My Very First Ghostly Encounter

The apartment was pretty decent for this shady area of town. Besides, it was about the only thing we could afford back then. Who knew it came with extras, which were included in the rent?!!

Many years ago when my husband and I rented our first apartment, we were young and had no money to speak of. I worked full time while my husband attended school and worked part-time in the evenings. The apartment was actually one half of a duplex and we got a bargain on it because it was actually a two bedroom, but was rented to us as a one bedroom. The second bedroom had a padlock on it and we were asked to never bother with it. Another odd request was that we never paint the inside of the kitchen cabinets that were red! We were both brought up to respect our elders and since we were getting such a break on the rent, we didn't really care about either request. The place needed a good cleaning and after doing so we were basically moved in. Like I said, we didn't have much when we started out and the place came furnished...if you could call it that.

Soon we were in a routine and doing just fine living paycheck to paycheck. The people who lived in the other half of the duplex were nice, but had a whole different lifestyle than we did which always made for a little excitement now and then. They liked to drink and party all the time when they weren't working and their little girl would always ask her mommy why their house wasn't clean like mine! Anyway, we never had any real problem with them.

One night as I was watching TV in the living room, I suddenly heard water running full force somewhere. I quickly got up and headed toward the bathroom where the water in the tub was running as if you were to turn it on to fill the tub for a bath. I turned it off and sat there trying to figure out how something like that could happen. I mentioned it to my husband later that night when he got home from work. He didn't have an answer either, and might have thought I was exaggerating what was a little drip or something. Two days later in the early evening when my husband was home I heard water running again. He went into the bathroom to find the water running in the sink. At that point, we just made a joke out of it about being haunted. There were several episodes of the water being turned on...always in the bathroom and mostly when I was home alone. I didn't keep telling my husband about it because I didn't want him to think I was losing my marbles. Everything else was fine in the apartment. Finally, the water stopped being turned on and things quieted down.....for a while.

Weeks later I was awakened in the middle of the night....3:14AM to be exact....it was as if someone woke me from a sound sleep. I was facing the alarm clock when I woke and looked at the time thinking it was great that I still had a few more hours to sleep before the alarm went off for us to get up for work. With that, I rolled over to snuggle to my husband and as I went to face him I was frozen with fear...standing near his side of the bed was a woman that I could see plain as day. She wore her hair braided and wrapped in a big bun. She had on a black and white checked housedress that buttoned all down the front...she was very matronly. She had her hands clasped in front of her and was just smiling so sweetly. I'm blinking my eyes like crazy by now not knowing what was going on...I knew I was awake but I couldn't speak, scream, nothing. I stayed frozen and just stared at this woman who then started drifting backwards further and further away from me as her image disappeared into the door of the room with the padlock on it. Still I lay there not knowing what to do or think. Surely I couldn't tell my husband about this because he didn't believe in such things...and neither did I until then! I couldn't sleep the rest of the night and this was really bugging me. I can't say that it left me feeling like I should fear anything after that. I was never scared to be in the apartment alone while my husband worked evenings. I may have kept a few more lights on than usual, but other than that I was fine. I really wanted to tell him and so one night I did. I remember him looking at me with that silly grin of his and telling me I must have been dreaming...but he also said not to be telling him stuff like that especially if this person was standing near HIS side of the bed!!

We always walked our rent payment over to the landlord since he and his wife lived 3 blocks away. They were a very nice older couple that loved to talk...and I mean talk. You couldn't just take the check over and hand it to them and leave. They always made you come in to sit a while and talk. They may have meant well, but with our schedules, we just wanted to pay our rent and go so it got to the point that we would argue over whose turn it was to go pay the rent. Due to my husband's schedule, I got stuck with it much more often than he did. After this ghostly visit, it was me who took the rent check over...and was invited in again. The landlord's wife was the one who motioned me inside while she was on the telephone trying to finish a conversation which I knew would take forever and so I was not a happy camper sitting there waiting. Their house was so full of stuff...they must have collected everything! You couldn't even walk a straight path through their living room. While sitting there waiting for her to get off of the darn telephone, I was looking around when all of a sudden I spotted a picture on the wall...my heart started racing like crazy. I needed to calm down. I just wanted to run all the way home. It was a picture of the ghostly woman I saw in our apartment! It looked exactly like her...same hair, same dress, and same smile. As soon as the landlord's wife got off of the telephone, I tried to stay calm as if I were making polite conversation and asked her who the woman in the picture was. She then smiled and said it was her mother and told me that her mother used to live in our apartment for many years before she died. It was torture sitting there with her much longer after that as I just wanted to get home and tell my husband about this. Once I did get out of there, I ran all the way home and paced until my husband got home from work. I was so shook up that I my husband knew I wasn't making up stories. After I told him about the picture and that the woman used to live in our apartment, he decided to pry the padlock off of the door just to peek inside. From what we could tell, it was old furniture, clothes, things that must have belonged to the woman. We closed the door back up and talked this over. We decided that since nothing else had happened since I saw the ghost that we would try to stay there until my husband finished school the following year. He even said at least she was smiling when she visited us in the middle of the night and maybe that was her way of giving her approval to us living there and taking such good care of the apartment! After that, nothing else ever happened.

My husband finished school and we ended up moving out of state. A few years later when we went back to visit, we drove past the old duplex and found that it had been renovated and was now a fancy lawyer's office. I wonder if they ever have running water in the bathroom!!