07/20/2026
A Man Listed a Spare Room—Then the Strangest Potential Renters Started Calling
Andrew believed renting out the spare room in his home would be a fairly simple process.
He placed an advertisement, waited for interested renters to respond and prepared himself to answer the usual questions about the price, location and condition of the room.
What he did not expect was a relentless series of phone calls from some of the most bizarre prospective tenants imaginable.
The first caller introduced himself casually and said that his cousin Tito had told him about the available room.
At first, the conversation sounded relatively normal. However, the man soon explained that he had “just gotten out” and needed somewhere to stay immediately.
When Andrew cautiously asked what he had gotten out of, the caller avoided giving a direct answer. He simply claimed that he was now free and back in the world.
The situation became even more uncomfortable when the caller explained that he would be spending a great deal of time inside the house, not because he wanted to, but because he “kind of had to.”
Andrew quickly decided that this was not the right tenant. He politely said that the room had already been rented and attempted to end the conversation.
Before Andrew could hang up, the man offered one final selling point: he claimed that he knew how to make wine using a toilet and could teach Andrew how to do it.
Andrew immediately ended the call.
Unfortunately, that was only the beginning.
A few moments later, another man called and introduced himself as Alan. He said that he desperately needed the room because he was attempting to escape from the senior living facility where his family had placed him.
Alan warned Andrew that, should anyone ask, they had never spoken.
Although the caller claimed to be elderly, his voice sounded surprisingly young. He then suggested that he and Andrew could become partners in approaching women at a local craft store.
Andrew told Alan that leaving the senior facility was probably a bad idea and encouraged him to return before the staff began looking for him.
Alan refused.
He continued describing what life would be like if they became roommates. At one point, he said that if Andrew ever saw his cane hanging from the bedroom door handle, it would mean that Andrew should not enter.
The increasingly uncomfortable conversation became even more absurd when Alan demanded respect because he was supposedly a veteran of World War I.
Andrew immediately questioned the claim, pointing out that no World War I veterans could realistically be searching for a room in the present day.
Alan responded by threatening to visit the house and hit Andrew with one of his recently purchased walkers.
Once again, Andrew ended the call.
The next caller appeared to believe that Andrew was advertising a doomsday bunker rather than a spare bedroom.
He asked whether he could board up the windows to prevent outsiders from looking inside. When Andrew refused, the caller asked whether he could install software or equipment that would block the home’s Wi-Fi connection.
Andrew explained that the renter would not be permitted to alter, damage or redesign the room.
Instead of becoming discouraged, the caller enthusiastically told Andrew that he admired his attitude and declared that the two of them were about to become “bunk mates.”
Andrew hung up again.
Other strange calls followed.
One caller spoke so unclearly that Andrew could barely understand a single word. After several failed attempts at communication, Andrew demanded that the man remove whatever was in his mouth before calling again.
Just before the conversation ended, the caller suddenly spoke clearly enough to ask whether the house had a washing machine.
Another caller introduced himself as Alan and claimed that he had only one more question about the room.
He asked whether there was a mirror installed above the bed.
By this point, Andrew’s patience had almost completely disappeared. He reacted angrily and terminated the call, while the fake renter complained that Andrew was being overly sensitive.
Then came Edward.
Edward introduced himself with an unusually theatrical greeting and paused dramatically between his sentences. He explained that a speech coach had taught him that pausing would make his words sound more powerful.
His main concern was not the rent, the neighborhood or the condition of the room. Instead, Edward wanted to know how many women he would be allowed to bring into the bedroom at the same time.
He quickly admitted that he had never actually brought a woman home before, but insisted that he was planning for the possibility.
Edward then asked whether any women already lived in the house.
Andrew gave him a firm answer and ended yet another awkward conversation.
After nearly an hour of repeated calls, Andrew’s phone rang again.
This time, the caller dropped the fake voice and asked whether he was speaking with Andrew.
The man then apologized on behalf of an entire radio show.
He explained that Andrew’s best friend, Dennis, had contacted the program and asked the hosts to play a prank on him. Every bizarre person who had called about the room had actually been portrayed by members of the radio team.
The supposed former prisoner, the escaped senior citizen, the doomsday prepper and the awkward prospective tenants had never been real.
Andrew admitted that he had begun to suspect something unusual was happening, especially after receiving so many ridiculous calls in such a short period of time.
The radio hosts confirmed that they had spent approximately an hour repeatedly contacting him and testing how much frustration he could tolerate before giving up on the rental listing.
Even after revealing the joke, one of the hosts returned to the voice of the first caller and asked whether the spare room might still be available because he genuinely needed somewhere to live.
For Andrew, what began as a normal attempt to find a roommate became an unforgettable demonstration of how quickly an ordinary classified advertisement could turn into complete chaos.
