Throughout my life I have been unfortunate (or fortunate - depending how you look at it) to live in several haunted homes. I'll start with my most extreme; the house on 2nd Street.
About ten years ago I lived in a Victorian in downtown San Jose, California. I rented the 2 bedroom/2 bath downstairs portion of the estate, which I shared with my then boyfriend and roommate. Our portion of the house came with the large parlor, living room, dine-in kitchen, storage room, backyard and detached garage. The house was located next to an abandoned church and across from a funeral home.
Perhaps the funeral home charged the energy even more; regardless there were many supernatural and inexplicable occurrences that happened there.
My very first experience in that house happened when I was reading in the front parlor one night. I was sitting on my L shaped couch facing the bay windows at the front of the house. To my left, passed the wooden pillars was the entryway where my tabby kitten, Luna (aka. Bob - realized later she was a male) was playing. He was playing with a bottle cap that must have been lost during our last party.
As Luna slid the metal cap around on the linoleum floor I was intensely reading about tapping into my intuition, possible my first mistake. My right ear was plugged, more than likely from cleaning it too often (I was practically O.C.D. About my ears back then).
I couldn't hear too much out of my right ear but I was disrupted in my reading when I heard a man's voice from the right side of the room. I turned and looked to my right and stared at the dark wall. I knew it wasn't my boyfriend because he was sleeping in our room which wasn't adjacent to that wall. My roommate wasn't home so I knew it wasn't him either.
Even though the voice sounded like it came from the room I was in, I rationalized it by thinking that it must have came from the other side of the wall which was a separate stairway entrance to the converted units upstairs.
I noticed that I didn't hear my cat playing on the floor. I turned and saw my orange tabby looking in the direction that the noise came from. A few seconds later he looked over, connected eyes with me then continued playing with his newfound toy. I felt uncomfortable yet I brushed off the sensation and continued reading.
Several minutes passed and I stopped reading as soon as I noticed Luna had stopped playing again. His paw was stretched out touching the bottle cap, as if he was frozen in a playing pose. He was fixated in the same direction as to where the first noise came from, this time his gaze was slightly to the right, just passed me.
At that same moment I felt a cold wave engulf the room. All at once I felt pressure come over me, weighing me down from the right. I couldn't move - I couldn't call for help. Before I even started to panic I heard a loud breathy whisper next to my right ear. I couldn't tell what the man's voice was saying; whatever it said it was 7 or 8 syllables long and he didn't sound happy. Somehow I broke out of the restraint and ran to my room. Undeniably I was a hysterical mess that night.
Now thinking back, I'm unsure if I couldn't understand what the entity was saying because of how it came out or whether it was my plugged ear. I never heard that voice again after that night. Then again, I refused to be alone in the parlor - day or night.
Several months later we had a Halloween party. There were a few strange occurrences with guests on that night. During the party I shared my experiences with a group of friends. It was after this a few friends confided in me what they experienced that very night in my home. One friend had been sitting in front of the bay windows facing into the room. She heard her name several times being called, the voice coming from her left. Of course no one was in the direction of the voice.
A friend's boyfriend had gone to use the bathroom at the far end of the house, passed the kitchen. He was hesitant to share his experience since he didn't believe in the supernatural. He told me was standing in the bathroom when heard someone enter the restroom. The door was locked; it being a small bathroom he knew he was alone. He suddenly felt a force go through the front core of his body and out his back. It happened quickly but the force of it made him stubble back. Needless to say his perception was changed that night.
Months after these events, I had another experience in my room. I was sitting on my bed, with my cat at my feet, reading a magazine. I was alone and I felt stuck in my room because the light in the living room had burnt out. I had gotten distracted while searching for a bulb and it got dark out. I would have to walk through the dark rooms in order to get to the front or back of the house, so I took refuge in my room.
In the middle of reading I heard noise coming from the parlor, then the living room - which was outside my room. Alone in the house, somehow I knew that it wasn't someone that had broken in. It was something that was already in there. I heard a big thud and a clanking sound come from the living room. I recognized that the sound was the 6' metal ladder falling to the floor. I had used the ladder to take out the dead light bulb from the ceiling lamp. I was standing at the right side of my bed since I had leaped up when I heard the ladder crash to the floor.
I quickly turned to look at the left end of my room, as did my cat that was now standing on my bed. We both had heard a scratching sound on the wall. I remember trembling but I was unsure if it was because I was cold or cold and scared. I quickly scanned the wall to see what could have made the noise. As I was doing so I looked over at my cat because out of the corner of my eye I saw him staring at something. I watched him look from the left side of the room, up towards the high ceiling, then quickly across the room to the right side above my dresser.
At that instant I saw something hit the wall with much force. I recognized it was a plastic hanger as it slid down the wall behind the dresser. Realizing something threw the hanger from across the room I bolted out of my room.
As I was turning to the left to run through the kitchen and out the back door, the rear door flew open on its own. The backyard light shined into the room - no one was inside or outside who could have opened the door. I hesitated. Not wanting to go back to my room I ran through the kitchen as fast as I could and out into the backyard. I didn't know what I was going to do from there; since I didn't have my keys to leave in my car.
Just then I turned towards the door to peer into the house since I heard something coming from the front of the house. It was my boyfriend entering the house, just arriving home from work.
Obviously I survived that night. Although it wasn't long after this last happening that I did move out... Into the Fremont Mansion, which is another story.
Thank you for reading about most of my experiences on 2nd Street. I welcome your comments, opinions, and advice, whatever!