Our Haunted First Apartment

Way back in 1972 I was a newlywed to my first husband; Bill, the bum (Feel the love here). We ran away to Kentucky to get married because you could get married there at 16 years old without parental consent. It was 2 weeks after I turned 18 and I could leave Ohio at 18 as 'that' was, then, considered legal age to do so. A mistake on my part, but I corrected it a few years later. However, that's another story not really appropriate for this site.

We were living with 'his' Foster parents when we came back to Willoughby. My parents were just glad to see I was alive, but they were less than thrilled with Bill. I grew to understand that later on. At any rate, we were living in Esther's house that was a former Boarding house long before I met Bill. One room in the house was haunted by the ghost of a former boarder named Chester who was an alcoholic and, unfortunately passed on there. I encountered poor Chester and mentioned him in a previous post about Esther's boarding house. He was merely confused and not aware of his non-living state until I, gently, explained it to him. Thus, helping him to move on to a better existence.

We lived with Esther and Dave for about a year and a half, but it was hardly subliminal. We had very little privacy except for up in our bedroom, or when we left every weekend for our playing jobs. We were, both, guitarists and in a 4-piece band.

Our drummer, call her S., was, also, our manager. That way we always 'had' our manager with us. She would find the gigs and negotiate our pay-scales. That was about the only fun I had while married to Bill since he mostly didn't stay employed too long. He had a problem with work called laziness. Those weekend gigs helped keep us in gas and food though for several months until 'I' found employment as a nursing assistant in a nearby hospital. Believe it, or not. Back then $2.25/hour was a fairly decent wage, and we were able to move out to our first apartment at last. Ah, privacy!

The apartment was once a huge century old mansion that the owners converted into 8 separate apartments. 4 upstairs and 4 downstairs. We got the one on the far-left side in the back facing the street. The rent was only $110.00 a month. Can you believe that? The apartment was so tiny that you could, literally, stand in the center of the living room and turn around slowly and see the entire apartment without leaving 'that' spot. It had the living room, bedroom off of the living room, bathroom off of the bedroom and the kitchen. The kitchen was the only large section of the whole place. There was a door in the kitchen that led down to the basement, but we never went down there.

We had to wallpaper the living room since it was an ugly puke yellow color, and we laid some nice, new linoleum down since the floors were bare wood. We didn't want splinters in our feet. I told the landlords that 'we' were doing it to improve the appearance of the place to our liking and didn't expect them to increase the rent as 'we' were doing all the work. They agreed.

While we were busy improving the place and setting up housekeeping, we didn't really notice anything right away. Once we had the work completed is when we began to notice some annoying and strange developments.

It started out rather subtle at first. We had an apartment directly above us. The other 3 were located in such a way as to have 2 on one side, and 2 on the other side.

It started with some noises above us. Usually in the daytime. No big deal. The sound of the other tenants. Or so we thought. Like I said, we didn't give too much credence to it. However, those noises grew louder in intensity, and we heard them day and night. Especially when we were trying to sleep. How rude can you get? We took it for months until it got ridiculous.

When Bill was at work one day, I took the initiative to call the landlord and say something about it. When I told the wife about the rude tenant above us keeping us up all night with their racket, I was greeted with silence at first. She told me that she'd look into it. I let it go at that. I was hoping that the landlords would have a talk with the person living up there and tell them to be more considerate. No such luck.

The racket became much more distinctive at night. It actually sounded like someone rolling something around on wheels. Apparently, the floors in all the apartments were bare wood floors making it easy to hear someone walking around, or moving furniture, and the like. We, also, heard what sounded like they were hammering nails into the plaster walls. That noise was sporadic, but most annoying when you're in bed.

We knew there were other tenants upstairs. An old man that lived by himself and an older couple. We didn't know who was in the other 2 apartments. We really didn't neighbor too much.

We got pretty fed up with the noisy neighbor above us and decided to go up to the apartment and talk to them ourselves. It appeared that the landlords didn't follow through with their idle promise. Driven by annoyance, and sick of being kept up nights we marched upstairs to confront our tormentor. We resolutely stood outside of the apartment door and persistently began knocking on it. We got no answer. We kept pounding until we'd get a response. About then the woman that lived with her husband directly across from that apartment opened her door. She looked to be in her 40's, attractive, and spoke nicely to us inquiring as to what we were doing.

We explained that whoever was living in there was keeping us up practically all night with all the racket they were making. I asked "why don't they open the door? Are they deaf so they can't hear all the noise they're making at all hours? What's their problem? We're getting quite aggravated about it. The landlord assured us that they'd talk to them, but nothing's been done so far."

She had a rather blank look on her face. She introduced herself and invited us in so she could 'talk' to us. Her husband was at work, but she asked us to sit down. She offered us some coffee. We were seated at her dining room table as she brought the coffee out to us. She had a cup with us. She told us not to think she was crazy, but her husband, and her have been hearing the same noises since they moved in the year before us. She said hearing what we said made her realize that what her husband and her surmised convinced her that 'they' weren't just bonkers and hearing things. She said that that particular apartment was 'empty'.

Our jaws dropped. Even Bill, the sceptic, was stunned. We told her somebody 'has' to be in there. She confirmed that the 'only' people they've seen in there were the landlord and his wife when they come by once a week in the mornings to clean it. She said that they've seen the landlords 'showing' the apartment to several people, yet no one comes back, or has moved into it. She took a deep sip of her coffee and told us with a very serious tone in her voice that her husband, and her believed 'that' place was haunted.

I believe my reaction was "say whaaaaaaaaaaaat?" She wasn't joking in the least little bit. She said that her husband, and she were looking for another place to move to because it was beginning to scare them.

I asked her if she knew 'anything' as to 'why' it might be haunted?

All she could tell me was that the old man that lived down the hall next door might know something since he had been living there for a number of years. She didn't want to question him since they didn't know him personally and weren't sure how to inquire about it.

Fortunately, I was a little braver, and the curiosity was more than I could stand.

I waited for my day off from the hospital. I did notice an old fellow that would periodically sit out on the front porch when the weather permitted it. The house had a wraparound porch, so I just walked around to the front when I saw him outside one day. I introduced myself and told him that we recently moved in around the back. I started some polite conversation trying not to be too obvious about my curiosity. I asked him how well he was acquainted with his neighbors, and did he like living there? Things like that.

During the conversation he mentioned that there 'was' a strange old guy that lived in the apartment opposite him at the end of the hallway. He said the man had to get around with a wheeled walker because he had difficulty walking.

He thought the guy was a little kooky since he was frequently thinking he had to pound nails into the walls to hang things. He wasn't satisfied with his surroundings and was constantly trying to change it. He told me that the guy was rather anti-social and complained all the time. He said that he was living there for about 4 years when the landlord showed up to collect the rent one day only to find him lying on the bedroom floor. Apparently, he'd had a heart-attack. That was that.

It began to make sense. This man quite obviously was not aware that he was, no longer, on the physical plane, and was carrying on with his obsessive habits that he had in life. I imparted my revelation to Bill, and even he couldn't argue with me about it.

We stayed less than a year and moved to a much nicer apartment elsewhere. It wasn't much of a beginning for a newlywed couple in their very first place to find out that it has haunted. Our relationship didn't improve too much after leaving, but I couldn't blame a ghost for that. Bill turned out to be lazy and a run-around. The marriage ended, and I met a wonderful man that I had my fair share of adventures with. However, John and I had some very enlightening, and fascinating stories to share with each other. I am, now, sharing my accounts here. Thank you for reading them!