More by: Karen

     When I first moved into the house on Crescent street, everything was perfect. I lived by myself for the very first time. I baked for myself, and myself only. I could walk around with no clothes on and no one would know. I had a great apartment and all was good in the world.I first started noticing strange occurrences around November, when it started getting colder out. I shut my door to my room when I sleep at night, but one morning I noticed it was open. This door is one of those doors where you have to lift it a little to get it shut. I found it odd enough to remember the incident, but not strange enough to make a big deal out of. A week or two after the first door incident was when the bathroom door started acting up. Random times when I was in the bathroom, mostly taking a shower, the door would open up. Because of the way my bathroom is set up, when this happened, if I looked in the mirror (which is right by the shower), it would reflect into the open door into the living room and into darkness and it would freak me out. This happened 3-4 times in the span of a week. One time while in the bathroom I tried to pay extra attention to my surroundings while the door was shut. It was quiet because it was morning and no one else in the other apartments were awake. I suddenly heard in my kitchen (right off of the living room) my silverware in the dryer rack rattle. Immediately I looked at the closed bathroom door, just to see it open moments later. That was about the time I started getting really scared. It was also about the time I started getting really bad migraine headaches.

        I’ve gotten migraines before, but I usually average about 1 a year. Lately though I was getting around 2-3 a month. I had no idea how I was getting them. I felt out of control. Nothing was different with how I was living my life; I had no stress or bad eating to trigger the headaches. It was frustrating because I couldn’t find any way to get around having one.

        The signs of someone being in my apartment were all there. I went on tour for a week and when I came back the door to my apartment from the outside was wide open, but nothing was stolen. After work one day, I noticed in the bathtub a long black hair in the tub (I have short blonde hair).Noone besides myself had ever taken a shower there while I lived there, and I’ve definitely cleaned the tub a time or two beforehand.  Even once in the night after getting a drink of water I heard poundings on the wall of the bathroom once I had gotten back into my bedroom.

        I joked around with my co-workers and friends about all these occurrences at my apartment. I was scared when I heard the silverware jingle, but every other occurrence just kinda spooked me. I wasn’t to the point where I was going to sleep over at a friends house because I was afraid of living there. I was almost curious enough to call my landlord and ask him about the apartment. I felt that maybe something happened, possibly inthe bathroom, since most of the occurrences happened there.

        The last week of January Greg and Erika moved in the apartment right next to mine. I know this because they fought constantly. Every night there would be something that went on. They were either fighting or playing loud music. It was never just silent. This went on for 3 weeks. I started getting to know Greg and Erika from hearing them fight. I knew details of their lives that only close friends knew, all from their voices seeping through the vents to my apartment. One night I woke up at 3 am to Greg and Erika coming home from somewhere. They were blasting some really bad pop music in the room one wall away from my bedroom. I banged on the wall, hoping they would hear me, and they turned down the music.

        The next morning I could hear their alarm clock going off for the entire time I was getting ready. I was at my wits end.  I called my landlord at work to complain about  Greg and Erika. He told me that he’d send out a letter, and if it continued, they’d be kicked out. Two hours after I called my landlord, he called me back. He said “Karen, the coroner is at your house right now. I need you to go home and find out what’s going on because I’m out of town right now and can’t deal with it.” I knew immediately that either Greg or Erika was in a body bag. I rushed home and found my neighbor from downstairs outside, where I got all the details: Greg and Erika came home from a long night of partying, and when they got home Greg took a bunch of pills and washed ‘em all down with alcohol. He never woke up to turn off the alarm clock.

        Having this happen, while dealing with the creepy things in my apartment gave me more chills. Luckily, with warmer weather came less ghostly occurrences, except for the occasional little things like a candle not being in the same place in my bathroom from where it was before. My headaches subsided almost completely as well.

        To this day, the neighboring apartment hasn’t been rented out. I really wanted to know if my landlord told any possible future renters about the tragedy that occurred there months before, and if that‘s why it wasn’t being rented out. I had the chance to ask Susan, the woman showing the apartment for my landlord today as I was moving the last of my stuff out of my apartment and into the new house my friend bought.

        I was caught off guard when Susan came into my apartment. We talked for a bit, and after a while the subject of the neighboring apartment came up. I asked her about what she was legally supposed to tell people as to why the last people moved out. I thought maybe under law they were supposed to say, but Susan said that it was a personal thing and she didn’t have to tell anyone if she didn’t want to. She asked me if I would want to know if someone killed themselves my apartment. I told her that it depended on the situation of how they person died. She said “Well, that apartment wasn’t the only place that played host to a suicide in this house. Someone killed themselves in the very apartment we’re standing in.”

        She told me about a girl that lived there for a couple of years, and how 5 years ago, she overdosed on migraine pain reliever and died. After she hit me with this ton of bricks, I told her about all the eerie things that have happened to my apartment, and I’m not quite sure how she took it. I got a chill down my spine when remembering all my migraine problems that only occurred when the haunting were in full effect during the winter.

        Susan left the apartment, and even though I told her that I wasn’t afraid, I left almost immediately afterwards. All those nights wondering why these things were happening. Wondering if something had happened. I definitely would’ve left more lights on when watching movies in the dark by myself, and would have been more cautious of walking into the creepy bathroom to pee at 4:30 am.