Is the Internet making us less safe?

Soon after moving to Chicago, I was looking for a mattress for our infrequently-used guest bed. Not wanting to pay a bunch of money for a good new mattress—or kind of a lot for a crappy new one—I decided to look on my old friend Craigslist for a used option.

Before you say “ewww”, consider my reasoning. A second hand bed is no more likely to contain grody germs than a hotel bed, right? And people sleep on those all the time when they’re vacationing. So by going on vacation to my house you would be sleeping on a mattress that was no more likely to be gross than the one at the local Holiday Inn. Plus, I planned on covering it with one of those industrial-strength mattress covers that seals everything in, whether it’s a dust mite or a bed bug.

Looking at the listings, I could barely believe my luck. A like-new, expensive brand, pillow-top mattress for $100? And the person selling the mattress lived just a few blocks away. I sent an email and heard back quickly: he was cleaning out his garage, could I come get it right away?

I thought about it. I was home alone with four kids; there was no way I was carting them all over there to retrieve the mattress. For a moment I considered going alone; though I knew that was a no-no, it seemed somehow safer considering the guy lived so close by and I had his e-mail address and phone number. Still, I wasn’t totally comfortable with the idea and nixed it quickly.

On a whim I called my friend Micki, who also lived near the mattress owner, to see if we could leave the kids with her teenage daughter for a few minutes and then run over together to pick it up.

“Sure! So where does this guy live?” she asked.

“Just over on Farwell,” I said.

There was a pause.

“What did you say his name was again?” she asked.

I told her.

Another pause.

“Umm, I’m not sure how to tell you this…” she trailed off.

“Don’t EVEN tell me he’s on the sexual offender list!” I said, half joking.

Turns out, that was exactly what she had to tell me.

At first, I didn’t freak out. I’m skeptical about sexual offender lists to begin with: some of them include non-violent offenses like streaking and public urination. But that was not the case here. Each on our own computers, we Googled, and within seconds we had all the dirty details. His crime, I found in an online court transcript, had been that he took multiple photos of his live-in girlfriend’s ten-year-old daughter, in a skirt with no underwear, with her legs spread.

And I almost went to his house.

To buy his MATTRESS.

I sent him a one-liner e-mail “Sorry, don’t need it” and deleted all his responses unread. I was sick to my stomach, completely grossed out by the idea that I might have gone into the home of, made small talk with and possibly talked about my children with a pervert.

Here’s the thing: had I not called Micki that day, I’d probably have sent my husband over to get the mattress on his way home from work. He’d have grabbed the mattress, come home, and I’d never have been the wiser. And most likely, that would have been the end of that. Given the nature of his crime, I don’t believe my children or I would have been in danger. 

But of course, I can’t be sure.

The internet is a strange place. It can be a wonderful community, raising money for causes and reaching out to support grieving parents. But while the web expands on the definition of “community”, it’s also removed some of the safeguards that exist in an in-real-life social group where people see each other face to face often and have many of the same friends and acquaintances. It’s hard to confirm what people tell us about themselves on the Internet.

Craigslist isn’t necessarily more dangerous than newspaper classifieds. What’s different is that we are used to creating instant relationships with one another via e-mail, Twitter, Facebook and blogs. That can give us a false sense of security, believing we “know” or can trust somebody just because they sent a friendly-sounding e-mail. 

On the other hand, cases like the Craigslist murder – just like stranger abductions – are actually very rare. We hear about them because they get a lot of attention and take center stage in our brains, which aren’t very good at filtering out statistically unlikely things and instead tend to glom onto whatever horrible possibility is being waved most sensationally in front of us.

And the fact is that I’d never have known about his sex-offender status if it hadn’t also been for the Internet. So maybe, just as it can blurry the lines between “friend” and “stranger” and create potentially dangerous situations, the internet is also capable of helping us keep ourselves out of danger.

Have I stopped using Craigslist? Nope. I’m a sucker for a good deal, and I like the concept of recycling and reusing. The way I see it, there are no guarantees in life. If not for the 'net, this guy could just as easily be the “Boston University Bulletin Board Murderer”; I could just as easily have met my friendly neighborhood child molester at a community event. We can never make ourselves totally safe. All we can do is listen to our instincts, be as careful as possible, and try to enjoy ourselves, our friends and great bargains.

All that said? Our guest bed now sports a new mattress.

--Meagan Francis is a writer, author and mom of five. She writes about motherhood and more at her blog.

This is an original post to the Chicago Moms Blog.