I moved to Texas
When I arrived at my new home in Plano, TX from Los Angeles, CA at the end of June, I was excited to see in two weeks there will be a Bingo event in my apartment - This is my chance to meet new friends!
On my way to Bingo, I accidentally got off on the wrong floor. There was caution tape and police….
I didn’t think too much of it until an hour later, as I’m having fun with new friends at Bingo, someone pulls up a news article that the police are investigating a homicide in a luxury apartment in Legacy West. Here we were - drinking cocktails and playing bingo and winning prizes. On the floor directly above us, a young woman was found dead.
That evening was a crazy cacophony of emotions. In the days to come, I would frequently google updates. I didn’t get updates from any official channels. There is an active investigation going on, so perhaps the building can’t say much.
I wanted to communicate with my neighbors to see if anyone had any insight. What was the motive? Who called the police? Perhaps I had shared an elevator with the victim? Could one of the suspects be someone who still frequents the building? What is going on?
I felt alone in my mourning of someone I had never met and some level of anxiety over my own safety. I missed the access I once had to be able to communicate with my neighbors in real time. Moreover, it felt like there were no spaces to process the emotions that something incredibly abnormal had just happened and everything was business as usual. On Tik Tok, there’s random “true crime” people commenting on this tragedy, but I don’t know if I trust people making content for likes & clicks without any real fact check system.
I made one friend through that Bingo night that I still keep in contact with. That night, between the laughter of Bingo and the chilling realization of the tragedy upstairs, I saw a stark gap in modern apartment living. We live mere feet from each other, yet in a crisis, we are utterly alone and disconnected, forced to rely on rumors or sensationalized social media. I longed for a trusted, private space for neighbors—a place where people could share verified information, offer support, and process shared community events without the noise and judgment of the wider internet.
