1. I lit two long taper candles for some ambiance while I was playing guitar late at night. I was facing the other direction looking out the window while playing and shortly later turned around and went back towards the candles and discovered one of them was completely gone. The stand was still there, but no melted wax, just a bare candle holder and the other one was still lit and no shorter than it was when I lit them. It was almost 3am and I was so terrified that I got in my car and left and drove to my dad’s house.

2. When I was like 14, I was home alone one night around 10pm stood in my kitchen making some cereal. It’s dark outside and then all of a sudden I hear the loudest sound. Some drunk woman literally launched a hammer through my kitchen window. Was so loud and glass was everywhere. I followed her down the street whilst calling the police. Pretty strange.

3. The cleaning lady tried to commit suicide in our bathroom. She died four days later.

4. I was babysitting a kid who had a video monitor and was told that she wouldn’t wake up while the parents were out and if she did to call them right away. I was watching TV with the monitor set off to the side to keep an eye on her and right around 11, the cameras view shifted a few inches. It then began to slightly jiggle like someone was messing with it. I was squinting at it trying to decide what I was actually seeing, and I kid you not, the whole screen burst to static for a few seconds, and the kid started WAILING. She stood up and was screaming in her crib just like one of the kids from the sims. When she didn’t fall back asleep after a few minutes I called mom and she said, “Okay we’re on our way home anyway. We think she has nightmares sometimes it’s fine.”

5. A couple years back I woke up at 3am to see someone walk past my bedroom door. I called out, thinking maybe my boyfriend had come over while I was sleeping but got no response so I knew it wasn’t him.

Got out of bed, stupidly forgetting to take my phone or any kind of defensive item with me and went into the front room where the light was on to be met with a random guy staring at one of the walls. I asked him who he was and got no answer.

At this point I’d actually woken up enough to realize I could really be in trouble so ran back to the bedroom, grabbed my phone and ran outside on the phone to the police who showed up within a few minutes. Turns out the guy was mentally ill and to this day neither myself or the police know how he got in.

6. I was about 21 or 22 and living by myself at the time, and I left my window open on a pleasant night. It was low enough to the ground that you could get in if you really tried, but the screen wasn’t easy to take off and I lived in a fairly safe neighborhood so I didn’t even think twice about it. Woke up in the middle of the night because I smelled smoke, and I reached out to turn on my lamp and my hand hit what was very obviously a person. My brain fully woke up at that point, and I realized there was a shirtless man in my bedroom, smoking a cigarette and staring at me. I remember yelling for him to get out, and I must’ve spooked him just as badly as he spooked me because he leapt out my window and took off. I slammed it shut and moved a bookcase in front of it, and when I went out the next morning in the daylight found the screen sitting against the house. Didn’t sleep the rest of the night, and I haven’t slept with a window more than cracked ever since. I also absolutely refuse to live on the ground floor of a building. I don’t know if he was planning to rob me or rape me or both, but it was absolutely terrifying and makes me wonder how many times it happened and I didn’t wake up.

7. One afternoon someone knocked at my back door. I thought it was the guy coming to read our meter, so I opened the door. Next thing I know, two huge guys pushed into the house, and one of them threw me up against the wall. Then they shoved me down on the couch. They told me they were Hell’s Angels, and they were pissed because my boyfriend was selling too many drugs, cutting into their profits. They kept calling me by my next door neighbor’s name. We had suspected they were selling drugs. All of the people stopping by for less than 5 minutes made it pretty obvious. I just kept telling them I wasn’t her. One of them searched the house, while the other kept me pinned to the couch.

They started to realize they were in the wrong house, because they couldn’t find anything where they were told it was. My neighbor’s house is a single floor, with a basement. My house is a 4 level, back split. Then I showed them my mail, because it showed my name, and they knew they fucked up.

They started telling me that they were after my neighbor’s boyfriend, because he raped their cousin. Which I knew was BS, but I didn’t care, I just wanted them to leave. They robbed me of my cash, and left. I now have locks on my screen doors.

8. One evening an explosion at a petrochemical plant (located a mile from my house) blew out the double window in my living room while I was in the room. I definitely thought we were being bombed until I remembered where I live.

I had just let my dog out to the backyard and he was completely traumatized. For the following two months I had to carry him outside and sit in the grass with pieces of chicken just so he would potty.

9. When I was young, I came home from a party in the middle of the night, when my dad was out of town. I started making a midnight quesadilla when I heard someone cough in the basement. I yelled and ran outside, and they took off through the backyard.

Come to find out, my dad’s ex-girlfriend’s daughter stole her key to our house and came to rob us. She was busted a couple years later doing this to her SIL.

10. One day while I was working afternoons a couple years back I woke up at around 10am and started to watch American Dad before getting up. Next thing you know I hear my back door open. A normal thing in our home since we only use the back door. But no one was supposed to be home yet. I assumed it was my mom and didn’t think anything of it. Then I heard footsteps coming up the stairs as my bedroom was on the second floor. I call out to my mom and get no response. Then my door cracks open and a head pops in. It’s a 30ish year old man with a blonde beard and a big mane of greasy hair who looks shocked to see me. At the time I was about 260lbs 6’3 and 20 years old (m). I was also sitting in only my boxers. Before I was able to realize what was happening he asked, “Is this the ____ residence?” I reply, “No?” He makes a swift exit. Talked to a family friend who is a veteran police officer turns out a man has been pulling this kind of stunt to rob people in nearby towns.

11. My boyfriend worked away from home a lot and I always struggled to sleep on the first night he was away. On this occasion I was woken by the sound of a man shouting and then someone banging on wood or a front door. I jumped up and looked out my bedroom window… just in time to see a man dressed all in black walking through our garden towards the house. I ran to the front of the house to look out of the front window and make sure he kept going. He did, but he met up with another man dressed in black walking towards my house. I was terrified and called the police, they arrived in a matter of minutes and checked out the back garden but they were gone. Turned out a neighbor had caught them both trying to steal his car and one had escaped through the gardens while the other had run through the roads and they had met up outside my house. I didn’t sleep at all that night and my brother came to stay the next night. I’m so glad I live in an apartment now, much more security.

12. I was asleep at home alone. When I turned over in bed, I casually opened my eyes a little whilst turning and they were shut again just as quickly. In that split second, I could have sworn I had seen a man stood at the bottom of my bed. I laid still. Awake with my eyes closed. Trying not to act like I was awake and trying to listen for any sound in the room of someone breathing or moving. Couldn’t hear anything. I was too scared to open my eyes and look, assured myself that there wasn’t any way someone could have gotten in without me hearing a window smash and fell back asleep. When I got up in the morning though the front door was open. They didn’t take anything and left no signs of being there. Was still very very creepy though.

13. Was home with my infant twin daughters who were sound asleep. I was watching TV in the lower level of my tri-level home. On that level, the windows look out to the backyard and as I got up to go to the kitchen, something caught my attention. What looks like a pale left arm is being subtly illuminated outside in the far right window – maybe 6 inches away from the window. It it angled straight down as if to steadying itself. My heart sunk. Then I could feel my heartbeat in my neck.

I ran up the few stairs to the main floor and grabbed my phone and returned to see if it was still there. Nope. Nothing. I’ve never been remotely shaken like I was then. Called the non-emergency police and when they arrived, walked to the backyard with the officers but didn’t find anything. They were great and kept saying calling them was the right thing to do, it’s what we’re are hear for, etc.

Don’t know what it was, but the image is seared into my memory.

14. When I was about ten years old someone kept ringing the doorbell for like ten minutes. Was fucking creepy.

15. Somebody tried to break into the house while I was by myself.

The whole place was quiet and dark at nighttime. I walked past the front door to go upstairs for bed, and the handle suddenly started jerking around like The Hulk was trying to get in. Then whoever it was started to either kick or shoulder the door, and it was making the whole frame jiggle. I completely froze and my mind went blank. Just standing there like an idiot and staring.

My dog bolted down the stairs like it was her time to shine, scrambled on the tile, and let loose the most vicious barks I’ve ever heard. Whoever it was left. She was a very good girl. I miss her.

16. It’s 12am, I hear a knock on our door. It’s a man’s voice. Now this is weird for several reasons, no one knows where we live, and a man knocking at 12am? Nah, huge red flags.

I tell him give me a minute. I go grab the biggest knife I could. As I open the door I hide the knife behind the thigh furthest from him.

It’s a police officer, and he’s responding to someone in the neighborhood who claimed they got stabbed….

I’m literally holding a fucking knife. Lucky I hid the knife behind me, chatted a bit and he left.

Could have been bad.

17. I had the police knock one day while I was alone. The cop had a guy in the back of his car who said we were holding his friend captive… I showed the cop my ID and explained that it was just me and my husband he wasn’t home but they could look if they wanted to and he said no that was ok and then asked questions about my neighbors.

18. This happened to me a couple of years ago. I have also lived on my own a long time so do not get scared easily!

I had just finished reading in bed and I turned my lamp off and settled down to go to sleep and hugged my cat up close to me. This would be about 1:30 in the morning. I closed my eyes and I head a voice say “Meow” like imitating a cat! My window was open so I though it was just someone being weird outside.

I opened my eyes and in the middle of my bedroom was a small boy wearing a red jumper waving his arm above his head. I leapt up like a god damn ninja and put the light on and my heart was going mad. Now, nothing paranormal has happened in this house, ever in the entire time I have lived here. I spent the whole night totally freaked out, only getting a bit of sleep when it started to get light outside.

My friends thought this was hilarious when I told them. I was saying there is no way I am living in a haunted house and started googling cleansing, exorcists and whatnot! The next few nights other weird stuff started happening. I started sleeping with the TV on and as soon as I tried to get any sleep, I would hear freaky voices coming from it, or I would notice shadows dip by the side of my bed. It was dreadful! I actually resorted to saying out loud, ” I’m really tired, so if you could not haunt me for one night I would be really grateful!” I had never really believed in any of this sort of stuff before, so it was like an entire paradigm shift for me. Anyway, I was going on about this to my friends at work, and one of them asked if I was on drugs. Well, funnily enough I had just started taking this new tablet Montelukast for my asthma. When I got home, read the side effects, a rare one being hallucinations! Stopped taking them, no more hauntings!

19. When I was 19 in my first apartment I had someone knock at the door. I looked through the peep hole and saw this burley, heavy set man who abruptly started screaming to let him in. He was screaming things like he was going to beat my ass, and kick the door down if I didn’t open. I called the cops and as soon as someone got on the phone he started body slamming my door to break in. I was freaking out and crying as they quickly had 5 cops show up within 5+ minutes. As soon as he heard the sirens he quickly walked away and they met him at the bottom of the stairs. Apparently he was after the previous renter but was extremely intoxicated. They arrested him and thankfully he never came back. I ended up breaking my lease and moving out 3 months later.

It was in a very nice neighborhood but it quickly made me wish I was back home with family instead of being on the other side of the United States.

20. I moved into our house a month before my husband did and I was painting our guest room with the windows wide open. I was busy painting, listening to music when I realized it had gotten dark outside. I heard the leaves crunching outside but didn’t think anything of it because we have a lot of neighbors who walk their dogs. When I went to close the windows I saw a man standing in my backyard under the tree maybe 5 feet from our back door staring up at me. I fell to the floor and realized the back glass door was probably open and nothing but the screen which he could have easily just walked into my house. Crawled to my phone and called my husband who then called 911 while rushing home to me. We have a 6 ft tall fence around our yard, this person hopped it to watch me. I couldn’t sleep right at night for months.

21. Someone attempting to break in. I have a 75lb boxer and have never seen anyone run as fast as that man did.

22. My mum once shouted my name when I was home alone. She was in another country, it was midnight, and I live in a 7-bedroomed house.