Apartment 6

This story is about my experience whilst living in my first apartment early this year/late last year, this story is a little long to get into as I have probably gone into too much description so I apologise for that.

After working in the same office for over a year I finally had saved enough money to find a place of my own, I have never lived away from my parents but I decided that I just wanted to be closer to work and to gain some independence. Me and my roommate rented an apartment on the second floor in a relatively old looking building just next to an industrial estate and within a 15 minute walk to the nearest train station so it could be noisy during the day but dead quiet past 7pm.

The building itself was aging, a few bits of paint in the hallways had cracks running down the wall, the window frames were a little draftee and no elevator / lift to use but it didn't matter because this was my first apartment and it was bearable considering the rent wasn't too bad split between us.

We moved in during October 2013 and had settled in to our barely furnished apartment, everything was fine for the first week but things started to change and I had a few complaints about the neighbours upstairs, we could hear the couple upstairs arguing and slamming their doors shut which would commonly happen every two or three days during the night and sometimes if I was awake during the early hours (between 00:00 - 03:00) I could hear heavy footsteps from upstairs pacing around the flat upstairs. It was very annoying to live with but neither I nor my roommate were the type to complain about it or confront them.

During December we both left the apartment for a few days to spend the Christmas and new year period with our families, I returned a day earlier than my roommate and I came back to find the sofa cushions had been thrown on the floor, the chairs had been knocked over, the mirror had fallen off the wall and smashed and the freezer had been turned off - before we left we made sure every was turned off EXCEPT the freezer. Nothing was stolen and no one had access to our place during that time, I couldn't think of any explanation for this so I just tried to ignore it and clean up.

After 3 months of living together my roommate had to move out as he accepted a new job in South London so he moved back in with his parents due to location, I found myself living alone in this apartment with double the rent to pay for most of the final 3 months, with the help of pay day loans I just about managed it.

My sister is like a magnet for ghostly happenings and eerie events, anyway my sister temporarily stayed with me for a few weeks with her young children due to private circumstances, she slept on the sofa and the children stayed in the second bedroom.

One night my sister was awoken by her children screaming for attention so she went to check on them and they were terrified and saying (just about saying in their toddler speech) that the man in the corner was scary and that he pinched her, my sister has always easily been scared of paranormal things herself so she slept with the kids on the sofa that night.

Every night after that they would be uneasy in that room and required her to stay with them until they fell asleep, I didn't actually witness this as I managed to sleep through it but she told me about it the next day and since hearing it I refused to enter that room after they left, I literally kept the door to that room shut and didn't even enter the room for my final two months, not that I had a reason to anyway. During my sisters stay she went upstairs to complain about the noise but no one answered the door yet their noise continued, we contacted the landlord to complain about the tenants but he informed us that the apartment above us has been vacant since I moved in but he insisted he regularly checks inside to make sure there isn't anyone there due to other complaints he has had from other people in the building, even stranger that I have seen the lights on from outside the building.

I called my now ex-roommate to talk about this and he told me that he had experienced strange feelings in the room, a feeling of being watched from the same corner the toddler had pointed to, cold patches near his wardrobe, a constant heavy feeling of dread and strange faint knocking sounds from the wall. He had even heard faint speaking coming from the sitting room while he was alone in the apartment. He told me I should get someone to stay with me during the remaining two months but no one I knew wanted to move into somewhere for a short period and I really don't want to find a stranger to move in.

Now that the kids had left, the apartment was very quiet and felt so empty I could hear pretty much everything and anything during the late hours, the activity did die down a bit as I was staying longer hours at work and went straight to sleep when I returned but during my last week I had started packing everything up into boxes and had the lighter boxes stacked in a corner of the living room, a few nights later I was awoken in the middle of the night by an extremely loud long scream / roar that came from outside my bedroom door - I sat in my bed petrified, a shiver ran through my entire body, I was staring at my door praying that it wouldn't swing open. I didn't know what to do, I didn't want to turn on the television otherwise whatever it was might know that I was awake and it might show itself, I laid under the covers with my phone for the next two hours until it started to get lighter outside and I managed to build up the courage to get dressed and leave for work, I noticed that my stacked boxes had been knocked over. I returned with two colleagues and collected my belongings and met with the landlord to hand over the keys.

I moved back in with my parents, now my sister has started having strange things happening in the house she just moved into. I think it will be awhile before I can live alone again. Even though I had a horrible experience I am just so happy I didn't chose that dark room and happy that I never actually saw anything. I have walked past the building a few times since moving out and I always expect to see something in the upstairs windows.

Do you think the noises from upstairs are connected to what I was experiencing from my apartment?

Please comment your opinions as I would really like to know what you think.