Haunted- Living with Ghosts-THE APARTMENT- A series into the life of my personal hauntings
Pondering what to share with you next; there are so many stories, so many hauntings. Am I haunted because I happen upon so many haunted buildings or is it because of who I am? Why can’t you all see and feel them? They are everywhere.
This is the actual apartment of my nightmares
It was the Summer of 2004, I moved into a 2-Story Duplex apartment in preparation of my daughter going off to University, I needed to downsize and focus my finances there. It was a lovely 2nd floor, 2 apartment building with the owner, a young college graduate who was gifted the building, living on the 1st floor. She came from a good Polish family, all ambitious, toe-headed blondes with good values; her bubbly vibe and aura radiated positivity- I knew this was the “right place”. It was the only place I looked at when I considered my move. Everything felt good here despite knowing that the Forest Hills Cemetery and pond were filled in and moved to build this neighborhood, I did not feel anything off.
Shortly after I moved in, my cat Clover began acting strangely. It broke my heart that I could no longer allow him the freedom of roaming outdoors as there was a train station 100 yards behind the house; I could not risk him being hit by a train or a car; I could not trust his possible behavior having lived his 7 years in our old familiar neighborhood. He would sit in the window and cry; after a few months he even stopped that small pleasure. I should have paid closer attention to his behavior, but he was cowering in the corners and withdrawing. Something was wrong and the vet could not provide any real answers. He would give him I.V. fluids or an antibiotic although blood tests did not truly reveal much. The fluids always seem to improve his condition for a few days. He stopped eating and drinking, but now that I look back on the situation, he refused to enter the kitchen where his dishes were; this was before I knew what was occupying the apartment.
It was Winter 2005, only a few months into living in the apartment when the Black Flies came. They were everywhere in the kitchen; I knew that was a bad sign. Winter, Black Flies all trapped in between the closed windows in the kitchen; slowly slipping out and infesting the kitchen, then the dining room and living room. Hundreds – no thousands of Black Flies. I knew what this meant, I mean I have read and seen Amityville Horror, but I was in too much of a frenzy to kill, capture and release these vermin that I neglected to consider what was really happening.
Within a few short minutes I could clear the thousands of flies by opening the screens. Within 24 hours, my Clovey was dead; only 7 years old, never sick a day in his life until this apartment. It took me 10 years before I could even speak of my beloved Clovey without crying; I did him a disservice by moving here and I will always feel this way.
It was not long after the death of my boy Clovey that other strange things began occurring. What appeared to be the laziness of cabinets being left open, incessant closing and re-closing of cabinets and drawers and closet doors was never ending. I still ignored all the warnings when my daughter and her friends would tell me they saw the cabinets opening on their own. I truly do not know what was wrong with me and my ignorance to the truth of this; behaviors of the residents were changing and becoming violent. It was no longer pleasant being there, I am not even sure if it ever was.
Through the years we continued to experience the typical paranormal. I never spoke of it outside of my immediate family; never told my landlord that was living downstairs from me, but I often wondered if she was experiencing anything- too embarrassed or frightened to be authentic with her for fear that she would think we were lunatics. To risk telling her about the times when she was not home and I could hear footsteps in her apartment or a ball bouncing in her kitchen above me when I would be downstairs doing laundry; knowing that no one was in her apartment, it happened too many times for it to be coincidence or the slight chance that she had a visitor unbeknownst to me. Not until the Winter of 2008-2009 when the activity increased beyond incomprehension.
Each night I would come home from work, daylight evaded during this time of year, flip the switch and nothing, no light, notwithstanding that I leave a small lamp on in the living room and the range hood in the kitchen; the apartment was in pitch blackness. The first time I headed right for the utility closet to grab a new bulb. Upon the attempt to replace, my slight touch of the bulb in the socket triggered a flicker of light. The bulb was only unscrewed. I moved to the next lamp, same response; the next and the next until full illumination was achieved throughout the apartment. I found it strange given the fact that I was the only one living in the apartment except my two new cats; I blew it off. This continued to happen at least 3 or 4 nights a week that Winter. Each night I knew the drill and would visit each lamp and screw back in the bulb, this included having to get on a step stool or ladder to remove the cover and screw in the ceiling lights; yes, there was a problem, but who do I tell? What do I do? The rent was cheap, the square footage and location were prime and I had a saint for a landlord who would bend over backwards for me; we had a good friendship, we counted on each other; I was grateful to be living there, she was grateful that I always paid my rent early and never caused any trouble. We were a good team; yet I still could not divulge my problem. After months of this craziness, I finally got up the courage to ask my landlord and her husband if by chance they had been in my apartment while I was at work (I knew they hadn’t been, they never would without telling me), we trusted each other. Of course, they denied and I did not elaborate.
Once the lightbulb madness ceased other strange things began. Glasses were moving across tables, ashtrays and baubles decorating the tables moving ever so slightly then falling off the edges. They moved slowly over the course of hours; almost so that I would not notice. It was driving me mad. I began marking the placement of the items on the tables with a grease pencil so that I could erase the smudge without damage, only to repeat the feat every day. I would measure distances from the item to the edge, make my marks and write it all down in my note book. I borrowed a level from my landlord’s husband so that I could make sure all the surfaces were not slanted or crooked. I told them I was hanging pictures and shelves. Everything was perfect. I wondered about the vibration of the music I played or the volume of the television influencing the objects and making them dance across the tables. I told you I was going mad. I was cognizant enough to know I should discontinue lighting candles unless well supervised.
I pondered if my Tarot Readings and the tools that I used to Divine answers from the Other Side were causing these manifestations in my home. Surely it was not the
All-Knowing Eye that I purchased in Salem; the pyramid board and pendulum that held more answers than the cards that I deal – it was not like it was a Ouija board. Boy was I a dumb girl. The Feng Shui book alerted me to the inauspicious nature of the placement of the building; near train tracks, near the cemetery; on top of the former cemetery. I suffered in silence and just went about my daily life, worried for my kitties that had to live there during the day without me; was anything taunting them or hurting them? They were always playful and happy; they seem unaffected. I really was not this stupid, just afraid to tell someone and it is always easier to ignore those things that we find unpleasant in our lives; many of us live unpleasant lives every day; suffering in silence.
Spring came and my daughter returned from school. The house was full once again, with friends and family. I spoke not a word. Late nights with sleep overs like the old days only brought word of the strange happenings at night. Reports from my daughter and her friends that things were moving and there appeared to be a man in a top hat standing in our hall way outside of my bedroom. I never revealed my story to anyone about my Lincoln Shadow; the only ones that knew of him were passed over to the Other Side, long gone. We thought of using our video cam; set it up at night with the infrared/night vision, but I decided against it. I really did not want to see what was waking me up at night and I knew if we captured something I would never be able to sleep again; ignorance is bliss. Once again, I blew it off as them drinking too much and telling ghost stories or watching horror films igniting their imaginations. The cabinets open….
With each passing day the activity increased. We were not sleeping, my landlord’s baby was waking us nightly with shrills and screams at 3:00 a.m., coincidentally at the same time our televisions and computers and printers would all turn on. Words were printing on the fresh pages, I cannot remember now what was on them, but I vaguely remember them being weird and cryptic. The ceiling and box fans were also turning on by themselves around 3:00 a.m. I was keeping my journal as a means to the madness, as future proof that when I wrote about this that I did not make this up; I rarely had a witness.
I know this is one of my longer stories, but I lived there for nearly 7 years, there is a lot to tell. Like the time that my daughter was at the main computer, I am laying in my bed watching a movie next to her; enjoying a Sunday home together, when she turned around to ask me a question and the candle votive holder on the credenza slid across the surface, hovered in mid-air for what seemed like minutes (it was maybe 5 seconds) and then burst; shattered splintered glass spraying outward all over my bedroom. “What the “f” was that”? asked my daughter. I began to explain what had been happening all the time she had been away at. Finally, I was no longer suffering in silence; my story was told. She then revealing all the experiences she and her friends had over the years, not wanting to frighten me for fear they thought they were crazy mad. I needed a plot, a reason to ask my landlord if anything was occurring in her apartment. It seemed very strange that her child was screaming each night that everything in our apartment would come to life; they too had to be experiencing something or someone.
“I know this is going to sound completely bizarre, but do you by chance have anything “weird” going on in your apartment”? I sheepishly inquired of the landlord and her husband. Immediately, the husband exclaimed “YES”! “We sleep with the lights on every night, it keeps the ghosts away”, in a heavy Polish-Broken American accent that always brought joy to our building and made us laugh at his attempts to learn our language. I wanted to know what he meant by keeping the lights on to keep the ghosts away and why … we spent the next several hours talking about everything that had been haunting all of us for so long; most importantly about the Shadow Man living in the baby’s closet, as she would yell to her parents each night; it was real. He told us of the old Polish folklore of ghosts and how leaving the lights on will keep them away since they like dark places; their electric bill was through the roof and mine was soon to be as well.
We decided to keep a log of the hauntings and compare notes once a week on Saturdays. We were experiencing simultaneous hauntings; if my televisions turned on at 3:20, so did theirs. If their computers and printers or fans turned on at certain times, so did mine. Our apartments were mirroring each other and it was time for me to call in some help because none of the clearing and cleansing that I was doing over the past 6 years was not working; energies were escalating.
I contacted a psychic medium friend of mine for an objective opinion. Obviously, I was being blinded by the occupants and could not clearly pick up and see or feel their presence. She picked up at least 10 entities, 2 were non-human. Together we all pooled our resources together to try and clear this home to no avail. My landlord’s husband revealed during one of the clearings that he told his wife to not mess around with the Unknown and to stop buying books on how to contact her Father; she did not know what she was doing and he felt that her conjuring was attracting Unknown entities and lost Spirits into our home. He said the more books she bought, the more spells she tried, the hauntings got worse, they were afraid to tell me and her Father never showed up. LESSON- If you do not know what you are doing with the Other Side, leave them alone and leave the contact to the professionals. We tried to make light of The Shadow Man, give him a name. An entire team of us, my daughter and her friends included, my psychic friends and my landlords as well. He would not tell us his name until I one Sunday afternoon, napping, everyone was in my living room arguing over what to call this Shadow Man. I felt the pressure of a body slip into bed with me and the hot breath on my ear with the name Mark resounding so clearly that I jumped out of my bed; rubbing my ear to get the ghost breath off my skin – I know who he is! Eerily confirmed 3 days later when an important letter came addressed to my apartment for a Mark Aidriene. “I think that was the guy who owned the building before my Dad bought it for me after college graduation”, my landlord exclaimed! “The property went up for auction because he died without will or kin”.
Okay, we are uncovering valuable information, we are taking our power back with this information, we can do this, we can beat this. Until another Until…. I was in the bathroom getting ready to go out on a date. My daughter was in my room, either watching a movie or on the computer. All was well, all was cheerful. When she stepped out of my bedroom and into the hallway; I could see her through the bathroom mirror’s reflection as she was calling to me. Just when I turned around, that split second, something or someone lifted her up into the air and threw her into the door jamb of the bathroom and she fell to the floor; an instant bloody red, black and blue mark in the shape of the door jamb, ran from her shoulder to her elbow. If I did not see it with my own eyes I would have never believed it. I would have told her she was crazy and bumped into the door jamb or tripped into it; she was lifted and thrown with such force there was no mistaking that. This was the last straw; it was time to get out.
My landlord moved within weeks of this, her hauntings were increasing, they were not sleeping and having to leave the lights on all hours as recommended by old Polish tradition and folklore. I still heard people in her apartment more than usual, probably because the space was now empty. The footsteps and the bouncing ball sounds coming from her kitchen were frightening. I hated doing laundry. I could hear them pacing back and forth, playing their games above my head.
Needless to say, I put a down payment on a house and moved within 3 months of the last major incident. My landlord sold the property as soon as I made settlement on our new home. I made sure that I brought nothing into my new home from this apartment. Everything went into boxes and placed in the detached 3 car garage at the back of the property. I was too afraid that one of the Spirits could have attached itself to my belongings and I was not bringing anything into this house with me. Yes, I bought all brand-new furniture and household goods. Little by little I did bring some items into the house, no mirrors or furniture though, only clothing or dishes. Most of those items remain in that garage out back another 7 years later. I’ve had new ghosts to deal with here; at least these are friendly and abiding!
Nearly 10 years later, we still sleep with most of the lights on in our new home.