This is the story of the only paranormal experience that I've ever encountered first-hand. It took place when I was a teenager, and sparked my interest in the paranormal.
I lived in a house with my mother, 2 younger sisters, and my mother's boyfriend. We moved the house when I was ~8, and my sisters and I always had uneasy feelings about the basement, laundry room, and garage (which were all connected). We often dared one-another to go down there for 5 minutes without getting scared. I don't recall anything ever happening to us, but we were always uneasy. When I was 12 my sisters decided that they were tired of sharing a bedroom, and so I was moved into the semi-finished basement to free up a bedroom for my sister.
Once I had set up my bedroom, and started sleeping down there I started to notice all sorts of weird noises. I tried my best to ignore them, but adding noises to the uneasy feelings creeped me out. I couldn't fall asleep without something drowning out the noise. I often relied on the furnace/hot water heater, the TV's sleep timer, or a loud fan to help lull me to sleep. I would never fall asleep with my back to the laundry room door, and often let my dog sleep in bed with me in order to not be alone.
My first tangible experience occurred one evening between 7:00pm and 9:00pm. I was in my room cleaning up, and organizing my CD collection, my parents were watching TV in the living room, and my sisters were in a bedroom watching TV. I heard someone yell my name as clear as day. I was unable to distinguish it as a male or female's voice, so I jetted upstairs thinking it was one of my parents. When I asked them what they wanted, they looked at me confused, and said that they hadn't yelled for me. I then approached my sisters, who laughed and said they were watching TV and were talking about boys, so they didn't want me around. I was a little uneasy, but went back downstairs confused. The next day I got a crucifix from my grandmother to hang above my bed.
My second experience was a little more frightening. One night around 3:30am I was sound asleep. My toy poodle KC was sleeping in my bed with me, and he started barking at the laundry room. Aggravated and half asleep I told him to zip it, and fell back asleep. He stood and stared at the laundry room door. At ~3:45am I heard a sequence of loud noises, which sounded like our manual garage door being opened. I tore out of my sleep, panicked, and quickly hit the radio button on my alarm clock to scare off whoever was coming into the house. The noises quickly subsided, and KC freaked out and ran upstairs. I couldn't fall back to sleep that night, and sat in my bed staring at the door and waiting for something to happen.
My third, final, and scariest experience happened a few months later. When I was a kid my grandfather brought us a very old piano that had been in the basement before I moved down there. We were told that it belonged to our deceased great-grandmother. Instead of selling it, my mother had asked that it be brought to our house for my youngest sister to use as a practice piano for her lessons. My sister never fully dedicated herself to her musical studies, and never grasped more than a basic understanding of the piano. As I slept in the bedroom, I heard someone playing sorry attempts at chords and melodies on the piano.
Sleeping face-down I assumed that my sister had some trouble sleeping, and decided to play the piano at 2:30am. Without looking I said, "Jillian go to bed". The noise stopped, and I abruptly fell back to sleep. Some time later I heard the noise again. Again, without looking I gave a more stern warning, "Jillian if you don't stop playing that damn piano I will make you stop!" The noise abruptly ended and I fell back to sleep. Again, some time later I heard it again. Evidently I had turned over while sleeping, because I was lying on my back. I sat up poised to strike, and discovered that it was not my sister. There was a greenish/yellow figure at the piano. I was speechless. I sat watching for about 10 seconds (though it felt like an eternity). When I could finally speak, I simply blurted "What the f***?" in a calm tone. The figure turned, and looked at me. It had a maniacally dead stare, and a mouth that looked like a smile travelling from ear-to-ear. It then quickly shot into the piano.
Needless to say, I freaked. I bolted upstairs, and lied awake on the couch for the night. I slept upstairs for a couple of weeks, and eventually worked my way back downstairs. A few months later I moved to NY to live with my father. I will never forget that experience, and am somewhat grateful for it because it led to my interest in the field.
My family has since moved out of that house, and I have never heard any stories of experiences from anyone else in the house.