***

“I spent six months living alone in a cabin near the end of a dirt road in central New Hampshire. Nearest neighbors were a quarter mile or so up or down the road. It’s an area where people definitely keep to themselves. Had all sorts of animal visitors — bears on the porch, you name it — but never random people around.

One morning, I went out to my car to go to work. It was spring, and we’d had a late frost. On the rear window of my truck, someone had written, “I WATCH YOU” with their finger in the frost.

I never had an actual problem in the rest of my time there, but that freaked me the fuck out.”

***

“Years ago my parents had their garage converted into an extra large bedroom (its full of junk now) and this was where we all played games. I was about 10 and it was only the second or third time i had been left alone in the house while my siblings where all away for one reason or another.

Naturally, i was up all night playing on our PS2 in there, having a blast. I don’t know how late but pretty late into it, i suddenly started hearing someone tapping on the window. They really went all out with the extra bedroom and actually replaced the garage door with a wall, window, and traditional front door you’d find on any house, complete with bolt and doorknob locks.

Well i didnt realize it was a sound not produced by my game for a full minute or so, and the sound (like someone drumming their fingers 1,2,3,4 1,2,3,4 really quickly) kept going without stopping. I finally really noticed it when the doorknob rattled and the sound moved to the door, which made it louder.

I freaked right the hell out and snuck to the door to double check the locks. They were BOTH unlocked, but the door tended to jam and act like it was locked unless you put a lot of effort into it. I locked both locks, loudly, so the person would know they definitely couldn’t get in, but i just heard a gruff older man laugh and the sound got louder.

Then he moved back to the window and called in “let me in love i’m cold and hungry. Don’t you wanna be nice to your neighbor?”

I turned out the light, ran to my room, and hit in the pitch dark under my blanket until my parents got home a few hours later from their anniversary date. I never told them because i was young enough to care more about getting in trouble because i stayed up past my bedtime.”

***

“I used to rent a room in a basement apartment. My friend’s family lived in the real house upstairs, which is how I ended up there. They have a lot of family parties(They’re first generation Filipino, family parties are a frequent thing).

One day I was dong some homework in my room, the other two tenants weren’t home, so I had “apartment B” to myself. But they were being so loud upstairs, I was having trouble focusing. So much chatter and feet moving around. Sounded like dancing was going on.

I texted my friend: “you guys sound like you’re really having a good time up there. I’m not really getting anything done, can I come up?”

He texts back: “No one is home, we went to Wisconsin for the weekend”

I went outside, saw that no one’s car was there, and no lights were on in the house. And then I just went for a walk until someone else got home.”

***

“Last year I was renting a house in a small, economically depressed old mining town in Appalachia. I lived alone.

On one of the first warm nights of spring, I awoke at around 4 AM to the sound of my doorknob turning. I figured someone must have the wrong address… but it kept turning, persistently.

I didn’t have a peephole or window to see who was outside, so I just approached the door from inside and yelled “Wrong place, buddy!”

Then the door started shaking violently, and a hand began punching it.

I tried one last time: “Wrong place! Go away, man!”

Someone on the other side growled at me and started making horrifying noises like a wild animal.

I grabbed a kitchen knife and called the police, then waited inside.

About ten minutes later, there was a knock on the door. I opened it cautiously to see an officer who questioned me about the incident. Then he asked me to close it again and remain inside.

Again, I couldn’t see what was happening out there, so I just turned out the lights and waited quietly with the knife in my hand. For about 20 minutes, there was just silence.

Then, out of nowhere, my living room window screen started to get pushed inside and the curtain started to move. The guy was pushing out the screen and trying to climb inside.

I held up the knife and yelled “I’m gonna kill you!” in my most threatening voice possible.

Thankfully, I immediately heard “Get on the ground! Show me those hands!”

Heard another horrible wail from outside as the guy was presumably tackled and taken to a police car.

A few minutes later, another knock at the door. The officer was back to tell me that the suspect had been captured. This guy was a uniformed cop, but he was visibly trembling and super pale. I still hadn’t seen what the intruder looked like.

The next day, I ran into the officer while he was off duty (small town) and he told me that the suspect had told them his name was Jason Voorhees.

Probably a meth addict or some other type of drug user. Those habits don’t go well with delusions involving slasher film characters.”

***

“Over this past summer, I was living alone in my apartment in a (relatively safe) college town. I was always paranoid and locked the door anytime I got home from somewhere, especially since I’m a female living somewhere alone. One morning I woke up to go to the bathroom, and as I’m in there, I hear the front door creak open. Obviously scared, I carefully leave the bathroom and look around the corner to see the front door open about 6 inches. I slowly check the apartment for intruders only to find nothing. Somehow the door was unlocked while I was sleeping and opened by what I choose to call the wind. Needless to say, for the rest of the time I was alone in the apartment I had my knife close by.”

***

“My fiancé and I purchased a foreclosed home in a not so great neighborhood a few years back. We ignored the area because of the great price but now realize we were idiots because of things like this:

I’m lying in bed, barely awake while watching tv. Fiancé is still at work so I can’t sleep. It’s two am and I’m barely dozing to the crime show that was on when I hear scratching at the window. The window that was one foot away from me while lying in bed.

I remember thinking “damned squirrels” when I heard the squirrels start cursing and mumbling. Then the sound of a screw driver lifting the window frame starts up.

I start screaming bloody murder that I have a gun and I’m calling the cops. The scratching noises stopped and by the time the cops got to my door and searched the yard, there was no one there.

Thinking “oh great, they think I’m crazy,” I thank them and as they’re walking back to their cruisers, their radios all started going off at once that there was another break in reported in my neighborhood.

The officers go scrambling off and I slam the door and lock it; once again, freaking out.

I go get back in the bed to wait for fiancé to get home. He calls on his way and wants me to stay on the phone with him until he gets here.

I hear loud food steps on the wooden shed ramp in our back yard and say, “oh good, you’re home” and hang up, walking to the backdoor. He called me straight back and told me he still wasn’t even in the neighborhood so once again, I’m calling 911 and losing my shit.

He and the cops got there at the same time and searched the yard again. Apparently, they’d been getting calls all night about some meth head trying to break into the same few houses all night with a screwdriver. They’d been one step behind him the whole night and had cruisers everywhere.

Oh, and the cursing at the window? One of the officers went to the bedroom window and saw the screen removed. Methwiz had disturbed a huge wasp nest when he took the screen off and my tiny little wasp defenders saved the day.

[Yes, we are currently house hunting. This is sadly not a one off.]”

***

“One night I was waiting for something to finish in the oven, so I started washing dishes. Once my food was cooked, I sat in front of the tv to eat dinner. I live about 15 miles out of town and don’t have any close neighbors. I could hear what sounded like a truck idling. Because I’m in the middle of nowhere, sound travels. Sometimes something that’s a mile away sounds like it’s pretty close, so I didn’t pay much attention.

It idled for 5-10 minutes, then sounded like it was slowly driving away, then briefly stopping, then slowing driving off again. I’ve got a long driveway, about a third of a mile, so it sounded like someone drove down my driveway, then turned back onto the road and drove off.

Whatever. Anyways, after dinner, I went back to finish the dishes and had no water. The only thing I could think of was that maybe the breaker had tripped for the well. On the pole outside, there’s a breaker box that only has a couple of switches and a main switch. The smaller switches control the well pump and an outlet. The main line to the house isn’t on that switch, it goes to the breaker box inside the house.

I get to the breaker box outside and the door is open and the main breaker is off. So the noise that I heard was someone shutting off the breaker and waiting outside. I guess they thought it would shut off power to the house and I’d come outside to investigate. I locked my gate for the night and then again when I left for work that next morning. It rained most of the day, and when I got home, I could see where someone had pulled up to the gate, found it locked, then did a 3-point turn around in my drive. I locked my gate at night for a long time after that, but I always lock it when I’m away and keep a shotgun and a .357 handy now.”

***

“I was looking after my mother’s house for a week while she was on holiday. She had two cats that come in and out the house via a cat flap, very nice animals. Always cuddly and playful even when they were old.

So I get woken up in the middle of the night by loud meows from downstairs. I thought maybe the cat flap was stuck and they wanted to get out. I go downstairs to check and open the hallway door and there are at least 15 black cats sitting in the hallway staring back at me.

Then I see my mother’s cats sat amongst them just chilling and meowing happily. I left them all too it and they were gone in the morning.”

***

“My two year old kid was at my mom’s for the night. Eating delicious dinner with good conversation, when we heard over the baby monitor our 2 year old’s voice clearly for about a minute. We both sat in shocked silence. I went and checked and of course she was not there. My wife and I still don’t like to discuss it to this day. Dinner was creepy the rest of the night. Fuck baby monitors.”

***

“My dad build me a room in the basement as a kid, it was awesome to have privacy. When I was young it was scary but the usual stuff:

hum / glow of the furnace

hearing creaks in the ceiling above

the occasional spider that haunted my dreams

But normal stuff I got over.

Fast forward to university, still had the room and would sleep in it when I went home weekends, holidays or whenever.

Started to experience the craziest shit when I’d be home.

What I’d recognized as creaks when I was a kid sounded like full on footsteps upstairs when I was sure no one else was home, I’d investigate and nothing. But I’d go back and they’d return so I was sure I wasn’t alone but could never find anyone home.

But, I’d find random things sometimes, like soup cooking/boiling over on the stove.

Then I started to notice shit moving around my room without me noticing, I’d be playing video games, put the controller down, turn to answer message on the computer, turn back and the controller would be gone from where I put it and the game turned off.

I seriously believed in ghosts for a bit.

Then comes the thing I really had to be scared about – it was that the furnace was broken and spewing carbon monoxide. If it’d been now I would have recognized the famous Reddit story, but back then no idea.

I could have died, that’s the scary part.”

***

“I was slapped hard while I was asleep. Woke up with my cheek hurting and ears ringing. I lived alone at that time.

Another less creepy (after the fact) story I remember was when I was crashing at my uncle’s for a couple months in summer. While he was at work, and sometimes at night, I would hear a woman yelling, “Hey, you there?”. At first I was very freaked out, but a couple times during day time, I’d look for the source and try and talk to her. And she never replied. I asked my uncle after a few days and it turns out it was the pet parrot of the guy who lived across the hall. I had heard him before making weird noises and screeching, but never had I ever imagined it could replicate a woman’s voice like that. But yeah I did see him do that in person sometime later, so nothing paranormal there at least.”

***

“Once, when I was around 12, I was home alone and taking a bath. I was rinsing my hair underwater and when I lifted my head and I realised I could suddenly hear what sounded like footsteps walking across the landing.

Both my parents were at work, and I knew it was far too early for them to be home, so I was entirely freaked out and convinced that someone had broken into the house and was walking around stealing shit or whatever.

I had no idea what to do at all, I was so freaked out. I was sat in the bath, naked, with no phone or any method of calling for help, freaking out that surely the intruders were going to find me – or even worse, they already knew I was there, because surely they would’ve heard the noise of the water from me moving in the bath??

I essentially froze, and sat there and panicked for who knows how long, before I decided to have a moment of bravery. I figured that they knew I was there anyway, so I waited for a gap in the noise, that to me signalled they had gone into a room, and opened the bathroom door a crack so I could see what was actually happening.

I opened it and waited. Soon, the noise of the footsteps began again on the landing, and from my vantage point I could see the entire landing. There was no one there. No one had broken in to the house.”

***

“This just happened to me about 2 days ago, I came home to my kitchen and living room windows both open… a little suspicious considering its winter and my main goal is keeping heat in, called the guy I’m talking to asked if he opened them, confirmed.. while still on the phone with him i walked into my bedroom and saw both my space heaters in the middle of the room blasting heat with a towel in between both of them.. knowing i left the house with them both off and not in the location was weird.. still on the phone with the guy i asked if he did this and replied no, after you left i left.. I walked over to where the towel was and picked it up, was wet and had a weird smell.. but not pee or anything.. basically was the weirdest thing because I don’t know what happened and the guy said he didn’t know either.. so the mystery is still definitely unsolved.”

***

“I was home with my sister, and I happened to look out the window and saw a woman skipping down the road singing. Ok, kinda weird but she’s enjoying herself. Then, she slows down, stops, kneels down in the road, and sits dead still for like an hour. I told my sister not to go outside while she was there. I kept checking on her every once in a while. After a while, she stood up and started skipping and singing again like nothing happened.”

***

“i was home alone when i was about thirteen, mum was at work and my sister was at school while i skipped as i always tended to. it was about 1pm when i picked up the phone to call my mum, and this was back when landline phones were more common, so it was one of those pick it up then dial ones, but as you know if you picked up a landline phone mid-conversation you’d join the phone conversation, or you could at least listen in, if you had multiple phones in the house.

we only had one phone in the house, and it was this one. the only tv on in the house that was on was in me and my sister’s room, and it wasn’t loud enough at all to be heard downstairs where the phone was. so this definitely fucked with me.

i picked up the phone, and instead of a dial tone, i heard static, but not, like… loud static? just the white noise you’d hear over the phone when it’s quiet on the other line, you know? then i heard a voice of a young english girl, which is also weird because i live in scotland and didn’t know anyone from england, and she said “can you put that down please”, to which i got a little spooked and answered “what? hello?”, and she didn’t seem to hear me, or if she did, she didn’t want to answer. she just kept saying “please stop that, don’t do that, put that down, please stop, please put that down, don’t touch that,” in a sort of calm voice, almost melancholic at first, but getting more and more upset, i asked again, “hello? who are you?” and then heard the sound of fabric rustling near the phone like someone was shifting, and a grunt like a person would when getting up, and then i got freaked out by all this and just hung up the phone, ran upstairs, and didn’t tell anyone until later that night when i told my mum who lifted the phone herself and got a dial tone. she didn’t not believe me, she was just sceptical but obviously disturbed by how upset i was over it.

i think about it every so often and feel a little sick. i didn’t know what to do at the time, i just freaked out and bailed, but i can’t help but feel i got a listen in on something sort of horrible. the little girl sounded upset, and it sounded like there was someone with her. i don’t know what i could have done, but i sure as shit didn’t do it. this was 11 years ago now, and i’ve since moved out of that house and live in my own apartment.”

***

“I was home alone just a few years back, my parents tend to go out to a dance club a couple towns away (small town) and don’t get back until about 4 or so in the morning.

This day just like any other I was sitting in my room next to my window watching something on tv, who knows what, probably Scrubs. My bedroom window is fairly big and frosted with a dark curtain covering it. It sits directly next to our front door which leads to a porch.

It’s about 2 in the morning and suddenly I hear this LOUD banging on my window, not a foot from my face. Confused as to why someone would hit my window so hard I wait a minute or so to see if someone calls out or knocks again when suddenly, three more desperate knocks on my not so thick window. At this point I start comparing my situation to that of a horror movie and convince myself that checking will lead to a certain death.

I finally grow the balls to check who it is from the inner door of the porch and see faint movement in the parking lot in front of my house. There he was, a man raggedly dressed not menacingly but incecently pacing back and forth.

I now decide my best course of action is to call the police and later find out he had broken into an office building across the street and a couple cars around town. Not sure what happened to the guy or why things turned out the way they did but I’m really glad I didn’t answer the door.”

***

“When i was 10 we lived in an old and really historic building downtown that most people didn’t realize was a residence above the first commercial floor. One day my mom went across the street to the co-op to grab just one grocery item she had forgotten, and I’m sitting on my bed reading. It was a small town, and she had left the front door unlocked, which was usually not a problem anyway because there was a second front door on the street level that lead to some studio spaces we rented out. So I’m sitting there and all of a sudden an older man wanders into my room and asks me if i mind if he looks around. And i tell him sure, even though I’m really creeped out, because i figure he must have been there for a reason and i don’t want to make him angry. So he wanders around my house a while. The. he thanks me and leaves after just a little bit during which time i am properly freaking out and then my mom comes home. i tell her what happens and she flips, goes running down the stairs and out onto the street and literally chases this guy down several blocks until she catches up with him. She gave him an earful about not taking tours of what was clearly a private residence. He explains he thought my house was a museum or something (which is sort of understandable if you had seen my house). When she came back she assured me it wasn’t my fault in any way, but i was so shaken for days. i just kept thinking about what might have happened to me if he hadn’t been a nice dude to me or if he had stolen something, and how easy it was for random people to apparently just wander into my house. After that we put up a “Private Residence” sign and all carried keys.”

***

“I moved into my place a couple years ago. 2 weeks into it, there’s a little flower necklace in my mailbox one day. Alright, whatever. I throw it out and keep on truckin. Next day I came home and there’s a pair of sunglasses (that looked female to me? but could probably work for either party?) and a note that basically says “hey I think you’d look good in these. You should wear them next time we’re together, blah blah” . So clearly this person probably just thinks I’m somebody else? Again, I ignore it, keep everything as evidence IF NEEDED and move on. Three days later, I come home and check my mail expecting there to be something. Nope. Okay, cool. They fucked off. Head up to my door and there’s panties hanging on the doorknob….. Ok. I’m fairly uncomfortable because they’ve now come up to my place instead of the group mailboxes downstairs. This means they know which apartment I’m in. Pretty sure it’s all still a big misunderstanding so i write a note and put it on my door that basically says “hey, I don’t know who you are, but you need to stop. I’m not whoever you think I am.” Everything stops.

A YEAR LATER TO THE DAY, I come home and find another flower necklace in my mailbox. I took it out, ripped it up, threw it in the nearby trash can and went upstairs.

Nothing since then.”

***

” I was sleeping in bed and suddenly woke up like something had made me jump. I saw the outline of a person (too dark to see anything else) standing next to my bed and assumed it was my boyfriend. I laughed and said “oh my god you scared me, ” and he got into my bed. I reached out my arms to hug him, and I felt nothing.”

***

“About two weeks ago my depression was kicking my butt so I decided to cancel my evening plans and just lie down for a nap. Shortly after sunset I heard loud pounding on the front door alternating with rapid doorbell ringing. In the back of my head I though ups was being aggressive, but I still felt like crap so I ignored the noise.

About ten minutes later I heard a loud thump in the kitchen and assumed my cat had knocked something over. I got up from bed and was about to open the door to the bedroom when I saw beams from a flashlight underneath the door. I called out, “Hello?” and the light disappeared. I walked into the kitchen and noticed the door was still locked but ajar and my cat was standing at the top of the basement steps looking down into the darkness.

At that point I received notification from my partner (who was out of state for work) that something had tripped the motion sensor camera in the kitchen. Two men had broken into the house and it was unclear where they had gone once they went back out the kitchen door.

I called 911 and five officers and a canine unit were at the house within minutes. They sent the dog into the basement and it didn’t find anybody. The would be burglars hadn’t had enough time to take anything but my sense of security, but it wasn’t until I was telling my coworkers the story the next day that it started to hit me how much worse it could have been.”

***

***

“In late 2015 I was laid off from my job, and was staying with my grandparents for a couple months. My grandparents have two little dogs, and because grandpa worked nights and grandma was away in Texas for a month, they were really glad to have someone around to feed and walk the dogs during the day.

One night when Im home alone I’m relaxing in the tub when, through the skylight in the bathroom, I can hear whispered/hushed voices that can only be coming from the back porch. I think I must be hearing things but then both dogs start barking their heads off.

My blood runs freezing cold, and I leap out of the bath, pull my clothes on, and run to the porch door but whoever was there was already gone. I took a shovel and walked the perimeter of the house but found nothing.

After that grandpa updated the security system.”

***

“No joke. It was scary then but funny now, next door are drug addicts and one night my mum was at work and i was falling asleep when i heard a loud thumping. I ignored it at first but it got more persistent and it turned into loud banging sounds and were getting louder and then the screaming started so i started to get scared and with my phone in my hand went to the window and looked outside, one of my neighbors had a manic look in his eyes and was outside with a large tree branch in his hand banging on my and his girlfriends windows with it whilst screaming at the top of his lungs and doing a weird tribal dance. At this point i was petrified and frozen when he suddenly stopped and looked up at my window still with the manic look on his face and saw me and we stared at each other for about ten seconds then he dropped his stick and went back into his house, i was scared the rest of the night and was jumpy at any noise. i only fell asleep when my mum got home.This is only one of the many creepy things that has happened to me since moving to the area.”

***

“Years ago, my husband and neighbors went downstairs to hang out with another neighbor who was having a big party. He ended up.coming home pretty early as he was tired and he said the party wasn’t fun.

Next morning he goes down to the car to grab us breakfast and comes in and he is PISSED. I ask what’s wrong, and he won’t say so I go to look what possibly could have made him mad. First snowfall the night before, someone wrote cheater in the snow on his car.”

***

“One time someone flicked me on the forehead while I slept… Alone. Then I remembered we were currently having a mouse problem and it was probably a tiny mouse that ran head first into my face and scared itself. Which is kind of cute but also left me with trouble sleeping.”

***

“I came home from work and found that the seashells I have on a shelf in the bathroom were all in the sink. The shelf is located on the wall perpendicular to the sink, with a radiator under it, so if they had simply fallen off, they would’ve bounced off the radiator and hit the ground in pieces. Even if they did manage to fly off the shelf and land in the sink, they would have still have broken or chipped. But nope, they were all intact.

Also, a year or two before this happened, I had come home to find a little ceramic fish from that shelf was sitting neatly next to the sink. I almost never touch that thing.

I live alone in a studio apartment. I called the landlord and he said there had been guys working on the house, but none had gone in, and it was minor maintenance stuff only. I have lived here for eight years, however, and these are the only weird/creepy things that have happened, so I think I’m good.”

***

“At my last apartment, I got out of the shower once and discovered that the maintenance guy had let himself into my locked apartment. He was a generally really clueless guy (didn’t realize anyone was home?) so neither my husband or myself thought he meant anything by it, but we were both really pissed. I was also really relieved, of course, knowing how differently things could have played out if he’d had ill intent.”

***

“This happened in the 70’s in Australia. I was about 14. Mum and dad and the other kids had gone somewhere and I was alone in the house, out in the suburbs surrounded by bushland, at night.

I was reading books in my bedroom when I noticed a bit of noise. I could only just barely hear it but there was definitely a noise. Sounded like it was coming from inside the house. But the TV was off and we didn’t have a radio.

Suddenly everything was scary. A moment ago I was having a good time, now everything felt wrong. I put my book down and crept as silently as I could out into the hallway (Lucky my door was open because the bloody thing creaked.)

Once out in the hallway the noise became clearer – I still couldn’t quite figure out what it was but it was definitely not my imagination. Sounded like it was coming from the the kitchen, and the only way there was through the living room.

So I took a breath and crept round the corner of the hallway and into the living room. I’m on the balls of my feet and trying to avoid making any noise. Now I’m here I can see the living room is empty – but the noise is louder still. It’s definitely coming from the kitchen, and even worse, I can now tell what the noise is. It’s two voices, and they are having a whispered argument.

Now I am seriously scared. The only explanation I can think of is robbers. I spend about 5 minutes just standing stock still in the living room before deciding to try and peek around the corner into the kitchen.

So as quietly as I can I creep towards the corner. I’m moving very slowly. I’ve even got my mouth open in case my breath gives me away.

I reach the corner and juuussst stick one eye around – and the kitchen is empty. But I can still hear the voices. And they’re louder than ever. I can almost make out what they are arguing about now.

Again I stand there. This time I am telling myself I don’t believe in ghosts. And I didn’t. And yet how the fuck can two invisible men be having an argument in the kitchen?

In the end I start to move again – because I know if I don’t do this I won’t be sleeping tonight.

I creep into the kitchen – and realise the voices are coming from the stove. Now this was in the 70’s before stoves had those solid tops you have nowadays – instead they had a steel coil.

I bend down and put my ear close and discover the voices are coming from where the metal coil joins some electrical plug before going back inside the stove.

The voices are indeed two people arguing; they’re on some kind of radio talk show.

When my parents came home I showed the other kids how if you put your ear down real close to the stove top you could hear radio.

I’m 55 now and this is still the most frightened I’ve been in my life.”

***

“I was about 14 and was playing COD with my best friends at the time. My parents, who are usually quite adamant about me not staying home alone, had to go pick up my grandparents from the airport. My brother, who usually is home with me, had a party to go to.

So here I was home alone, with my playstation and pizza I ordered… score!

My friend and I were still playing at 2am when I hear the doorbell go off.

I think “Oh, must be my parents, they must’ve forgotten the garage remote”

I walk to open the door but a gut feeling stops me.

That’s when this dude goes berserk. He begins to pound on the door and screams to let him in. I, in my panic, have frozen in place but I managed to get the house phone to call 000 (our equivalent to 911)

I also call my parents, because I’m 14 and I’m freaking out. The friend I was playing COD with can hear this entire thing through my headset and I haven’t responded to him yet. So I’m juggling my phone call to the emergency services as well as my parents.

I hang up with my parents and that’s when the banging stops. I think, “Thank god maybe he’s moved on”

As I continue to talk to the phone operator I begin to hear the loudest bangs I’ve ever heard. He’s trying to break a window to get in. He’s still screaming to let him in.

By now, I’ve called police and I was ready to accept my fate, when I hear a commotion and my older brother opening the door.

Turns out the dude grabbed a statue and was banging on the window with that. It still blows my mind that the window did not break.

My brother and his friends threw him down our stairs. Coincidentally, that’s when the police also showed up.

Turns out the guy was a shirtless 20 year old that was high on a hallucinogenic drug and he bolted from a party down the road after being caught having sex with the birthday girl by the parents.

The paramedics were called and by this time we had given him a blanket and warm water.

The paramedics told us if he were outside for another hour he would’ve died of hypothermia.

We declined to press charges, his parents came and apologised profusely.

They’ve never bothered us again.”

***

“Was staying alone in my brothers apartment while he was at sea. I was across the country away from everyone I know. Late at night I hear a cell phone ringing from somewhere inside the apartment. An old, creepy-ass Nokia cell phone ring, like in a horror movie. I searched high and low and could not find anything, OR pinpoint where the hell it was coming from, but it was close. I should mention the apartment was almost bare so there wasn’t many places to hide something.

Eventually, it stopped ringing. Texted my brother and asked if he left an extra cell phone home, he said no. I never did hear the ring again.

I will always wonder what the hell that was all about.”

***

“I was at home by myself one night, hanging out with my chameleon. He hangs out on his tree in front of the window while I’m awake and at night when the lights are on inside, you can see your reflection on the window. I was facing the window, watching my chameleon, and he was watching me when I saw a dark figure in the reflection of the window move across the room. I know my chameleon saw it too because he flinched and both of his eyes were locked on whatever was behind me. I looked around me and nothing was there.”

***

“When I was around 7 or 8 I would be home alone for about 2 hours every morning. I walked down stairs, and I went down on the ground hard. I was sitting there in a daze when the cops showed up, and they went through the house room to room. This of course freaked me out.

What happened is my Dad decided to set the house alarm for some reason (he almost never leaves after my mom…. the fact is he probably always sets it off by my mom turns it off when she leaves…). The alarm got set off by the dog. The dog got scared and pissed on the floor. I slipped on the piss. Then the police got called over by the alarm company. Luckily this was the 90’s, if that happened today my folks would probably get in trouble for something stupid.”

***

“These are my moms stories, not mine.

When i was 5-10 years old we lived in a town house not too far from where i live now. Every other weekend my brother and i would go to my dads leaving my mom home alone.

Shed be sitting on the couch and hear furniture being dragged across the floor upstairs. Obviously we were gone and noone else was home. This happened often, multiple times a week and even when we were home. One time my dad had came by after we were in bed and heard it too, he asked what we (my brother and i) we doing awake dragging things around. My mom said it wasnt us. He called bullshit and went upstairs to catch us. We were asleep.

Other times the taps would turn on, mostly the one in the bathroom connected to my moms room. It happened too often i guess and eventually she had enough and yelled up “you can turn it off cause youre not scaring me!” It turned off.

Another time, she had went to bed. We were gone. She told me not 10 minutes after she got in bed she heard the sound of heavy steps coming up the stairs. Her bedroom was at the top of the stairs so when you walked up the last stair, her door was right there. So shes listening, thumpthumpthump thump thumpthumpthump silence. It stopped right at her door. She said it was the only time she had been scared in that house.

There are so many stories from this place, i could go on and on. How she sat alone at night despite the things that went on are beyond me.”

***

“I live alone with my kitten in a two bedroom, and recently I woke up in the middle of the night to hear music playing across my flat.

I got out of bed, and crossed my apartment to my spare room, where my computer was black and playing music. I had been listening to music before bed on my computer, but I’d turned off the music to go to bed. I rarely turn off my computer, but it goes to screensaver after a minute of being untouched and then you need a password immediately to unlock it. So, there’s no way that my homicidal love muffin could have stepped on the keyboard to hit play and restarted the tunes. Also, my screensaver goes for an hour – and the screen was black, so the music had to have been playing for awhile… but I’m such a light sleeper that I would have woken up earlier.

It freaked me right out. I’ve had a few weird things happen to me so far in this place, but this was the freakiest.”

***

“I live alone. Back when I first moved in, I hadn’t put in a cat flap yet, so I got into the bad habit of leaving the back door cracked open a touch for my cat to go in and out, but I’d usually block it (sliding door) with a bit of wood so it could only open 6” or so. My house is down a long drive, and my back yard is fenced, so I figured it would be OK short term.

This particular night I fell asleep watching a movie, and I left the door cracked without the wood stopper. I had my curtains slightly open to get a breeze in, since it was a stifling hot, muggy day. I woke up within an hour, hearing a tapping coming from my window. An insistent, repetitive tapping. Snuck a look while trying to pretend to be asleep, sure it was a branch or something normal…nope. there’s a dude standing outside staring in at me, tapping on my window like I’m in a fucking zoo enclosure and not being interesting enough.

It’s about this time that I remember I didn’t shut the door, which is only about six feet to the left of this guy. So I have a dilemma. I can get up and see what he wants, try and bluff my way through getting that door locked, or keep pretending to sleep and risk him getting bored with being creepy and finding it open himself.

He keeps tapping. For about ten minutes by feel, but it might have been less. Eventually I decide I have to nut up and do something, so I get up, and make for the back door. Dude stops tapping and meets me at the door. Turns out it’s my neighbor, and he’s off his face wasted, I can smell the alcohol from a good four feet away, and he’s swaying on his feet. I get in position to slam the door shut and/or bolt for the front door if he tries to force his way in.

He slurs out “what are you watching?” “Um. Inkheart.” “Can…can I watch?” “…No.” “Oh.” “Goodnight.” “… Goodnight”. And then I shut and locked the door as he stumbled off to his own house. That was the last day I left the door open. Or slept with my curtains open.”

***

“Not positive this qualifies as “creepy,” so much as “terrifying,” and “tragic,” but here goes:

Day before Valentines Day, 2010, I experienced the most terrifying night alone at home that I hope I ever experience, but it has more to do with the tragic as opposed to the paranormal. My mom and dad had asked me to dog-sit our family German Shepherd at the house I grew up in in Philadelphia while they took their first “them-only” vacation since my brother or myself had been born. The plan was for them to be gone eight days, but the night in question (the third night after they’d left) was reason enough for them to come home early.

I was sleeping on the couch in the living room (as my old bedroom was now a storage room for my dad’s stuff) and around 3:00am or 4:00am an explosively loud bang woke me up from a dead sleep, and my dog starting going crazy. I assumed it was his barking that had woken me up, so despite being scared shitless, my first thought was to sit up on the couch and call him over to me to reassure him that everything was fine and he could go back to sleep, but just before I was going to sit up to do that, I heard a woman scream “No! Dad no!” in absolute terror followed by another incredibly loud bang, and immediately felt tiny wood splinters fall into my eye from the wall the couch was against as they trickled down onto my face.

That second bang turned out to be the sound of my neighbor shooting and killing his daughter.

Those wood shavings that had gotten into my eye? They were from where the impact of either her body or the bullet (or both) hitting the wall directly on the other side of where I was sleeping had splintered some of the brick between our houses and caused my living room wall to push in a few millimeters. My head would’ve been pretty damned close to this spot had I actually sat up after the first bang to reassure my dog. Given that the bullet didn’t actually come through the wall, I would’ve been fine even if I had sat up, but knowing what I know now, I’m glad I laid there for that extra second.

Naturally, I called 911, made sure my front and back doors (and all the windows) were locked (because the last thing I needed was for the guy to try to get into my house) and within three minutes the next bangs I was hearing were those of the police kicking the guy’s door down and screaming for him to get on the ground. I sat at my window and watched them walk him out in cuffs and put him in a cruiser, and it wasn’t until the cops in the one cruiser had driven away with him in the back that I finally opened my door to talk to the other cops that were still on the scene and talked to some of them about what I’d heard, give a statement and all that.

A week later I was subpoenaed to testify against him in court because he was claiming that the whole thing was an accident. However, I heard his daughter scream “No! Dad, no!” before he fired the second time — no way in hell it was accidental. Testifying against him was terrifying, because if he got off? Well, he was my parents’ neighbor and I knew he wasn’t above murder. Thankfully, the DA made sure he didn’t get off. He’s 70 years old now and has another 20+ years of jail time with no possibility of parole.”

***

“It’s about midnight or so and I get woken out of a dead sleep. I’m not sure why, but I’m up on my second floor apartment, laying in the dark, staring at my alarm clock. Why am I awake? I lift my head and look around in my dark bedroom, listening.

Then, there in the dark at the end of my bed, I hear a weird clicking sound, a chitter, a mewl. …Cat? I know it’s my cat, because he’s made that sound before at birds outside, but he’s not at the window. He’s at the foot of my bed from the sound of it.

I sit up, staring at him, and realize he’s staring towards the ceiling. No one lives above me. What the hell is going on? My heart is absolutely racing because my cat has never acted like this before. I slowly get out of bed, sloooowly creep towards the baseball bat tucked nearby, and then flip the lights on.

There’s a motherfucking bat flying around my ceiling. An hour of screaming, planning, and cursing finally got the damn thing out of my room and out the window (alive).

Later on in life, living in my new home alone with my two cats, the doorbell rang and my cat, who had been sleeping beside me, actually stood up and outright growled in the direction of the door. I had never, ever heard him growl before.

I refused to even go near the door.”

***

“It was the dead of winter and I lived back a private drive about half a mile off of the main road. I have no neighbors, only an abandoned apartment building next door. The snowfall was very heavy that night, all footprints were erased leaving the ground with a blank slate. My family would not return for a few hours and my phone had died and I was looking for a charger.

The dogs began barking into the darkness outside the windows. Then I heard a series of knocks, so powerful that it seemed someone was striking my door as hard as they could. I go to the door, look outside and find no one there. Then the knocking started at the back door, a glass panel door with a motion detector overhead. The light did not turn on and I could not see anyone standing there. Then both doors were knocked upon at once very violently shaking them.

My home phone was malfunctioning so I couldn’t call the cops and my cell phone hadn’t charged enough to turn back on. I grabbed my shotgun and closed all the curtains in the house so if anyone was out there then they couldn’t watch me. The knocking spread to the windows, some two stories off the ground, and made rounds from door to door. Once my phone turned back on I called my mom and told her what was going on and she told me not to call the police unless someone tries to get into the house— she thought it was some kids from our non existent neighborhood. Eventually I opened the front door and looked around for who ever was doing this, cautiously of course, but what I saw chilled my heart. There were no footprints anywhere outside, not even indents in the snow, and once I was back inside the knocking resumed.

About twenty minutes later it subsided. To this day I still get freaked out being home alone.”

***

“I came home one night after a couple of days away. The air conditioner had stopped working during this time and it was over 100 degrees in the house. There were spiders hanging from the ceiling – barely moving. They were smaller and I’m not sure what type they were but I will never forget the scene when I turned the lights on. They were all hanging about 2-3′ down from the ceiling. Hundreds of them. I left and purchased some bug bombs and set a coupe off in the entry way – it’s as far as I’d go. I then went to town and got a hotel room. Came back the next day and swept/vacuumed the little bastards up. I can honestly say it is the most creeped out I’ve ever been.”

***

“I lived in a basement apartment. All of the windows had secure screens with no holes. The only exit was the front door that opened up to the hallway of the building, not directly to the outdoors. I had an indoor cat that had never been outside. I came home from work one night and there was a dead bird on the floor that said cat had demolished. I still can’t explain how that bird got in.”

***

“I was about 21 (but looked a lot younger) and recently moved into a duplex. I was supposed to maintain the front yard, the neighbors the rear, so I was doing a bit of work outside one day to tidy it up so I could plant some flowers under the window. I popped inside to cool off for a few minutes and ended up drifting to sleep on the couch. I woke up to someone knocking and looked out the peephole to see what looked like a door-to-door salesman. I didn’t want to hear a pitch so I just stood there quietly waiting for him to go away when he turned my doorknob and slowly began to open my door. I pushed back hard and slammed it shut on him, grabbed my metal bat that was within arms reach and pulled the door back open a couple inches. He looked a bit surprised and asked “are your parents home?”. I told him no and he handed me a brochure for a meal delivery service type thing for the elderly. I shut and locked the door, moved over to the window and watched him book it down the street and out of view. I got a big dog after that and made sure to not leave my door unlocked anymore.”

***

“I came home one night and my computer desk was all messed up, speakers were on the floor and the laptop was moved. I was freaked out called my SO while searching the house and found nothing. Went to bed and heard a loud noise at 4 AM. My 70 pound dog was jumping on the desk to lay.”

***

“When I was about seven years old I was home from school one day with a cold or flu or whatever. My parents were at work and my nearly 80 year old grandma had come over to be with me. I was in bed, she was somewhere else in the house.

The cleaning lady Betty suddenly came into my bedroom and sat down heavily on the chair by my dressing table. She was breathless and managed to say ,”Are you feeling better?” before collapsing sideways against the dressing table, awkwardly bashing her head and ending up sprawled under the table with her head at a strange angle.

I was terrified. I waited a moment or two then approached her, just in time to hear what I much later learned was called the death rattle. Some vomit came out of her mouth.

I ran to call for my grandma. She came in and very quickly bundled me off to a neighbors house where I stayed till the end of the day.

I knew she had died, but my parents pretended for at least ten years that she just fainted.

It was pretty harrowing, and I moved out of that room fairly quickly afterwards. My little brother moved into it, he was far too young to grasp what might have gone on.

I can still see her falling and remember the noise she made. Horrible memories.”

***

“My story happened a few years ago, back when I was still living with my mother.

She had recently lost her job and she was going through some heavy depression, so she would occasionally go visit with my grandparents, who lived just next door. One day, I had gotten into the shower and she cracked the door to let me know that she was going over for a bit, and she’d be back a little later.

I figured it’d give me a little alone time, some time to play some games and just recharge, since her depression had been starting to affect me, too. I get out of the shower and head into my room, which means I would have to pass her doorway.

Looking in, everything seemed to be in order, nothing looked strange or out of place. It was a weird habit I’ve had that I’ll look in a room as I pass by. So, as I’m in my room and drying off and dressing, I hear the sound of her sliding closet door move. This door is REALLY heavy and impossible for the wind to move, so I figured my mom might have forgotten something and came back to grab it, and I just didn’t hear her.

So, I go to look into her room and nothing has moved. These doors make a pretty distinct sound, and I’d heard it so many times, I knew what it was immediately. My mom wasn’t in her room, and she wasn’t anywhere in the apartment.

I was kinda freaked out, especially since I had a habit of seeing shadows on the wall moving down the hall towards our bedrooms. This apartment has always kinda spooked me a bit. But I love it all the same.”

***

“Not alone but; when my sister and I were young, still in grade school my mom was doing laundry. This was in the 70’s when scary low budget movies were pretty common on tv and we loved watching them. So the washer/dryer was in a utility room off the kitchen. Suddenly this horrendous banging/rattling sound came from the utility room. My sister was petrified. I opened the door and the dryer was literally shaking across the floor like it was coming alive and banging like 100 sneakers were inside. I was so scared I couldnt move. I thought the devil was in the house! My mom came running thru past us and pulled the dryer door opened and just like that, the noise stopped.

A dryer belt had broken and the tumbler was rolling loose inside like crazy.”

***

“So the backstory is that I work at 24×7 roster and I (obviously) am single and live alone.

I finished my night shift at 7am and went home. I was meeting my mum for brunch so I laid down in bed but set an alarm every 5 minutes so i didn’t crash and miss her knock on the door. I laid on my side, facing the closed concertina sliding door that separates my bedroom and living room. This is Australia in summer so ~8am means full daylight streaming in, door has to be shut or it’s blinding.

I hear the clink of keys then the grinding of one entering the keyhole of the front door. First thought is “but mum doesn’t have a set of keys”, then I realise I can’t sit up, or move at all. I hear footsteps on the kitchen lino, the key coming out, the door shutting, then footsteps on the carpet and the thud of a handbag being dropped.

Then a voice says “I’m home, hun.” don’t know to explain the accent. I call it restrained Aussie – you imagine an Aussie accent as ‘Yeah howzitgarn maaaaaate’ but restrained is Aussie reduces emphasis on vowels. Says “can’t” as “carnt”. Alexarnder. Vase is Varze. Anyway it’s clearly a woman’s voice and I hear her plop onto the chaise of the couch and slowly remove her boots. Then a few more steps on the carpet and the concertina door slides open.

There stands the spitting image of what I perceive to be attractive. A gal, ~5’5, 5’6. Homely looking – long straight hair, chubby but not overweight. Her face and tones are kind of a blur, except her smile radiates and the daylight shines around her. She says “I’m just gonna crash”, kisses me on the forehead then walks around the bed, behind me. I feel the weight if the bed shift as she lazily plops onto the mattress and adjust herself. As soon as she stops I feel my paralysis lift and I roll over.

Obviously, no one there. But a few things are really unsettling about this – at no point did my eyes open. Meaning this was a hallucination, not a dream. Knowing that, it means my brain was actively blocking information. For one, the concertina door was always open, so my mind was both blocking the light that was hitting my eyes from the other room AND created a memory of me shutting the door. The other is that it was pre-compensating my body weight on the mattress to adjust to normal when the dream gal sat on the bed behind me.

TL DR my brain is creepier than any neighbour, shadow or supernatural force.

Edit for the yanks: In proper English, Homely means comfortable, cosy. Like a home.”

***

“When I first bought my house, I was in the smallest bedroom that I used as a media room. There is only one window in the room. It was about 9 at night and I’m watching tv. I’m sitting in the recliner that is right next to the window and suddenly there are three LOUD bangs on the window. My curtains were closed and I didn’t dare look out. Fight or flight kicked in and I immediately grab my keys, lock my front door, and run to my car and just started driving. I was scared shitless. I called my dad eventually and he met me back at the house and didn’t see anything outside. That was 5 years ago and I really never use that room anymore because of it. Maybe not too scary, but I lived alone (still do) and had literally just moved in.”

***

“Several years ago when i was still living in my parents house, my whole family left for a 2 week holiday in Cuba. I opted to stay home on pretense i needed to study ( sure ). Anyway several days after they left it was night and i was plaing Deadspace in my room with headphones on full blast. I sit with my back to the doors and i left them unlocked, i always lock them i have no need for my sister to run into my room while i am fapping, but hey whole family is in different country so i left them unlocked. So anyway its almost midnight i am focused on the game, crawling through ventilation ( lovely parts ). Out of nowhere there is a hand on my shoulder. I turned as fast as i could, it felt like years to me, i was shiting myself whole way i was sure i will turn to see shadow of my killer, i couldnt even scream. Turns out it was my uncle who came to check on me, parents gave him keys and didnt tell me about it. My whole life went before my eyes as i was turning around, uncle almost died laughing what a dick 😃. I have never left door into my room unlocked ever again.”

***

“My kids were spending the night at my mother’s so I was home alone. Whilst standing in the kitchen, eating a t.v. dinner over the sink like a savage, I started choking. I set the food down, my swallow reflex stuck on infinite loop and remember thinking, “well why the fuck not?” I pounded on my chest a few times to no avail and slowly darkness started working its way in from my peripheral vision and I felt myself falling forward.

I woke up on the tile floor, face-down in a puddle of drool/vomit. The only thing I can figure, is the force of falling face first onto the hard floor acted as the Heimlich maneuver and saved my life.”