Colombian woman knows everyone’s secrets — and says they helped her buy two houses

What if the person sitting outside your house, quietly watching the neighbourhood go by, isn't simply being nosy?

What if she's working?

In Armenia, Colombia, 67-year-old Miryam has turned an activity most people would dismiss as idle gossip into what she describes as a small but surprisingly profitable business: collecting information about her neighbours and charging people who want to know what is going on.

And, according to Miryam, the business has helped her buy two houses.

Her unusual story first surfaced after content creator Lady Daniella featured her in a 2024 TikTok interview. Colombian broadcaster Telecafé also reported on the story at the time. The tale is now going viral across international media.

Welcome to the neighbourhood information desk

Miryam calls herself a professional “chismosa” — Spanish for a woman who loves gossip.

Her office, however, doesn't exactly look like an office.

She spends time outside her home, watching what happens around her and listening to conversations. She carries a notebook in which she records details, while photographs and other material displayed inside her home form what looks rather like a personal neighbourhood archive.

In her interview, Miryam explained that even when she is talking to someone, she keeps listening to what is happening around her.

The idea, essentially, is simple: if you know something other people don't, someone may be willing to pay to know it.

How much does neighbourhood gossip cost?

Not every piece of information is worth the same amount.

Reports based on Miryam's account say she charges around 5,000 to 10,000 Colombian pesos for relatively ordinary pieces of gossip, with the price rising when the information becomes more sensitive or juicy.

And then there are the premium secrets.

Miryam has said one of her biggest reported payments was 700,000 Colombian pesos to keep quiet about an alleged affair involving a man whose wife travelled frequently. She has also described situations in which people allegedly paid her not to reveal information she knew.

In other words, her business has an unusual pricing model:

Pay to hear the secret. Pay more to keep it secret.

The same piece of information can apparently have value on both sides.

She says she doesn't sell rumours without evidence

This is where Miryam draws her own line.

She has insisted that she does not simply repeat anything she hears and claims she prefers to have evidence before passing information along. In the interview, she showed a board containing photographs and other material that she said supported some of her stories.

That doesn't independently verify the claims about her neighbours — and there is no independent financial or property documentation confirming that gossip alone paid for her two houses.

That part remains Miryam's claim.

But the business itself is real enough to have become a viral curiosity.

The strangest part? The gossip has its own customer base

Miryam says some neighbours have criticised her for getting involved in other people's affairs.

Yet she also claims that curiosity keeps bringing people back.

She even showed viewers a large piggy bank filled with coins and notes, saying it represented what she earns from the business. She has also described meeting friends at her second home to play Parcheesi and other games — and, naturally, exchange the latest neighbourhood updates.

So perhaps the real lesson here isn't that gossip suddenly became a business.

It is that gossip was always a business.

Most people just never thought to put a price tag on it.

Miryam did.

And if her account is to be believed, she turned knowing what everyone else was talking about into something considerably more tangible than a good conversation over the garden wall: two houses.