‘One of the peeping Toms has a kebab joint’, says Simone. ‘He delivers food but he has already been discovered at the back of the building a few times without anything on him.’ It looks as if the man is using his deliveries as an opportunity to go and have a peep afterwards.
The police have already detained two different men but have had to let them go because voyeurism is not an offence. Even so, it is still important to the police because peeping Toms often ‘progress’ to more serious activities. However, police officers have better things to do than try and catch a voyeur in the act so Haarweg residents have started up a Facebook group. Every evening, they walk round the building at a different time and put their findings on Internet. Yesterday’s post was: ‘Just done a tour of the place with ten of us and saw nothing’. But a bit later: ‘Someone was peeping into the back rooms of department 135 just before 7 PM. Sorry, guys’.
The group is a useful way of keeping track of when there are voyeurs, says Simone. ‘It also calms your nerves when you read there is no one wandering around. Because you really do feel unsafe in your own room. I can’t sleep at night any more, and that goes for four of my flatmates too.’
Recently, Simone was in her room in the evening. She wanted to check there really was no one outside. ‘I pulled back my curtain and there was a man right in front of me. His nose was pressed right up against my window.’ That was the last straw for Simone: she is going to move to another room. ‘It’ll be in the same department but in a better location.’ She can’t move until March. Until then her boyfriend will be coming to sleep with her every evening – all the way from The Hague.