Soldiers Or Nurses?

This is my first post to this site, I hope you enjoy it!

I've always been open minded regarding ghosts, having not had many experiences myself, but family members have had some truly terrifying things happen to them and I believe their accounts!

I'd lived in the same house all of my life until renting my first flat just over two years ago. It was a huge old building, with the look of a Tudor Manor House, but was originally a military war hospital during WW1.

I fell in love with the huge windows and high ceilings and moved in, living alone for the first time at the age of 23.

The first time I walked in on my own I noticed how NOT alone I felt. Up until then someone else had always been with me, helping me move. But now, on my own, I couldn't help but feel as though someone else was in the flat with me.

It didn't feel uncomfortable or negative. It was truly as though I'd walked into someone's house and they were still home.

It didn't bother me. The first few nights were normal and I adjusted to living alone - coming from a big family, I wonder if feeling as though I wasn't alone actually made it easier for me to live alone, if that makes sense?

One day I left the flat, closing my bedroom door as was always my habit at the family home, and returned some hours later. Pushing open my bedroom door, I was surprised to find pairs of my shoes lined up against the other side of the door, bunched up from where I'd pushed the door open against them.

I stared at them for a while. I couldn't have lined my shoes up against the door and then left through the doorway without disturbing them. There was no other entrance to the room, and no one except my landlord had keys to the flat. Even so, no one could have lined up my shoes against the door and got out of the room without having the door push the shoes up against the wall.

I was confused, but still no bad feelings.

As the days passed I slowly unpacked my belongings, made slower by having to go work every day. A few times I'd open drawers that I knew to be empty and find my stuff already in them. Various bits and pieces would be in cabinets and drawers that I knew I hadn't put there. I even asked the family members that had helped me move, and they all assured me that they hadn't taken anything out of the boxes and bags they moved in.

On a few occasions, late at night, I would be in bed trying to sleep and I'd hear noises in the kitchen. My bedroom was next to the kitchen, and the walls of the flat were very thick and I never heard my neighbours at night, so I was sure it was from my kitchen. I'd hear knocks and shuffling, but nothing would be disturbed in the morning. I was way too much of a chicken to check the noises out there and then.

One of the more distinct noises sounded like plastic rattling. I had a set of plastic measuring cups hanging from a cupboard handle in the kitchen, and one day after the noises I knocked the cups against each other to see what it sounded like. It was the exact same sound I'd heard at night.

These aren't scary experiences but I think they're interesting, together with the feeling that I was never truly alone. I'd hear knocks on various doors and other noises but as I lived on the top floor with one neighbour beside me, I could never be sure that it wasn't someone else in the block.

My friends commented after I'd moved out that they'd always felt as though I was in someone else's flat, rather than it being mine.

I no longer live in that building, but think of it often. I wonder if what I experienced was some kind of residual energy of the nurses and soldiers tidying up and going about their business as though it was still a military war hospital.

I enjoyed my time there but wasn't sorry to leave it. It felt as though I was leaving hospital myself, and I was relieved and happy to see the back of it.

I look forward to your comments regarding my experience, and please let me know if you want any clarification.

Thank you!