Crying Baby

My story takes place in the late 60s near Los Angeles, California.

I'm Casey. I was 9 years old at the time. My older sister Patricia (16 years older than me!) and her husband Ron had just had their first child. They rented and moved into a 2 bedroom house in a suburb of L.A.

At the time I lived with my mother and stepfather in a different suburb in the same area. We went to my sister's house for a visit one Saturday for a barbeque. After supper we were all in the living room talking, the baby was asleep in the nursery room. We heard him start crying and Mom got up to go get him and my sister told her it was not him that was crying. We were all surprised at that statement and when Mom asked her what she meant, she said that they quite often heard a baby crying in the house that was not their son. Mom, not knowing what to think, went into the bedroom and found her grandson sleeping peacefully. The crying stopped just before she walked into the room.

When she came out, my sister and her husband told us about the other "abnormalities" that had been happening in their new home. These are the incidents I remember but know there are more I don't recall.

There was a swinging door between the kitchen and the dining room that wouldn't stay closed half the time, and wouldn't stay open the rest of the time. Sometimes it would be open all the way into the dining room and would stay that way. The rest of the time it wouldn't stay open. They actually put phone books or or other heavy items to prop it open and would come back later to find it closed. From the living room they had a clear view into the dining room and could see the door slowly close, moving the "stop" as it closed.

My sister and her husband both worked day shift so they would get up early in the morning. They were both coffee drinkers. They would set up the percolator coffee pot at night so all they had to do was turn on the burner under it in the morning. (It was the late 60s, LOL) They had a gas stove. Several mornings they woke up to find the coffee was made, hot, it had been brewed before they woke up. This didn't happen regularly, just occasionally.

They also would hear talking at different times of the day and night. What seemed like two people talking in very low tones. They were never able to hear what was said, just what sounded like muttering in the next room that would stop when they went to investigate.

They lived in the house a couple months and moved out, they couldn't take the goings-on there any longer.