What would you do?

Well, I am afraid I can only give you the Finnish way to deal with this. The next time this happens I would rush out with my axe (blunt side first) and put the guy in hospital. The police here would be understanding. However, I must say that the situation you describe would be very uncommon here, as that type of building hardly exists in Finland due to the climate. Exhibitionists mostly display themselves by the side of roads or cycle paths (at their own peril I might add).

The guy is clearly sick.

The next time you see him, tell him you don't appreciate being woken up at night by his talking outside your apartment. The next time, you are going to call the police about his disturbing the peace.

I would not mention the sex talk or the self-sex act.

Try to diffuse the entire issue.

The manager should be the one who handles this.

Spoke with the manager yesterday about it. Handling it in-house as it were as opposed to involving police. Works for me. If the guy has some temporal lobe problem reducing his inhibitions, while he should be corrected, it isn't malicious in nature.

I'd call the police. It needs to start (or continue) a legal paper trail on his activity. Unchecked? Who knows how things will regress? One things for certain, he'll not get any help for any preexisting mental health issues without intervention or a threat of intervention (at the least).

I see the wisdom of that, but unless he confesses to the officer, nothing'd come of it. Mentioned it to management for this very reason. Put it and him on their radar, if he has a history of such things, my mention may help decide a course of action.

Manager actually said my report put some other things into better context. Didn't ask what that meant, but assumed he had something going on that he was know to her already.

If it happens a 3rd time I'll probably call the police. With the report of the 1st and 2nd incidents lending credibility, should see something interventionistic happen then.

Really sucky thing about this is I now lock my doors. In 16 years here I got to not bothering. But the mental image of coming back and finding him inside is in my head. Was involved with security work after the Navy so kinda default to the worst, but was really digging the whole midwest 'everybody's nice' thing.

" but was really digging the whole midwest 'everybody's nice' thing. "

You shouldn't feel as though you have to abandon that just because a mentally ill person tried to get your attention.

Hate that I've reverted to security-mode. Noticing I'm doing a walkthrough of my place when coming home including a check of the bathroom and tub (moving the shower curtain to make sure no one (him) is standing there. Have also placed improvised weapons around where I can get them if needed. I quit security work because I didn't like viewing every stranger with suspicion and assessing them as threat or no-threat. But the thought someone exhibiting sociopathic tendencies whether due to mental illness or not has me on extreme edge. At least when people become violent due to upset and anger they make some kind of sense. But this guy is clearly mentally ill so he could be smiling and seemingly happy as can be and do really messed up stuff with no warning. And he's so freaking big (at least 400 pounds) if he got violent my only recourse is to go for the head as I could never grapple him. All my military training is back in the fore of my mind and I don't like it there.

Have tried telling myself this sort of explicit sexual harassment is what women have had to put up with for decades and to get over it. But I don't wanna underestimate him. Manager said she spoke with his "case worker" and he has no history of this. Well if he has a case worker he's obviously not well-adjusted. Dunno if case worker was a euphamism for parole officer or what but it made me feel less relieved. On the upside, if he had a history of sexual offenses he wouldn't be living here as the apartments all the sex offender registry people live in is hell and gone from here. Checked it to see if he was on it, wasn't.

Still having a hard time accepting he was 2 or 3 feet away on the other side of bedroom wall. First time it happened I awoke in bed and lay there listening to him but went back to sleep and convinced myself it had to be a dream. When it happened again though realizing it was really happening, and had happened prior was like realizing a dream was in fact true.

On the upside, as someone interested in pathological sexual behaviour, this is a firsthand glimpse into that. Including some eye-opening realizations from the victim standpoint. Seemingly little inconsequential thing dominating my mind now. Finding that in and of itself eye-opening. And the hypervigilance and increased stress is really giving me some insight into how sex crime victims feel. An actual rape or molestation victim gets this plus the physical trauma. I only have the emotional side of things, and in very reduced amount, but it has a far greater effect on me than I woulda thought.

We hear about rape and rape victims so frequently I think we become desensitized to it and when it entails. It's a Big Deal. What happened to me was a tiny fraction of a rape, a kind of emotional or verbal rape. But even this has me concerned for my personal safety. And while it was happening I was little more than annoyed, it's occupied my head and seems to have festered since. We have to be more aware that things we say can be very powerful and not marginalize or minimize the impact they can have on those we say them to. We may htink of it as jest or not very serious or significant, but to the person we say them to, they can become very serious indeed.