Weirdness-----never happens--OK-here's a never-happened thing that happened in Findlay, Ohio, 1967
Facts are:
I was living at home, senior in High School. My sister, Linda (with roommate-Judy), was living in the upstairs portion of an upstairs/downstairs duplex on an alley on 216 ½ Larkin St. You had to walk up the exterior stairs on the side of the house and enter through the kitchen. Linda’s bedroom was straight ahead thru the kitchen. If you went to the right you entered the living room and then Judy’s bedroom. If you went left you’d enter some smaller room.
Linda gave me a key to their apartment so I could stop in on my way home from high school if I wanted to, as it is a long walk from Findlay High to Hancock St. where I lived with our family. But I only occasionally stopped in her apartment and both Linda and Judy were at always at work, so I was alone and rarely stayed more than a few minutes.
One evening, I think in late September, Linda called me and accused me of messing up her apartment. I did no such thing. After that initial call, she called me periodically, accusing me of moving things around, taking food out of the refrigerator and leaving it on the counters, throwing things on the floor. Each time the damage or disarray seemed to get worse and she threatened to take the key back.
After a good month of this, came the day it came to a head. I stopped by her place on the way home from school---it was Friday. My friend, Gary, was with me. We climbed the stairs on the outside of the house and could see some guy in his kitchen at the sink in the house across the alley. He saw us as well. We went into the apartment. Stayed a couple minutes, got bored and left. The guy was no longer in his kitchen and so did not see us leave. Linda called me when she got home from work, accused me of malicious damage and demanded the key back. She said the neighbor guy saw me and Gary go into the apartment. I denied we did any damage. The phone conversation ended badly, me still protesting my innocence and wondering what the...!
That night close to midnight Linda is at our door pounding and yelling to be let in. Our Dad let her in, calmed her down and asked what was happening.
She said the following and please excuse the graphic-ness:
She came home to find feminine napkins scattered all over the house, ketchup on them, and other things thrown all over. She was furious, at some point asked the neighbor guy if he saw anyone (he ID’d me and my buddy as being there earlier). She called me and we argued. By the way, roommate Judy was gone for the evening with her boyfriend.
After cleaning up, Linda finally went to bed about 11:30’ish I guess.
She had “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” (Simon and Garfunkel album) playing on the record player at the foot of her bed. Her door was closed.
Then the following happened:
She heard footsteps coming up the exterior stairs. She heard the locked kitchen entry door open. She called out Judy’s name a couple of time---no answer. Then the tapping of high heels crossing the linoleum floor of the kitchen to stop right outside her bedroom door. She called Judy’s name again----no answer. Linda became very scared and as the bedroom door opened slowly, she pulled the covers over her head and--according to her--froze in fear.
Linda says the “person” stood over her, she could hear faint breathing and feel it looking at her. Then it tip-tapped itself to the foot of the bed and the music ceased. It stood a moment, went back to stand beside her by her head again. And then tip-tapped out of her room, closed her door, tip-tapped across the kitchen and out the door, closing that door as well and then she heard it stepping down the staircase until it was gone.
At some point soon after, Linda screwed up her courage to run from the apartment, grabbing her purse/keys and came to our house to tell us the tale. She was freaked.
Dad had her call Judy and tell her to not go home.
The next day, me, Dad and Linda went to her apartment and met the house owner in the front yard. Linda told him what happened and he admitted that he knew this stuff happened in that apartment (never the downstairs half) to every renter he had had in the apartment, but could not tell prospective renters or he’d never be able to rent the place. Dad demanded she move out that day and that the owner give Linda and Judy their pro-rated rent money back. He instantly agreed and he profusely apologized. Judy had showed up also by the way, as arranged.
We moved their belongings out of there that day and stored it in Dad’s garage and the girls stayed with us for a bit until they found a new place. Also, weird as heck, is that there was never any more music on that album--I mean it was no more than a white noise disc from then on. I don't know----you tell me.
BTW: Years later, Linda’s fiancé at the time and her husband for the last 40 yrs, Ed, told me he had actually seen a woman walk across the bedroom doorway when he was laying down resting in the bed one day and it spooked him cuz he jumped up---and nobody there.
It looks like the thing was attached to the house, not my sister specifically. Could still be there for all I know. The poltergeist stuff started small and really got drastic. Things had to actually be moving all over the place through the air for that crap to happen. Scary indeed! Whew.
So there is the tale.
It truly, actually happened and make of it what you will.
