October is the best month for all things scary and what's scarier than living in a house that's haunted? Especially by a ghost not paying rent, because that's some bullshit. Fair's fair. Anyway, here are some seriously spooky stories* from the folks at Reddit about houses they live in or have lived in along with other things…not quite human.
1. CarChaseCity had a special ghost nanny.
My mom's convinced that the house I lived in until I was in kindergarten was haunted. Apparently the previous owner was a nice old lady and she died in the house before we bought it. She has a lot of stories about hearing doors creek, voices, and footsteps in the hallway before my sister and I were old enough to walk. Pretty standard ghost stuff. But the weirdest part she talked about is that sometimes in the middle of the night when no one was in my room, my mobile would go off and my crib would be rocking when my mom walked in and I'd be dead asleep. She thinks that when I was upset in the night the ghost of the old lady would help calm me down in the night.
2. Abgleich's wife also had a ghost nanny, but this one wore a trench coat.
My in-laws tell a story about how when my wife was a baby she was terribly fussy, especially at night. One night after she was down to sleep my mother-in-law was walking into the kitchen and took a look down the hallway (wife's room was at the end of the hall) and she could see what appeared to be a man in a trench-coat leaning over her crib calming her down. My mother-in-law thought "oh, that's nice..he's looking after her too." and went on with her business. A few minutes later it sank what she saw and thought and freaked out. My father in law got up thinking she was crazy and saw the man there as well. I think what freaks them both out the most is how NOT weird it felt or seemed.
To this day they'll swear it was real, and have come to describe the man as an angel of sorts. They saw, and knew that he wasn't there to hurt my wife. I guess she calmed way down at night after that, the screaming nights ended there.
3. Ty_Guy_42 doesn't want to believe he lived in a haunted house…but he definitely did.
I did not believe in ghosts. Sure, I was entertained by the notion, but anyone who came out and stated that they believed in ghosts, I dismissed as New Age hippies or whatever. And then I lived in a haunted house. It started out as little things. The bathroom door would open violently if anyone ever closed the latch, so often that we came to count on it. I asked my roommate if he ever noticed a red light in the spare bedroom (as I always did) when walking up the stairs in the dark. He did. I'd always go in the spare room to investigate, but could never find the source of the light. These things, I could explain away. Then weirder things started to happen. One night, I was sitting in the living room with my gf and my roommate, when I noticed the shape of a woman's face appear in the pane of glass of the window in the other room. We all witnessed this. Even then, I tried to explain it away as a trick of the light. What finally convinced me that something was happening was one time when I was brushing my teeth, something tugged insistently on my sleeve, and I'm 100% sure that I didn't catch it on anything (I was in the middle of the bathroom). Have you ever been fishing? It was like a fish was nibbling on the line, except on my t-shirt sleeve. That freaked me out. Still, stranger things happened. We'd hear footsteps upstairs while home alone. I often saw shadows out of the corner of my eye - one time, I even saw a shadow while looking right at it, in the middle of the room - not up against a wall (I moved around to make sure) - for 5 minutes or so. Twice, while heading up the stairs to my room for bed, I heard a woman's voice say "goodnight" to me, over my shoulder. The strangest thing that happened was New Years Eve, 3 years ago. My roommate and I were hosting a party, and waiting for people to show up, sitting in the living room. Suddenly, I felt something brush against my arm, and the light bulb in the lamp I was sitting beside exploded. There were a few other things that happened, and some I'm forgetting, I'm sure, but the fact is that too many strange things happened for it to be a coincidence. I have since moved out of the house, but the belief remains - something strange was happening there.
4. Berjj saw shadows in places they couldn't possibly be.
This... Holy shit... I've experienced this! When I still lived with my parents I experienced some weird things. My room was in the basement and I remember a couple of times that I heard footsteps upstairs, but when I went to investigate I found myself home alone. I remember one night when I heard someone come down the stairs. A few moments later there was a door opening somewhere. I called out but received no answer. I asked my parents about it the following morning but they had been fast asleep upstairs the entire night. I've also heard faint and short whispers at times, but I usually just dismissed it all as random noise emitted by an old wooden house.
The thing that freaked me out the most however, was that one time when I saw a shadow in the middle of a corridor, not up against a wall. I've caught glimpses of shadows and movement in the corner of my eye at times, but I usually dismiss it as some hair that got stuck in the corner of my eye or just me being tired in general. This one time however, I was walking down the hallway towards the bathroom when there was a shadow that flashed and then disappeared right in the middle of the hallway, just a couple of feet away from me. It was gone in less than a second, but it had not been in the corner of my eye, it had been in the center of the hallway and the center of my field of vision. It was over fast, but it was definitely the shadow of a person wearing a long dress.
I moved out of the house almost 2 years ago and I haven't had anything remotely similar occur to me since.
5. OlliePumpkinTree has found herself being followed…while being alone.
My firstborn used to get night terrors and when I would go running to his room because he was screaming bloody murder at 3am, the room was always ice cold and he was staring at the same corner in the room every damn time. I've no doubt he has seen things. He is an old soul. When we moved from that house, the night terrors stopped.
About a week after moving into our current house, my husband and I were laying in bed about to fall asleep when we both heard glass shatter. We sat straight up in bed, hair bristling on the backs of our necks. I was sure we were getting broken into. My husband got up and checked the house. Nothing. Then I go up and we both searched every window every room everything. No broken glass. It sounded as though someone had taken a large glass vase and thrown it to the ground. It was so loud. But we never found anything broken. Three nights later, I heard it again. My husband was asleep that time already and didn't hear it, but I woke him so he could help me check. Again, nothing. Then it never happened again.
For the first couple years of being in this house, I would hear people talking. If I was upstairs, I could hear them downstairs and visa versa. I could hear them walking up and down my stairs thumps and creaks and all. They never really scared me, their voices were pleasant and conversational. But here's the weird part, I only heard them when my husband was gone. Like clockwork, he would leave for work or to go out and then a few minutes later...bam.
I've also heard a crying baby in my house. It always stopped the moment I got up to investigate. Weird.
I've been followed by something in my house. Not sure what it was, but it scared the crap out of me. It followed me around all day one day making noises behind me: opening and shutting cupboards and drawers, moving things slightly on the counters, etc. only happened once but it lasted for nearly 6 hours. My kids didn't notice anything and I didn't try to call their attention to it.
I'm sure whatever things Ive got in my house don't like that I'm writing this, suddenly I'm feeling a bit sick to my stomach and I've got butterflies in my stomach like that panicky feeling.
6. There are no ghosts in tehforestppl's house. The bed shakes on its own for some other, totally rational reason, right?
Let me preface this by saying I still do not believe in ghosts. There must be some explanation, right? God I hope so. I live in a Victorian house built in 1878. Historical documents we've found show that at least 8 people have passed in the house. Anyway, my room (used to be my parents room) is the most active. The most common occurrence is the bed shaking. This is not a violent shake and it is also not some illusion caused by heartbeat or some such other thing. The bed will shake for around 30 seconds or so. After the bed shakes, you can usually bet that shortly after it stops, it will feel as though someone sits on the bed. It's always the same place as well. If you happen to be in the spot it will feel like a light (5 pounds or so) bag had been placed on you. Occasionally you can also feel something touch your head (quite forcefully). That's the one that trips me out the most and is the most unexplainable to me. There are noises all the time and what sounds like footsteps every night but I attribute that to an old house that makes noise. Hopefully?
7. Lamboni's version of What About Bob? features 100 percent more ghost than the original.
There is a black silhouette of a man that will appear on occasion in my parents house, and has since we moved in when I was very young. We call him Bob, because that was the name of the old guy who lived there (and died there) before my parents bought it. Everyone in my family (mom, dad, 6 siblings) has seen him multiple times, even the dogs bark at him. But he's never harmed anything (my mom swears he broke a cup once, but I'm pretty sure that it was a coincidence or something). But, yeah, he checks up on us every once in a while. We'll be eating dinner or watching tv or whatever and there he'll be, just standing in the doorway to our dining room (that's his favorite room), watching us. However, when you do look at him, he drifts out of the room and goes up the stairs to the second floor and then onwards to the attic stairs and then into the attic. The only bad part about that is that the attic stairs are next to my bedroom door, so I get to deal with the door slamming every time he goes up there. Also, when I'm stoned, I have to go through his favorite room to get munchies and I'm always terrified that he'll surprise me and I'll shit myself or something.
8. Chubbybunns house was haunted by…a pair of boots?
I did when i was very young. i was about 5-6 years old give or take. it was an old house, we moved there because it was pretty cheap. at first there was random cold spots even in the summer. this was in northern Idaho and we had no air conditioner so there was no way that there could be any reason for cold spots.
seven months after we moved in, we started hearing heavy boots tromping up and down the stairs. my mother accused me and my brother of doing it to scare her. she finally believed us after we panicked and ran into her room to hide.
we said it wasn't us, she got this real angry look on her face and just as she is about to start yelling...... THUMP scrapeTHUMPscrape slowly coming up the stairs.
mind you, she was single at the time and rather small and me and my brother were very young, so there was no one living there that could possibly have made that sound.
things also had a habit of disappearing and doors would occasionally slam shut without anyone touching them. after about a year and a half, you couldn't walk around the house without feeling that someone or something was watching you.
finally my mother had enough and we bailed the hell out of there back to my grampa's place. found out later that a miner who lived in that house had killed himself after his wife divorced him.
since one of my best friends lived not too far away from that house, i would pass by it every other day or so. about 2 months or so after moving out, i just happened to look up at the upstairs window (incidentally, my former room) and saw some shadowy movement. i freaked right the fuck out and ran my ass off towards my friends house and told him what i saw. neither of us ever went near that house again.
I'm fairly sure my apartment is haunted. Specifically my room.
- My bedroom door will open and shut on its own, even when all the windows in the apt are closed.
- This only happened once, but the heat pipe in my room shook so violently that chips of paint flew off of it. I know pipes shake when the heat is on, but this wasn't normal. It was like someone was standing in my roommate's room (we live in a duplex) and wringing it like they were trying to choke out the pipe from above.
- One time my roommate and I were watching TV, and we both heard whistling but didn't say anything. Finally I was like "can I pause the TV for a sec?" And we sat there in silence, and both heard whistling again. We looked at each other, horrified, and I texted our next door neighbor to ask if she was home, and she said everyone in their apartment was gone for the weekend. Then we turned the TV up really loud and tried to forget it happened.
I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but we looked up that a girl who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire lived in our building when she died. But it's a pretty old walkup, so I'm sure there are pleeeenty of potential ghosts roaming these halls.
Also my mom refused to change the hideous wallpaper in the master bedroom in the house I grew up in (built in the late 1800s old Victorian style house) because she swears the previous owners (spinster sisters, one of whom died in the house) came to her in a dream and threatened her after she brought in a designer to redo the room.
10. LadyBigknuckles's friend's dad ended up selling his haunted apartment, but it's unclear if the ghost came along as part of the deal.
I've told a few about my house before, but this one actually really scared me. My friend's father owned an apartment in Downtown Fredericksburg just so he could come and visit with the kids more easily on weekends, stuff like that. It was not too far from where we grew up. Anyway, this building was split into four different apartments, my friends being on the top. Since her dad was rarely there, we would sometimes go there to hang out or get some space from our families. One day, my friend was finishing up an art project and we decided to go hang out at the apartment while she did this.
The building apparently already has a history of being haunted, there are many stories about an old man being seen around (I think her father was told someone was murdered there in the 80's) and generally just creeping people out. Now, while I get excited by the paranormal, I had never seen anything there so I just shrugged it off. So there we are, sitting in the living room when I start to yawn a little. My friend tells me I can go lay down in the bedroom, about 20 feet from where she was sitting on the couch. I leave the bedroom door open and we call back and forth to each other for a while before I eventually drift off to sleep.
I'm out for maybe thirty minutes until I hear my friend whisper softly in my ear "wake up". This is followed quickly with a more stern "get up". This gives me the chills for some reason. She then says something inaudible so I sit up, and respond with a groggy "huh?". I rub my eyes and look around only to realize that she has never left her original spot in the living room, and was in fact staring at me in horror.
No words were said. She packed up her things, all the while shaking, as I sat impatiently by the door. Once we get in the car and make our way home, we acknowledge that we both heard something in the room with me. This wasn't what had her frightened, however. At the same time I had heard the whispers, she thought I was talking in my sleep. She glanced up through the corner of her eye and saw me walking around the bed, shadowy in the approaching evening (light was off in the bedroom, on in the other). Seconds later she saw me sit up in the bed, apparently awakened by someone that wasn't quite there. The scariest part for me is that we could correlate and kind of make sense of it- at the same time I heard someone talking to me, she saw a figure pacing around me. It really, really creeped me out for a long time.
I went back a few times before they ended up selling the place, but never again in the evening/at night. There were incidents with other friends, but I was never there for anymore. Apparently books took to flying off of shelves for no good reason. Shame that it's so scary there though, it's a cool little apartment.
*Some stories were edited for spelling errors too scary not to fix.
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