For fans of pizzas, perhaps this unusual case would not cause so much discomfort, but, even for a great connoisseur of this Italian delicacy, the situation would be at least strange. This is what can be said about the case of Jean Van Landeghem, who has been receiving pizzas outside his home for 9 years, in the Belgian city of Turnhout, without ever having ordered home delivery.
Pizza deliverers, but also hamburgers and chicken wings ring the bell of this 65-year-old retired Belgian, several times a week, but it has also happened more than once in a single day. Van Landeghem is tired and fed up with this situation. “I want this to end,” he says.
Sick, with heart problems, this Belgian admits that he is sometimes frightened when he rings his bell after midnight, when he is sleeping. It’s another pizza you didn’t order. The ritual is always the same, he tells the man who appears at the door that he has not ordered anything for home delivery, asks him to leave and, the next day, goes to the police.
This has been happening for almost a decade, but it has not yet been possible to know who will be responsible for so many orders to deliver to Van Landeghem’s address. The reasons for the persistence in upsetting the Belgian pensioner, who lives alone, are also unknown.
“I don’t even like pizzas”
“Once again, four unsolicited requests arrived at my door. I have no idea who the culprit is or why he does this. I’m tired of the situation and I want it to end. I can’t sleep because of stress “, read in one of the complaints he made to the police that the El País had access.
The Spanish newspaper came to speak with Van Landeghem and reports that the Belgian has plunged into a state of nerves with this situation that does not seem to end. All because the doorbell can ring at any time of the day for someone to deliver food that you did not ask for or simply to hear the sound of a motorcycle passing in the street. “I don’t even like pizzas,” he said, saturated with the situation.
“I can’t sleep. I start to shake every time I hear a motorcycle passing by on the street,” the pensioner told the newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws.
He says that he already had orders that were delivered to him at two in the morning and there was a day that 10 couriers appeared at his door, one of whom wanted to deliver 14 pizzas to him.
“I have heart problems and suddenly getting up at two in the morning is not the best thing.”
Orders are paid at the time of delivery, but Van Landghem does not let them pass beyond the door. Most orders are placed through the Takeaway.com application, which allows this cash payment option upon delivery. A situation that helps the person who has been placing the orders, since he uses different emails and sign up using names like Michelle or Marcel, writes El País.
“This costs the restaurants money, which has to throw out the food. On that day of the 10 deliveries, I did the math: it cost 450 euros,” he explained to Het Laatste Nieuws. “
“It can’t be a joke because it lasts a long time”,
The Spanish newspaper report spoke to Ali Akin, the owner of one of the affected restaurants, Pizza Talia. He said that after several returned orders, he gathered his employees and told them that no more orders would leave the establishment for Van Landghem’s address. “Sometimes new employees arrive who don’t know him, or we have a hundred orders at the same time and we don’t notice,” said Akin, admitting that he can’t always avoid deliveries.
The false requests are a constant and reach a dimension that makes the retired Belgian despair. In one of the complaints to the police it is said that one day, “between 19:45 and 21:05, couriers from five different pizzerias knocked on the door”.
“It can’t be a joke because it has been going on for a long time,” says Van Landeghem, who cherishes the hope that publicizing his case will help put an end to this nightmare. The person making the false requests and who has continued to torment this Belgian for almost a decade is unknown.
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