Jean Van Landeghem has an enemy. Or at least someone insists on making his life impossible with perseverance and patience worthy of study. For nine years, this retired Flemish has been receiving pizzas, kebabs, chicken wings or hamburgers that he has not ordered at his home in the Belgian town of Turnhout, with 44,000 inhabitants. Every few days or even several times on the same day, motorists park at your door, ring the bell, and offer you the package. Sometimes the sound startles him past midnight, when he is already peacefully asleep. The 65-year-old man then tells them to take him away, that he hasn't asked for anything, and the next day he goes to the police.
This Sunday at noon, the motorcycle that arrives at his house is not that of a delivery man. It is Jean Van Landeghem himself. He only speaks Dutch, but he nods when his name is pointed out to him on the phone. Then he gestures inviting to pass inside. In the living room of the house, where he lives alone, he unfolds for this newspaper the arsenal of complaints that he has filed in recent days. A day earlier we had already spoken to him on the phone thanks to a Flemish friend who acted as interpreter.
Once again, four unsolicited requests came to my door. I have no idea of the identity of the culprit or why he does it. I am sick and tired of the situation, and I wish it would end. I can't sleep because of stress, ”says the text of a complaint filed on February 26.
It has been three days since any order arrives, but Van Landeghem moves his hands together with his palms down to explain the nervous crisis in which the fact that they can call him at any time of the day to offer him food that he has not ordered has plunged him or feel from the bed the engine of a new vehicle arriving. "I don't even like pizzas," he says, fed up.
Food never enters your home. Not only because he has not chosen it, but because he is not paid. Most orders are made through the Takeaway.com platform. If in many applications it is necessary to make the deposit in advance with a credit card, in this one there is the option of paying it in cash at the door. That makes it easier for the stalker, who signs up with names like Michelle or Marcel, and uses different emails each time.
Among the orders that appear in the complaints there are four large kekab menus without sauce and with Coca-cola for 44 euros in Kebap Xpress; two duo menus with American pizza, breaded chicken breasts and Coca-cola of a liter and a half for 54 euros at Domino's; four salads for 44 euros in Star Kebap; four pizzas with pineapple for 34 from Kebap Anatolia, and even an order on May 29 from a pizzeria in Düsseldorf, 150 kilometers away.
The other big losers are the establishments. Their kitchens prepare a meal that will finally be returned without charge. Ten minutes from Van Landeghem's house is Pizza Talia. Its door is closed, but after a few taps on the glass they let the visitor through. In the background, sitting at a table having a coffee is Ali Akin, its owner, 46 years old. As soon as the reason for the visit is explained, he snorts and says by heart the address of the Van Landeghem. His place is a favorite for making false orders.
"They always ask for four cheese pizzas, two Coke and an extra," he says. "The person who orders it does not take long, because that selection is the one that can be done more quickly by checking the first boxes that appear", he analyzes. After several returned orders, Akin gathered his 15 employees and told them that not one more was being sent to that address. That has prevented two new orders coming out last week destined for the retiree's house. But they cannot always avoid it: "Sometimes new personnel arrive who do not know it, or we are with a hundred orders at the same time and we do not realize it," he laments.
However, other places do not have Van Landeghem's suffering on the radar. In Istanbul 3, one of those who appear in the complaint, they say that it is normal that every day there is a false request, but they were unaware that there is an address that is especially repeated and, therefore, they do not have it on any blacklist.
The complaints show the insistence with which orders are made from the false profile. “On June 1, between 19:45 and 21:05, vendors from five different pizzerias knocked on the door. All incorrect orders were returned, "states the text.
The stranger who spends a weekly plot of his time choosing food and sending it to Van Landeghem's house is an enigma. "I think it must be some hooligans who live in front and look out the window to make fun of us," says Ali Akin.
"It can't be a joke because it has lasted too long," answers Van Landeghem. “I am a normal man who goes out from time to time to go for a walk and do something with friends. I have heart problems so it is not the best thing that they wake me up suddenly at two in the morning ”.
Tired by the situation, he hopes that the dissemination of his story through the media will contribute to ending the nightmare. For now, neither the complaints nor his conversations with the Takeaway portal have daunted the inexhaustible stranger who continues to alter the life of Jean Van Landeghem in such a cruel and methodical way.
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