Ruby moved into my condo on 8/18/25 and by 10/15/25 she was gone(ish). It was the longest two months of my life and I will be processing it for many more to come. This article isn’t a sob story and I am not a victim, just to be clear. It’s a cautionary tale of what can happen when you let anyone into your life out of desperation and how blind you can be to the myriad red flags waving before you. As always, hindsight makes those flags all too obvious; but I’m grateful to be able to tell this story with the luxury and clarity of glorious retrospection.
It began like this: I had put an ad for a roommate on Facebook Marketplace in July of 2025 after my former roomie of almost six years moved out. After getting minimal response as the weeks slowly crept on and continually getting flaked on at the last minute, I decided to lower my asking price. The next day, seventy year old Ruby reached out and I immediately felt drawn to her charm. She was an artist personified; a former jazz singer who played multiple instruments and loved to paint and draw- she was even working on writing and illustrating children’s books. But what really warmed me to her was that she was both sober and a cancer survivor. My mom died in 2009 of liver failure due to alcoholism combined with cancer. Ruby was about how old Mother would’ve been- a connection that undoubtedly appealed to me on a subconscious level.
To hear Ruby tell it, her last two landlords were just awful- one had even accused her of taking over his place while he was away on a trip. According to her, he freaked out over her putting a few jars in the kitchen. It got so bad she had to move out unexpectedly- hence her reaching out to me.
Because of these terrible experiences, she didn’t really have legit references, but she sent me her Rover profile (animal lover- another plus!) which had tons of rave reviews and she had me contact her best friend of fifty years (a gay man named Peter, whom I absolutely hit it off with). Because Ruby was in a bit of a hurry, she Venmoed me the rent and security deposit that day, sight unseen except the pics I had posted on FB. Truth be told, I was already all in and hell-bent on trying to make up for the awful experiences she’d had recently. She would be safe and welcome in my home…our home. A week and a half later (due to some overnight Rover gigs) she moved in.
The first red flag I recognized was that four days after moving in (while I was gone), she’d put some flowers on the desk in my bedroom. The door was open, but still, for me, a boundary had been crossed. I messaged her thanking her for the lovely flowers, and letting her know that for future reference, my room was a private space. She responded with “Yeah.” It hadn’t been like her to give one word answers thus far, so I feared that I had upset her. I asked if she was mad and asked “Are we ok?” Her response was that we were fine and she told me not to analyze her. A bit strange, but I chalked it up to the fact we were still getting to know one another.
The second red flag was that I’d cleared out several shelves of cabinet space for her in the kitchen and yet she decided to move some of my stuff to a higher shelf without asking me. Whatever- I let it go.
She inquired about how I like to clean and what did I use? I showed her my granite cleaner, to which she replied “Well I just use soap and water.” I didn’t love having constant residue on the countertops, but you pick your battles. She asked if I could clear off the counter next to the oven so she could use it for food prep, which I immediately did. Then she asked if she could replace a picture I had in the hallway with one of her own. “Absolutely!”
Shortly after she moved in, Ruby went to her home state of Kentucky for a couple weeks. When I picked her up at the transit center she insisted I pull into where the buses enter. There are signs warning you not to drive there, but she insisted. Somehow I admired her ability to rewrite the rules and live on her own terms- kind of badass I told myself. Maybe one day I’ll be that cool…but probably not.
She definitely had ways of getting you to do things for her without you even realizing it- a skill I watched her utilize time and again with effortless precision. She had purchased a bunk bed and needed my help for “Just a few minutes” which turned into almost two hours. I didn’t mind, though I thought it was an odd choice for a woman over seventy- especially since she’d be sleeping up top. The next day she decided it was a mistake and shortly after we were taking it all back down which felt somewhat manic, but whatever.
At one point I wandered into the kitchen for some water and I happened to glance outside. To my horror, there were police officers wheeling a gurney containing a body in a blue bag, which they were loading into a van. I hadn’t seen this neighbor in quite some time and sadly, now I knew why. I called out “Ruby! Come here quickly! Oh my God!” Seemingly unfazed, she asked if I knew her. I said “Not really. I knew of her, but that’s about it.” It’s just not something you (hopefully) see every day and it really rattled me. But not Ruby. She merely said “Well, it’s good to be alive,” and then walked back into her room as if nothing notable had just occurred. I chalked it up to the fact that some people simply process these types of things differently. Eventually I would realize that a lack of empathy was more likely to blame, which was a byproduct of something far more troubling.
At the end of September my boyfriend Rick and I took a trip to Seattle to see some friends. While we were there Ruby messaged me saying she had some ideas for our home and that she’d run them by me when I returned. I tried to put it out of my mind, but my instincts (which had proven to be quite unreliable as of late), left me feeling unsettled.
True to form, when picking us up from the transit center on October 1st, Ruby pulled in behind a bus and in front of another. I was embarrassed- Ruby was in her element, animatedly engaging with one of the bus drivers who had been her driver a couple weeks prior. Small world. Then Ruby kissed me on my cheek and went on about how much she’d missed me. Strangely, I hadn’t missed her at all. I’d found her extreme level of energy to be quite draining, but I was in denial that good energy could ever be a bad thing- surely it was something I needed to work on in therapy.
As the three of us walked up the stairs to my condo, Ruby was talking a mile a minute. Perhaps as a way of distracting us from what we were about to see.
Unfortunately, it turned out that my gut was right this time…