Featured on @StorylineReddit: November 11, 2025
It starts in a tire shop. Fluorescent lights, the smell of rubber, a mechanic crouching under the car and pointing to something small and black. She looks. He asks if she knows what it is. She doesn’t until he says GPS.
The realization doesn’t explode. It settles.
This isn’t a story built on shouting. It moves in smaller increments. A roommate who once felt neutral becomes watchful. A casual arrangement ends. He begins staying up until she gets home. Asks where she’s been. Who she was with. The questions repeat.
In a rural town where she doesn’t know many people, the lease still runs through May. The house is shared. The driveway is shared. The air shifts before anything is confirmed.
By the time she’s packing while he’s at work, it’s already clear that something private has been crossed. Not dramatically. Just enough.
What begins as a consensual, clearly defined friends-with-benefits arrangement changes once she withdraws. His behavior narrows in response. Late nights waiting for her return. Direct questions about her whereabouts. Irritation that lingers after she sets a boundary.
Nothing overt escalates until an external discovery forces the issue. A mechanic finds a magnetic tracking device under her car. The conflict shifts instantly from relational tension to personal safety.
Her response is procedural rather than confrontational. She documents it with the police. She packs while he’s gone. She calculates what fits in her car and what can be left behind. The decision is movement, not debate.
When he later admits to placing the tracker, he frames it as concern for her safety and suspicion that she was seeing someone. The explanation arrives after the action. Whatever ambiguity existed before the discovery collapses into something simpler: he chose to monitor her.
Some questions remain peripheral.
Text Version
Went for a tire change, found a tracker under my car, placed by my roommate… how do I go about this?
CONCLUDED
I am not The OOP, OOP is u/ThrowRAaway0
Went for a tire change, found a tracker under my car, placed by my roommate… how do I go about this?
Originally posted to r/relationship_advice
TRIGGER WARNING: Stalking, obsessive behavior
MOOD SPOILER: relieved
Original Post March 29, 2020
I’m a 25 female, my roommate is a 34 male.
I moved to a new town last year, only knew one person, stayed with her for a bit until I found a house to rent but I needed a roommate. She introduced me to a guy she worked with who also needed a roommate because he just got a divorce.
I met him first, didn’t get weird vibes, seemed nice enough. About 6 months ago he made the suggestion to be friends with benefits and I made the stupid mistake of agreeing. We both did not want a relationship. Everything was fine, until he started getting weird and staying up until I got home, questioning me about where I had been and who I was around. I then ended the hooking up, told him I didn’t think it was like that, he got mad. Everything was fine for a bit. Until yesterday.
I live in a pretty rural area where most businesses are small and family owned. Since not a lot of people are getting out I decided to go ahead and get some new tires and support a mechanic shop I go to, since I doubt they’re getting regular business at the moment. I’m there waiting when the guy comes over and tells me he wants to show me something. I’m like okay. We go over to my car and he bends down and points under at a black box. He asks me if I know what that is and tells me it’s a gps. It took me a second to understand the implications of a gps being under my car. I was like… so someone put it there? It’s clear I have no idea why it’s there and he got actually concerned and told me if I didn’t know I needed to find out.
I feel so creeped out because I have no friends here, the friend I knew moved away. I only know some people at work, but we’re not friends and it’s been hard to meet people. There’s no other way a gps would be on my car unless my roommate put it there. Now I’m freaked out in a way I’ve never been before and I can’t move out, I’m scared to ask him about it, I have no one to stay with, no family here… what do I do? Do I just ask him about it outright? I left the gps there because I don’t want him to know I know at the moment. What do I do?
RELEVANT COMMENTS
lolpolhol
That is really creepy. Start planning your exit, document everything.
scribbleszzz
I would be concerned there are cameras in your bedroom and bathroom. Honestly I would not feel safe to return home. I would immediately call police and file a report. There are devices you get from a spy store that can scan for the frequency of hidden cameras. But I would not even waste my time with that. My piece of mind would be worth a terminated lease and breach in contract which a police report would help you in civil court should you have to go. Run do not walk to the nearest exit.
~
commenter
Be specific as to how you know, not what you think or believe, but what actual PROOF do you have that your roommate put the gps on your car. What I read is that “some guy” found something on your car.
OOP
It’s a small magnetic tracking device. Who else would it have been? I know no one, and this place is too rural for any kind of crime organization like stealing cars. No one would steal my 7 year old car, anyway
Maybe the car dealership put it there?
I own it, I’ve had it for about 7 years, since I started college. Paid for it in cash outright
Update March 30, 2020 (Next Day)
UPDATE, kind of: I’m going to put them here. I’m still reading through the comments, thank you guys! There’s really great advice I’m going to follow.
(PSA- I bought my car brand new 7 years ago and paid for it in cash, I’ve never owed anything on it.)
So last night I decided to subtly pack my things and plan on making the drive at some point today back to my hometown. He works during the day but I work from home because my office is closed until at least this summer. I realized I could probably fit all of my stuff in my car and since my lease ends in May anyway so I’m just moving out. The only furniture that’s mine (and not the landlords or his) is my bed and it’s old so I think I’m just going to leave it here.
I went down to the police station early this morning and had them remove it. I don’t think there’s much they can do besides document it. They asked me some questions and I said I didn’t know but I know no one here, and think it might be my roommate. They said it looked like a cheap one from amazon or eBay and they’ll check it out.
Honestly, I may just end up staying home. I miss being in a familiar place where I know basically everyone in town and I miss my friends. Working from home for a few months might give me enough time to switch jobs.
So that’s all I have for now. Thank you guys! I’ll try to reply to people as well
RELEVANT COMMENTS/ADDITIONAL INFO
OOP replying to a downvoted commenter on dealing with the police
I’ve already gone to the police. Even if I had told them “yep yep totally my roommate did it I know it” (I didn’t, I simply strongly suggested it) that is not grounds for someone’s “life to be ruined”. They wouldn’t even take that as fact until it was proven. Even if they find definitive proof, I’d have to go through with pressing charges. If I did press charges, then it would be a simple misdemeanor. And at that point, if he got a misdemeanor, it would be rightly justified since it was all proven. And that’s if I would even bother with charges in the first place. All of this minor things compared to if he was an insane loose cannon that could kill/hurt me if I just didn’t mention his name.
It’s ignorant to not piece together the clues and be safe rather than sorry, instead of just saying “nope I have no clue!” Because I do have a clue, and I know it’s him. I plan on asking him later today after my 8 hour drive home, so I’m interested in hearing what he has to say.
OOP added an edit/update to the original post – March 31, 2020 (1 day after previous update)
UPDATE since I think it’ll be lost in the comments, if anyone is curious: already mentioned I went to the police/home. All settled in now. Ended up asking him about it via phone. He admitted to it, got freaked out when I said I gave it to the police, said he was “concerned for my safety” when I would go places by myself after work (yeah, okay) we got into a scuffle about it, he finally snapped and said that he “knew” I was seeing someone when I was hooking up with him (I wasn’t) sooo….yeah. My first experience with crazy, and hopefully my last
Source
He used to stay up until she got home. The living room light on. “Where were you?” “Who were you with?” The questions weren’t shouted. They were asked plainly, sometimes more than once.
Then the tire shop.
The mechanic bends down, taps the underside of the car, and looks at her face to gauge recognition. She doesn’t have it yet. When he says GPS, there’s a pause before her expression changes. A small recalibration.
For a stretch of time, the story is mostly logistics. A police station visit in the morning. Officers removing the device. A quiet house during the workday while she folds clothes and decides the old bed isn’t worth transporting. An eight-hour drive mapped out in her head. These are movements, not declarations.
Midway through, a pattern surfaces without much effort. Attention that persists after intimacy ends. Access that doesn’t feel shared anymore. He says he was concerned for her safety. He says he “knew” she was seeing someone. In his account, the device becomes vigilance. In hers, it reads as something else entirely.
There’s an imbalance that doesn’t require naming. He had proximity. She had uncertainty.
And then the admission over the phone abrupt, almost procedural. Yes, he did it. Yes, it was about safety. Then anger. Then accusation. The justifications arrive in fragments.
She drives home. Leaves the bed behind in a rented room that now feels observed.
The tracker is gone. The explanation exists. The rest doesn’t quite settle.
