Basement Spirit?

This story takes place in a house I rented back in the 90s. If you read my last story, you know that this was an older home, at least 100 years old. It was 3 stories with the 3rd story being an attic that was converted into a large room. My roommates and I lived in the upper 2 stories and two other girls lived in the ground floor. This house was built on a slight hill so also had a huge unfinished basement. You had to go outside, go to the bottom of the driveway and through the basement door to go into it. The floors were dirt, but when you walked in, on the either side of you were shelves with goodness only knows what stored on them. There were tools, partially rotted cardboard boxes, plastic boxes...etc... I never looked at them too closely. Once you walked the width of the basement, which was the width of the house, there was a doorway on the right at the end of the shelves that led to a huge room, again with a dirt floor. But this room went the length of the house and as it went to the front of the home, towards the street, it became narrow enough that you would have to crawl to go into it. But for the most part, you were able to walk upright with no problem for about 3/4ths of the room.

As I stated, we rented, and the 2 guys we all rented from were locals, one lived next door to us and one lived down the street. Both were really nice guys, very laid back. My roommate one day decided that she was going to talk to them about putting a washer & dryer in the basement that all of us in the house could use. We were all ok with that idea and she talked to them and told them that if they would put them in, they could add the monthly cost of them to our rent. So we all wound up paying rent plus 1/5 of the cost of a washer/dryer until it was paid off. Lots better than visiting a laundromat each week! They installed the washer & dryer. The dryer went into the first room in the basement, the washer in the larger room. Because of the dirt floor, they had to put them on bricks. One day, I was home alone, my roommates were gone and the girls who lived below us were gone also. I thought this would be a perfect time to do a load of laundry. I walked into the basement, past the dryer, through the doorway and to the washer. Now here I do have to say, that part of the basement always creeped me out a bit. There were lights in both areas, controlled by a switch at the entrance door but the light never quite reached into the crawl space area. I put this feeling down to the fact that we lived in the downtown area and had a large homeless population. I kept expecting to find someone sleeping in our basement. Anyway, I started the clothes to washing, then walked back upstairs. After a bit, I went back into the basement to get the clothes and dry them. Because the washer was on bricks, and because I'm only 5"3', to reach the clothes in the bottom of the washer, I had to jump up on the washer, balance myself on my hips and put my head into the washer to reach my clothes. I did this and right as I got ahold of my clothes, someone or thing gave be 3 strong pats on my back. I came flying up and spun, expecting to see one of my roommates there, but there was no one there. The distance to the doorway was too far for anyone to be able to get through it before I saw them, plus I would have heard anyone running on that dirt floor. I called out the girls names but at this point, I was covered in goosebumps, felt icy cold (this was summertime in the south) and scared so I hoofed it out of that basement as fast as I could and ran back up to my apartment. I was shaking like a leaf but I was able to calm myself fairly quickly. I'd had so many experiences in that house but I'd never been touched before. Neither my roommates nor the girls who lived in the other apartment were home, so it wasn't them playing a trick on me. I stood in the middle of the living room and said "I know you're here, you've shown that to me many times. I don't have a problem sharing space with you and you're welcome to stay but you are never allowed to touch me again". Was it a ghost? I don't know but there was no one in that basement with me. I had many experiences in that house, as did my roommates, that I have no doubt it had spirits in it.

My wet clothes stayed in the basement all night, half in & half out of the washer. The next morning, I had a roommate go down with me to get them into the dryer. I would not go in alone after that and never went in after dark. I lived in that house for several years after and was never touched again.