Thriller Thursday

When I finally decided I was actually grown-up enough to rent an apartment on my very own, I figured out the whole budget thing and worked out what I could afford for rent and still make car payments. Of course, this was back in the day when I could spend $20 at the grocery store and get a huge backpack full of food that would last me over two weeks. Now 20 bucks fills the bottom of my recycleable grocery bag.

Anyhoo. I searched around and looked at some very sketchy apartments before I found one that I thought suited me, gave me a "good vibe". The landlords repainted the bedroom walls that the previous tenant had painted a dark teal without permission and did a few other minor fix-ups and I soon was able to put my father thru the whole moving process once again. My poor father, the infinite number of moves I put that man thru, it's a wonder he said yes to helping me move into my now-home. Maybe he did because he knew I wasn't going to be asking for that kind of help for a LOOOOONNNNGG time.

I moved in and spent the first couple of months getting settled in. I had a big bedroom that faced the street, a middle room that was my living room area (where couch and TV were), the kitchen (tiny but room for a table for one to eat at), and an extra room with a fire place and stained glass windows and a huge window, practically floor to ceiling that was too heavy to open but if I could, I could step right onto the enclosed psuedo-porch area that nobody used (thank goodness, I had to put up really large opaque curtains for privacy!). Hardwood floors throughout the entire layout.

So I'm getting comfortable and really enjoying the fact it's MY space and I don't have to share the bathroom with anyone, all the cooking is for me, and I can do exactly what I want because the only one I can offend, bother, or irritate is me, myself, and I.

I worked for my father as his office administrator and sidelined as a preschool teacher then, so my hours were rather odd. I didn't meet my upstairs neighbor for almost 6 months besides the occasional driveway sighting, nod going in and out, and mail delivery corrections. To be honest, I really wasn't all that interested in "making nice". I had my own group of friends and interests and I just never got around to getting to know her.

I was home during the day alot and I remember thinking that despite not knowing her, I "knew" she was very annoying. Living below her, I got to experience her never-ending furniture re-arrangements. Dragging this large piece here, thumping this one down there, moving this several times before keeping it in one spot for just a day. It was a constant muffled din of scraping, sliding, and banging on wood floors. Usually I just put the TV on and could ignore it, but sometimes I just wanted to read and soak up being in my own place with no one to tell me to stop reading and do something more constructive and active. I remember staring at the ceiling willing her to just cut the crap RIGHT NOW.

I dislike conflict and will avoid it unless you corner me like a cat and then it's no holds barred. So I managed to avoid her for quite some time. Finally one weekday, I stayed home sick, and someone came into our communal foyer (we shared it). It was a guy who went upstairs, knocked on her door several times, and then I heard a bunch of rustling. I was unkempt, unshowered, no glasses, and peeking out my glass and curtained door watching the stairs - so I avoid conflict, doesn't mean I'm not nosey. He finally came downstairs (I put the curtain back so he wouldn't see me) and I heard him rustling around my part of the foyer. I peeked out and discovered him on the point of opening the walk-in closet where my bike was stored. I WHIPPED open the door and asked him "Whattha hell do you think you're doing?"

I'd definitely surprised him and he stammered out some lame "I'm trying to find so and so". I told him flat out there was no so and so here and he'd better leave. Which he did. I watched him thru the windows and he walked to the back addition apartments and went in their communal area. I found out later, one of the back neighbors was home too and he gave them the same lame excuse after being found rustling around their stairwell. Come to find out, he may have been associated with some of the robberies that were happening to the apartment houses in the neighborhood.

But this is not the point of my long winded story, exciting as confronting a possible thief, scaring the bajeezus out of him with my unshoweredness, and preventing my shiny red bike from going missing is.

I'm getting to the point, bear with me. When my my neighbor came home later that day, I told her about our suspicious visitor, which led to contacting our landlord (I think it was he that told us of the midday robberies), getting a security lock on the outer door and our own keys to keep us and our belongings safe.

We started to get to know each other and would spend some time talking in the foyer when we passed like ships in the night. Granted she was STILL re-arranging like a maniac, but I didn't have the guts to say anything.

Finally one day I invited her to come in to my place and meet Hobbes. After admiring him and what I'd done with the place, she invited me up to see her apartment.

I followed her up the stairs, she opened her door, I walked in...

Here's my point...

Her apartment was carpeted! Shag carpet all thru the damn apartment! The only place not carpeted was the kitchen and that only had three very light pieces of furniture in it.

And then I found out she was a photography teacher at the local high school so she was never home while I was listening to the Moving Suite in Major Major!

!!!!!!!!

I told her that I'd been getting a bit ticked with all the moving around of her heavy furniture and she showed me the deep indentations in the shag under the couch which proved it hadn't been moved EVER! And she didn't seem in the least surprised I'd heard these noises.

She told me that she would come home from work to find all her hard-to-open kitchen cabinets (old and painted many times so they would stick) wide open. Sometimes the latched door to the attic would open and close. And she'd find little things in different places than where she thought she'd left them.

Well, for someone whose favorite reading material is ghost stories and the supernatural you'd think I'd be sky-high with this experience and living beneath an apartment where things out of the ordinary happened. I was but puzzlement was huge too. I had a hard time wrapping my mind around the entire 6 months of listening to the Decorator Olympics above me only to find out, they really couldn't be happening.

Of course, once I saw her carpet, the noises never happened again. Almost like "nah nah, gotcha!"

That's the closest experience I've had with the ghostly and otherworldly.

Well, except for the occasional invisible-to-me but visible-to-cats visitors (the only time I can tell they're dropping by is the cats wake up from a dead nap and track something going across the room and I don't see anything to track!) and the orbs I caught on film during my kitchen reconstruction. I'll have to post those pics next Thriller Thursday when I treat you to another episode of the odd and uncommon...