Your
True Tales
April 2006 – Page
14
Poltergeist
Apartment
by Alysia Holmes
Here are a few experiences our family had while living for a year in an apartment in San Jose, California. I do not know what the cause of the strangeness was, but before we moved in, someone who had lived in a unit at the opposite end of the complex told us something was not right there. He supposed at the time it had to do with witchcraft, but didn't know either. Keep in mind this person's apartment and ours were in different buildings in different parts of the complex.
The first, and most frightening of the experiences centered around the front door. The kids and I went out to a family gathering for the evening. My husband who is an EMT was working a 24 hour shift, I believe. I locked the door, but not the deadbolt. I checked the handle to make sure it was securely locked. Several hours later when we arrived home, my oldest son got to the door first and was shocked that it opened easily for him. My first thought was that someone had broken in or was still inside, but everything was as we had left it and no one was inside or hiding anywhere.
Another time my youngest son and I had been napping while the other was at school and when I woke up and came out into the front room the door was partially open. My son was sleeping soundly in his bed.
The next two events were quite shocking. One night, again while my husband was working a 24, the kids and I were in the front room watching TV when we all heard the handle on the door jiggling, like when someone is locked out. We assumed my husband and his partner had stopped by as they sometimes did. We all got up to go unlock the door and let them in. The door was opening as we approached it and no one was outside. We lived upstairs and we saw no one running down the stairs or away from the stairs. There was no where for someone to hide.
Finally, I went to open the front door one day to go outside, and when I had it partially open I felt a force either pulling or pushing it closed again as my hand held onto the handle. I immediately opened it again eager to see if it would happen again, but it didn't. I only experienced that odd sensation that one time.
Many things happened that were not really scary, but had us wondering if we were losing our minds by the time our year there was up. The bottom drawer of our computer desk would slide open at odd times for no reason, often as we watched, or felt it hit our leg while sitting and working. It never closed by itself, just opened sometimes a lot, sometimes just a little. The drawer never did that anywhere else we lived and it hasn't done it since our move. Once my husband complained that he couldn't find the ream of computer paper we always keep in that drawer and after a long search found it in one of the filing cabinet drawers next to the desk. My cell phone moved around a few times. I typically kept in by the bed at night when my husband was working his 24s. I would usually put it up on a high shelf of the bookcase in our room when taking my morning shower so that the kids wouldn't find it and play with it. One morning I came out of the bathroom and forgot about the phone. I walked out into the front room and got spooked when I saw my phone in it's usual daytime place. I of course remembered then that I had put it up on the shelf before my shower and wondered how in the world it got to it's other usual spot without me moving it. Also the kids had not gotten up yet at that point.
Another morning I searched all over the place for my phone and something told me to look under the bed. It was there, but I couldn't figure out how it could have gotten knocked off the night stand and that far under the bed. If anything if I had knocked it off during the night, it should have fallen the other way away from the bed. Also my glasses were on the night stand closer to me than the phone. There's no way I could have just knocked the phone off without hitting my glasses too.
My husband got all irritated one day when he couldn't find a book that he had had with him at work. When he had come home he had just dumped all his stuff onto the bed and left everything there. It would have been easy to just think he left it at work and it never made it home with him. However, he found it later under a bunch of stuff in one of his "piles" on his side of the bed as if it had been there for days. One night I was making pancakes for dinner. Everyone else was in the front room not paying any attention to me or the kitchen. I had the bowl out with the dry ingredients in it when I had to go into the front room for some reason, probably to deal with the kids fighting or something. I left the kitchen with it clear in my mind what I needed to do next: go to the fridge and get the milk and egg. I make pancakes from scratch at least once a week and can practically do it in my sleep as I always do it exactly the same way. I came back and went straight to the fridge. I turned around and almost dropped the egg I was holding because there was an egg sitting on the counter next to the bowl. I always get the egg and milk at the same time and not until I need them, and no one had been in the kitchen with me.
My oldest son and I felt extremely uncomfortable about two places in our apartment. I had thought I was the only one getting "bad vibes" from these two places like someone's or something's were watching me. I say that because I would feel it simultaneously from both areas. The two areas were outside the two bedrooms which were at opposite ends of the apartment. I hated how unsettling the feeling was. Then one day my son and I were discussing some of the things bothering him and he mentioned he thought he sometimes saw "ghosts". I asked him where and he said both inside and outside. I asked him if there were particular places inside that he "saw these ghosts" and secretly hoped he'd say the places I had felt it. He pointed out the exact same places. I had never mentioned anything to him about my impressions.
I was always feeling like my face and hair was being touched. It would be strongest at the crown of my head and get to me so much that I would wear hats inside sometimes and I'm not a hat person. I would feel a similar sensation on my arms sometimes too. Finally, twice I saw things I don't really know what to make of. One night I was putting a bucket of toys away in the boy's bedroom. The light was off so it was really dark in there. I bumped the bucket into the corner of their dresser and saw what seemed to be a small ball of light zip from the bunk bed to underneath the rocking chair, almost like it had been startled and ran to hide. I'm normally a fairly rational person but I couldn't help but get down on my hands and knees and peek under the chair half expecting to actually see something. That's how strange the incident seemed. I tried to recreate it again thinking it had to have just been a reflection of light or something from when I bumped into the dresser, but I couldn't make it happen again.
The second time might have been part of a dream, and it only happened once. I "woke up" and turned over to my other side to get comfortable. As I was moving I "opened my eyes" and saw a large orange form standing at the foot of my side of the bed. There was an obvious head, but no visible arms or legs separate from the rest of the form. I saw it for only a second before I finished repositioning myself and sort of hid myself under the covers and snuggled a little closer to my husband grateful that he was home that night. If it was just a dream, I had an unusual amount of awareness of the form and not wanting to look again to see if it really was there. I just wanted it to go away.
These were our main experiences at this apartment. Was it witchcraft? I don't know as I don't know anything about it and have no desire to. I often wondered, though, as one particular unit in the complex appeared very unapproachable from different handwritten signs taped on the door deterring solicitors and directions to postal/delivery services on how to deliver packages to them. There was also a long, thin leaf or husk of some kind clipped to the front of the door. All I know is that strange things went on and we often had the same feeling that something just wasn't right.
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