Dogwood Ave. Apartments

The end of June in 2008, my now ex-husband and I separated. For two weeks I stayed in the income based apartment of a friend and then moved into the same building that she lived in on Dogwood Avenue in Palmer. The first day I spent in my new home, arranging my few belongings, it was deathly quiet. I contributed that to the fact that I no longer lived with my friend, and was alone. I didn't even have my cats as it was a no pet complex. Except that out of the corner of my eye, I could see the flick of a tail and glimpse a paw as something trotted out of the room. I could even hear little kitty claws occasionally sticking in the carpet. After two weeks of no cats at my friend's apartment, I was curious as to why I would see them now. I attributed it to loneliness and left it there.

The first night, however, was nerve wracking. Since it was high summer, we had almost 24 hour daylight - that's Alaska for you, Land of the Midnight Sun. So it wasn't like anyone could have gotten in my apartment in the dark. I was, and am still, a paranoid freak about locking my doors. There weren't enough dark corners to hide in and I had almost no furniture. It was an upstairs apartment so by the time someone could have climbed in an open window, they would have been spotted.

Thusly, hearing the repetitive sound of my refrigerator opening and closing puzzled me. There was no mistaking the sound of the magnated rubber seals around the door of a refrigerator. That sticky "schlock" sound as it opens and the thump and rattle of the door closing and its contents shaking. I couldn't figure out why someone would be in my apartment at 10:30 in the evening, going through my refrigerator. Surely, if they meant to rob me or hurt me, they would have followed the noises I was making as I got ready for bed but no. Whoever was in my apartment was trying to loot my refrigerator!

I grabbed my handgun (In Alaska, you don't need a concealed-carry, thusly, anyone of legal age can possess and carry within the laws) and marched out to my kitchen, determined to give a good scare to whoever was helping themselves to my food.

*As a side note, my bedroom was on the front side of the building, and the kitchen was on the back side. All of the apartments are set up the same, with my across-the-hall neighbor's fridge being on the other side of the wall from mine. The people on the other side of me had their fridge essentially 2 walls away from mine. My downstairs and across-the-hall neighbors weren't home, at this point.*

Upon inspection of the kitchen and then all of the closets, there was no one else in the apartment with me. I went back to bed, chalking my experiences up to exhaustion. For the next half an hour, I listened to the sound of my refrigerator opening and closing. I finally got back up and went out to the kitchen again and managed to catch the act in person. While my fridge door stayed sealed shut, the sound of it being opened and closed repeated itself once again.

Having experienced other freakishly odd things in my parents old house on Soapstone Road (will post on that later), I took a breath and went back to bed.

The next night, the fridge continued on with making its abnormal noises, and was accompanied by the sound of someone walking around in my living room and down the hallway to my bedroom. No one ever came in. The footsteps stopped about 3 paces shy of my bedroom door again, no downstairs neighbor. She didn't start moving in until a week after I did.

As time went on, I accepted the fridge door and footsteps. I had a harder time with doors opening on their own, not two minutes after I had closed them. The door to the water heater closet was in my bedroom. Due to the difficulties I often had in getting it to open, it would surprise me to wake up in the morning and find the door swinging wide open. My sliding closet doors, also somewhat stiff, would be open in the morning or when I came home from work.

It got out of hand when I would put keys in the basket on my entry table, get up for work in the morning, and have no keys at all. I would check everywhere. Finally, it would come to the point that I would have to say something. "Give me back my keys please. Those are mine and I need them. You gotta knock this off." I would go back to where I started looking and wouldn't find the keys in the basket. Instead, they would be swinging merrily on the hook above the basket.

It didn't seem like whatever was there with me was trying to hurt me. If I outright acknowledged them, the missing keys and opening doors would stop for a while. I think whatever was there just wanted to remind someone that they were there. That they had an existence and it deserved to be acknowledged.