was from drug use, rather than dedicated exercise.

Because she was so forthright and forward with me, being able and willing to stand there with me having a conversation, and because of the way that she looked and presented herself, I was attracted to her, and in a way she was exactly what I was looking for.

I can’t over emphasize the scarcity of attractive women in Dickinson, North Dakota.  The ratio of men to women in Dickinson is about 3:1, and the women who are here are mostly unattractive, overweight, unkempt, hostile, mean, and unfriendly.  Like the old west, there is a need for prostitutes in Dickinson, but the Police in North Dakota won’t allow it, and they are always trying to entrap men looking for prostitutes.

This young woman that I was now talking to, I will call her “Teresa”, though that is not her real name.  She told me that she was being evicted from her apartment, and that she was going to court to dispute her eviction.  I believed that she did not have a job, and that she probably had no money, or very little money.

I believed that this whole episode of “Teresa” approaching me and talking to me, was to present herself to me, to see if I had any interest in her, because she needed help.  Yes, I was interested in her, and I was willing to help her, but I planned on being very circumspect about it.

I told her that I thought that she was attractive, and that I wanted to see her again.  She smiled, and she said that I would.  I gave her the flyer that I had made offering a reward for my stolen Mongoose Mountain Bike, because it had my phone number on it.  She said that she would call me in a couple of hours, but right now she had to go get a lamp out of a garbage dumpster, at an apartment where some people were moving out.

After she walked away, one of my neighbors who is a friend of mine drove up.  I told him that I was just talking to one of the drug addict women from the Drug House down the street, who was very attractive, that I had to go clean and hide everything in my apartment because she was probably coming over, would he please talk me out of this, because this is a terrible idea.  My neighbor said no, he wouldn’t try to talk me out of this, that he had had drug addict girlfriends before too.

I had to dust the window frames, shelves, base boards, other objects, and vacuum my apartment.  While cleaning, I made a mental note of everything that I would have to go back, pick up, move, hide or lock up in order to keep “Teresa” from taking it.  Check books, spare key sets, handguns, laptop computers, car titles, bank statements, credit card statements, life insurance statements, investment statements, would all have to be gathered up and locked in a large steel chest that I use as a safe.

As an hour passed, I began to think that I would be just as happy if she didn’t call and didn’t come over, as if she came over and had sex.  I began to realize that this wasn’t just a matter of hiding and locking up everything that she could possibly take.  It was possible that she would want to stay here, and move whatever she had into my spare bedroom.  Then, I wouldn’t have to only worry about her, I would have to worry about her drug addict friends that she would invite over while I was at work.

What if she became a problem, and she refused to leave my apartment after a few days, a week, or a month?  If she refused to leave, and the Police wanted to treat her like an equal tenant, this would have to go through an eviction process which could cost a couple thousand in legal fees and take two months.  I would probably get kicked out of my own apartment if she wanted to put on an act that I was abusing her.

“Teresa” didn’t call or come over that night.  I saw her and her girl friends carrying several loads of discarded household furnishings down the street back to the Drug House.  In the following days, she came down to the apartment building where I live riding a bicycle asking for me, and once she was headed to my apartment building and the Dickinson Police stopped her and told her to turn around and go back to where she lived.

I thought and thought about all of the bad things that could happen from having any involvement with “Teresa”, and then I found out who she really was, which I will explain in my next blog post.