Sarel

I have been reading the stories on here for the past couple of weeks and find them fascinating.

My story begins on the 1st of June 1995. Now firstly I need to give you a little bit of a lay out, my room and my sisters room are on the other side of the house, with the kitchen basically splitting us up from the rest of the house. When you walk into the kitchen from the back door and go down a little way you find a door leading to a passage way go left and you go to our rooms, and if you go right you go to the bathroom. So if you come from the bedrooms side and pass the door you can see the entire open plan kitchen.

On our first night in the house, I got up to go to the bathroom, as I walked past the door that leads to the kitchen something caught my eye and I did a double take, leaning against a bunch of stacked boxes that still needed to be unpacked was the outline of an old man having a smoke. Being a 9 year old girl at the time, and turned and ran back to my room ducking under the covers and waited for morning. I told my mother, brother and sister the following morning and they just put it off as "First Night In The New House Jitters".

After that every one started experiencing strange things happening. Firstly our teaspoons started disappearing, slowly one by one, and then one day you realize you only have one left in the drawer, then they would start reappearing one by one until all of them were back.

After about two months of living there I started getting a really horrible feeling in my room, I felt uncomfortable to the extent that I didn't want to sleep in there anymore. My sister hated walking past my room if the door was open. One night when I went into my room at bedtime, I found myself not being able to sleep and I was tossing and turning constantly. I always fell asleep with my back to my door. On this particular evening I looked up to the ceiling and to my horror I saw a pair of eyes glaring at me, one was green and one was red and they blinked but never at the same time. This freaked me out completely and I refused to sleep in my room for a year. I shared a bed with my mother for that year. When I finally moved back to my room everything seemed fine again and I slept peacefully in my room from there on out.

After awhile my brother just started calling whoever it was that was taking the teaspoons "Sarel." I have no idea why, but it stuck and to this day we call him "Sarel". And Sarel was most definitely harmless and helpful to a certain extent.

My sister and brother were home alone one morning waiting for their lift to school. My sister was in the kitchen making their lunch when she looked out the window to see my cat walking by the pool. Next thing she hears the back door open and close and in comes the cat. When she went to check the door it was still locked tight.

Things like that kept happening, and Sarel was constantly moving things around so that you have the time of your life looking for it. He hides money, glasses, mugs, knives, forks, anything that you might need, he hides it to this day, but it is almost as if he makes sure that you can find it, but always in a place that you would not expect.

When I was 16 I had my first serious boyfriend and were dating for about a year and a half at that stage. The one night we were sitting in the living room, watching T.V. Lights were off. All of a sudden all the lights go on and we hear something drop on the tiles. It sounded like it was a hollow metal pipe that dropped, we went through the entire house looking for whatever it was but found nothing. So we went back to finish the movie. A couple of minutes later I paused the movie to go to the bathroom. From the living room you have to walk through the kitchen to get to the bathroom. Everything in the kitchen looked normal. But when I came back all the groceries in the cupboard was unpacked on the counter top. I went to my b/f and asked if he made himself a sandwich or was hungry, he said no he has been on the couch the entire time waiting for me to come back, so I took him to the kitchen and showed him. He was flabbergasted, and left shortly after that. I'm guessing Sarel was just a little bored and found ways to amuse himself.

Now I am 27 years old and we are still living in this house, now it is myself, my husband my two kids and my mother. Things are still disappearing and reappearing at random. The cupboards still gets unpacked at least once a month, but I have never had a bad feeling except for the time in my bedroom (now my 3 year old's room). One thing that has started freaking me out a little is the things that come out of my daughter's mouth. When she gets punished we send her to her room for a time out.

While she is in her room I have a tendency to stand at the door just to make sure she doesn't cause any trouble while in there. Lately she started talking to herself to calm herself down, but she says thing like "No, Sarel, I want to scream/cry" and "Okay, Sarel, I will apologize to mommy for being naughty". We have never mentioned Sarel's name in front of her or around her.

The other night I woke up around 2am to the sound of my daughter arguing with someone. I went into her room and found her on her bed but her comforter on the other side of the room. I asked her what was going on and she said Sarel wanted to play, but she told him it is time to sleep. That freaked me out completely, I took her to my bed, went back to her room, closed the door and said "Sarel, this is not the time or place to mess with my daughter. She needs to sleep now and you need to go play somewhere else." Since that night it seems that he doesn't bother her at night.

I don't know the history of our house, and don't know if anything happened in it before we moved in, but that is my story.

Your comments and opinions are very welcome.