Here's a reminder to remain alert. This is a little personal, but it feels like I shouldn't keep this to myself.

On Friday February 13 while I was home alone, someone identifying himself as an employee of National Grid rang my doorbell. He said he needed to read the meters in our building. I thought this was odd since I know the readings happen remotely, but I went down into my building's basement with this person. Once we got down there, he asked me to direct him to the meters and said it would take 20 minutes. That's odd, I thought. Meter readings don't take 20 minutes. I showed him the meters anyway and kept my thoughts to myself. Instead of reading the meters he started walking around. He then said he needed to see where the gas lines come into the building and asked to be directed to "the front of the building." I found this odd as well. Then he said he needed to do an inspection and started walking towards the front of the building.

It was at that point that I realized I hadn't even asked this guy for ID and I'm in the basement with him. He showed me his ID and suggested I take a picture of it. I hadn't even brought my phone down to the basement with me so I couldn't take a picture but I noted his name, "Adam" and ID number. There was no last name on the ID.

He continued walking around. I began to feel uneasy. Spotting a few more meters, he stopped and said something to the effect of "I didn't know you had so many meters. This is going to take 30 minutes."

The fact that he kept changing his story and increasing the amount of time he said his work would take, left me with the impression that he wanted me to leave him alone in the basement. I pointed toward the staircase and asked him to leave immediately.

When we got outside, I noticed there was no National Grid truck in sight. "Where's your truck," I asked. He told me he was just walking the area because he has a lot of buildings to visit. He then wrote his name and ID number on a door tag for a company that does gas line inspections. Once I got back into my apartment, I called the number on the tag. The person who answered the phone recognized this employee's name and told me to call National Grid since he's their employee. But while I was on the phone with the gas line inspection company, I was able to confirm that we were not scheduled for an inspection.

I called National Grid and was only able to get through to the customer service reps who answer the phone. When I asked for a supervisor, I was placed on hold. I was not able to hold the line for more than 30 minutes, so I wrote a letter to National Grid customer service that I both mailed and emailed asking to confirm this person is an employee and explain why he came to our building. I also told them to never send this person to our building again.

And I emailed my neighbors to let them know what happened and to never let this person into the building. I have great neighbors. We are all taking this seriously and we are all on alert. I will also be filing a police report.

Stay woke. The creepers are creeping.