New Apartment Adventures

Now that I got the old apartment out of the way, it's time for the events in my current apartment. Just under 2 years ago, we moved from the old building to another old building less than a mile away (same zip code). My end of town is old as I somewhat explained before; the Oceanview section of Norfolk, VA. Many places down here are 50-100+ years old (or older), the area is full of history, some of it dark and unsettling.

From the very first second I walked into the new place, I knew it was an old school. It's a solid concrete and brick structure that you can tell the original building had been added to at some later date, increasing it to 3 floors. Later I found out, yes in fact is was the Old Oceanview Elementary that had been replaced sometime in the 1940's with a new building a mile down the street. Since the beginning, I knew something "else" was in the building. Living in so many paranormally enhanced places makes you attuned to the stuff after awhile.

Within the first week of moving in, I sat alone in the living room and heard the sound of children laughing. Not normally am alarming thing, but it came from directly in front of me, in the middle of my living room. I still am not sure if it was from outside, upstairs or what, but it was slightly disturbing. A friend who visited shortly after also reported she felt a hand grab her hand as she walked into the apt, she said it felt small, like a child's.

A few months later, I was home alone again, but getting ready to head out. Allow me to give you a bit of a layout. The apt is laid out in an H shape, with a long living room space, which leads through an archway into the kitchen-hallway area. That narrows down to a hallway with a pantry on the left and the bathroom on the right just before the bedroom door. The bedroom, 12x14, is isolated from the rest of the place. You cannot hear anyone knocking on the front door from the bedroom. The building is made of brick, concrete, with plaster walls and a wooden raised floor. Technically the ground floor is below ground level.

I was in the bathroom, just getting out of the shower. I had the bathroom door wide open, it blocks the hallway otherwise, and in the kitchen-hall section was a large dresser with a 45 gallon fish tank. In the reflection of the tank you could see into the kitchen. As I flipped my head down to wrap my hair, I looked into the fish tank and saw a tall male standing in the kitchen. I quickly stood up and ran out, checking the kitchen, but no one but the cat and myself in the apartment. I went back to the bathroom to see if I could figure it out, but I never could and never again saw the figure standing in the kitchen like that.

Several more months later, my boyfriend, myself and the cat were in the living area end of the apt. All the lights were off in the other end and everybody, including the cat, was off the floor, sitting down. Suddenly I heard a noise from the other end of the apt like the sound of a foot dragging across the carpeted floor. Very recognizable. I looked at my boyfriend who was looking at me - neither of us knew what made that sound. The cat acted off all evening, following us closely and refusing to stay in a room by herself.

Two days later, the sound repeated but this time we; BF, myself and cat, were in the bedroom and off the floor and the other end of the apt was dark and sealed up. Again the foot scraping the carpet sound, as clear as day. We haven't heard this sound again and never found a explanation for it.

About this time we started leaving a light on in the front part of the apt at night (we are both grown adults, 27 and 31) but something gave us the creeps: the archway leading between the two sections of the apt. If you sat in the bedroom and the living room was dark, you will get completely un-nerved looking into the darkness of the archway. My boyfriend, several friends, and myself all felt this. If you sat in the living room and looked into the darkened hallway-bedroom, you don't feel anything. Also at this time, my boyfriend and myself started getting strange "I'm not alone" feelings if you were in the bedroom, but alone in the house. Several times I would get up and go looking into the living room to see if my boyfriend had come home, only to find the place locked up and empty. I swore it felt like another person had come into the house and as you can't hear the front room from the bedroom, I really did think he had. He later told me he had the same experiences if he was home alone.

A few more major creepy events. First, as I explained before, if the bathroom door is open, but not wide open, it blocks the hallway. One night my boyfriend was using the loo and I was in the bedroom with my cat, watching TV. I got up, turned off the TV and left the room, closing the bathroom door just enough to get by. My cat was right on my heels (Yes, she often follows me just like a dog would). We sat down and started watching TV in the living room. A few minutes later my boyfriend joins us and asked me if I passed by twice. "No, why?" He stated that just before I walked by the door, out of the corner of his eye he saw a pale female leg pass by the door. I told him that I would have had to move the door to pass, plus the cat was with me and if I passed twice, he would have seen me 3 times, not just twice. He doesn't know what he saw that night.

The very next night, he was in the bathroom shaving and I was standing the in the hallway, with the door open, blocking the hallway. I was talking to him and out of the corner of the my eye, I saw a pale white, sharp clawed female hand wrap around the doorknob then pull back around. I stopped in mid-word and the boyfriend asked what I saw. I told him and he looked past the door - nothing there.

The last straw was the dreams I started having of a young male, white between 20-23, dressed in military fatigues, who was fighting with a woman in the apt. Something happened and he ended up hanging himself on the steam pipe (8" pipe that runs through the entire apt) in the bathtub. I started seeing a green military style belt hanging off the pipe in the bathroom, out of the corner of my eye. It upset me greatly and did start affecting my mental health. Finally one last violent dream promoted me into doing a full-blown ritual cleansing on the apt.

Afterwards, the place felt better and most of the major weirdness stopped: no sounds, no shadows or shapes, no dreams of that man, and no major creepy feeling from the archway. BUT... Within the last few months has some strange things have started up again. Mainly misty or white shapes out of the corner of my eyes (my boyfriend has told me he swore he saw someone walk through the living room while home alone one morning recently), but also the uneasiness from the archway again. I guess it's time for another cleansing.