Reader Submission: The Haunted Apartment
“Up until a few months ago, I lived in an apartment in Manhattan with a roommate. We moved in the summer of 2012, and everything seemed fine…for a while.
It’s hot in August, so we had the AC window units running at night. It starts to cool off in September, so we turned off the AC and it was quiet at night. The first incident I noticed was when I heard what sounded like rustling in my dresser drawers. Because I’m a rational person, I dismissed it and told myself I was half asleep and that it was nothing. In the days/weeks after, I felt something jump on my bed in the middle of the night and walk around. But again, I ignored the incident, and in my half-asleep state of mind, thought it was my roommate’s cat. Then I remembered that my door was shut and the cat could not be in my room. This happened several times, so I knew it wasn’t just in my head, but I didn’t mention it to my roommate because I didn’t want us to scare each other.
In October, I got a dog, a sweet little chihuahua that was very quiet and never barked or made noise. In the middle of the night, she would suddenly wake up, extremely alert, and stare at my bedroom door, growling and snarling. I couldn’t do anything to calm her down, and she never reacted that way to the cat that was also still in the apartment. This happened almost every night, and I still hadn’t mentioned anything to my roommate.
One night we were at a bar, having a few drinks, and I decided I had to tell her what was going on. I told my roommate about the dresser noises, the footsteps on my bed, and my dog growling at nothing in the middle of the night. She looked horrified and told me the exact same things happened to her: strange noises, feeling things on her bed when the cat was nowhere to be found, and the cat acting very strangely, staring at things and suddenly running away to hide.
Once we had both completely freaked each other out, we were on high alert (exactly what I’d wanted to avoid) and things started to get worse. I continued to hear weird noises and feel steps on my bed. My dog continued to growl at night. Then one night I felt a lot of pressure on my chest, like someone or something was pressing on it. I couldn’t breathe. We also had two incidents where my roommate and I were both home, sitting at opposite ends of the apartment, when a bottle of vodka tipped over for no reason. My roommate witnessed this, and it was the crystal head vodka, a skull-shaped bottle that is short and bottom heavy, not something that randomly falls over. A bottle of vinegar also crashed to the floor and shattered for no apparent reason.
The last thing I can remember happening is the towel incident. One day, I went to shower and left a towel hanging on a rack right next to the shower. I’m certain it was there because I used it to wipe my eyes while showering. However, when I got out of the shower, the towel was lying on the floor at the opposite end of the room. There was no way for me to accidentally drop the towel and then toss it 10 feet across the room. I kid you not, I was so terrified that I wound up going to a church to got holy water and used it to bless the apartment every week. NOTHING happened after that. The dog stopped barking, no more objects fell over, no more foot steps on the bed.
Now for the strangest part…I had Googled my address many times to see if anything bad had happened there, but I never found anything. When I finally moved out, I received a text from my mom saying that she hadn’t wanted to tell me while I lived there, but that she’d Googled my address and came across an article about a New York writer who’d lived in my apartment and committed suicide (not just the building, but my exact unit). I couldn’t believe she’d kept this secret for over three years, but I’m glad I didn’t know and that my roommate and I were not insane. I’m so happy I’ve moved out!”
