Leith Haunting

A few years ago I found myself in the unfortunate position of being homeless - I won't go into the details of the why's and how's - and was living on the kindness of friends. Sleeping 6 weeks here, 6 weeks there all around Edinburgh and Fife.

I'd met this girl who offered me a bed at her flat in Leith and I gratefully accepted the offer. We got to her flat and had a glass of wine, a few nibbles, and she then showed me the room I'd be using.

It was at the end of a long corridor which ran from the living room at one end of the flat to the bathroom at the other - the kitchen and two bedrooms led off it too. It was a large room with a single bed, a two door wardrobe and a chest of drawers. As you entered the room there was a door in the far left corner which contained several shallow shelves, next to that a large bay window.

I thanked her, we said our good nights and I went into my new temporary room. There was a peaceful feeling to the room, nothing out of the ordinary or strange sensations, that is until I closed the door. Almost instantly the temperature in room dropped quite noticeably. A feeling of being locked in filled the room, a great sadness, morose-like, encompassed the entire room like a fog.

I was shattered and just wanted to sleep so I lay down on the bed which was directly opposite the door in the corner of the room, closed my eyes and fell asleep.

When I wakened in the morning, the door was wide open. I put it down to the girl having been checking to see if I was still there or even the door not being hung correctly and swinging open through the night and so I never mentioned to her about it.

The next night, however, when I went along the hall to the bedroom, the door was still closed from me having closed it in the morning. At this point I did begin to wonder what had happened to it the previous night. Again, after entering, I closed the door over and instantly the feeling of being constricted, the sadness, fear, set in. Again, I decided to just go to bed and ignore it.

As I lay on my back I became aware of someone watching me. I spun my head round to the right, and there in the darkness was the apparition of someone on the floor next to the cupboard door in the corner. They were sitting with their knees brought up to their chest and their arms wrapped around their legs, hands clasped. They were sat shrugged so I could only see the top half of their head and eyes peering at me in the dark.

As I lay looking at them, they moved, very slowly and gingerly, pulling themselves up onto their feet, all the time watching me. They then began approaching me in a cautious manner, almost frightened, certainly untrusting as though if I had moved, they would've turned tail and ran. I lay there transfixed by what I was seeing. I remember actually pinching myself just to make sure I was awake and not dreaming this.

The room door creaked, momentarily taking my gaze. When I looked back to where the figure had been, it was gone. The uneasy, claustrophobic feeling however intensified. I got up, opened the door and instantly the room cleared, like all pressure cleared.

I went back to bed and slept until morning when I mentioned my experience to the girl who's flat it was. She looked at me, wide eyed. "So I guess you know about this then?" I asked her. "That used to be my room" she said. "When I moved in here I took that room since it was the biggest but I couldn't sleep any longer than 3 nights in there. I think it's haunted" she continued. I never slept in that room again. Instead choosing to sleep on the sofa the rest of my stay there.

A few weeks later I bumped into a couple of friends of mine who told me that they themselves were getting kicked out of their flat as their landlord was selling the property. I asked the girl if they could stay for a couple of nights until they could get something sorted and she immediately agreed, insisting they stay as long as they need to.

A day or two later my two friends moved into the flat and took the bedroom I'd been in. I should say that for the couple of weeks between me vacating it and them moving in, the door was constantly open and so myself and the girl had basically forgotten about the "hauntings". For around 6 weeks they took up residency in that room, they never mentioned anything, neither did I, neither did the girl.

One night, however, myself and the couple were in the flat when he mentioned he was going to the toilet. Nothing odd in that, so he got up and moved to the living room door, opened it and promptly closed it again, pausing before opening the door and standing looking down the hall. He turned to me and asked if I'd "chum" him to the bathroom door. I laughed initially but then the memory of that room returned.

"Is your bedroom door closed?" I asked him "Yeah, why?" he repied, "Do I need to say anymore?" I retorted. He looked at me almost perplexed, "Y...you, feel it too?" he stuttered. At this I just blurted it out. "The ghost in that room you're in? The feeling of fear and dread when you approach the bathroom whenever that bedroom door's closed? Yeah, I feel it." Both of them just looked at me, then at each other, "Yeah, exactly!" they said in unison. We sat for around an hour talking about the room, the feelings within the room when the door is closed and the contrast when the door is open.

A couple of days later one of them was in the kitchen making a cup of tea when they felt as though someone was standing in the doorway watching them. They spun round and saw a shadow move from the doorway up the hall in the direction of the bedroom. Of course when they went to investigate, there was nothing or no one there.

One evening I was in alone watching TV when I became aware of "someone" watching me from the living room door. I turned around but obviously no one was there so I decided I would talk to it. I told it no one in the flat was there to harm them, that the flat was theirs and we were visiting. I invited it into the room and told it not to be shy in roaming the rooms, to come and go as they pleased.

After a few minutes I felt a strong presence in the room with me so I continued talking to it. I got the impression it was a young/teenage girl who was shut in that bedroom, mistreated and for some reason met with her death in the bathroom. My two friends also got that same feeling. After having spoken to "her" for around an hour she seemed more at ease, the presence was still there but it felt less threatened, more at ease. We all continued to feel it and particularly in the bedroom and bathroom area but there was a calmness about it.

Shortly after we all left the flat to go on to other ventures but before leaving we said our farewell to the ghost who's home we'd been living in.