Lisa ain’t afraid of no ghosts. Not one neon-green, ectoplasmic drop. Poltergeists, on the other disembodied hand, are a completely different ball of candle wax. This all-true haunted tale from a few Octobers back offers a warning that bears repeating. But who you gonna call? (Maybe not Lisa.)
Once there was a starving editorial assistant (that would be me) working in a fancy Manhattan publishing house by day and going home each night to a serious dump of a Brooklyn apartment. I’d tell you the exact address, but these days, the neighborhood is super trendy and the landlord pulls in about 5 grand each month for rent.
I was riding the subway home, desperately hanging onto a pole and clutching a tote full of manuscripts to be read by sunrise, when someone called my name. A former colleague I didn’t know that well, but she was nice enough. A little out there, maybe, but who wasn’t?
She asked if I was in the market for a new apartment (the answer is always “yes” in NYC), because she was moving in with her new boyfriend in Boston and needed to sub-let. She didn’t want to actually give up the apartment, in case things didn’t work out. The rent was only $350 a month—and fully furnished.
I literally dropped the heavy bag on my foot. Three-fifty? Half what I was paying for my drafty studio. Of course, there was a catch. I’d have to take care of her two cats, because her boyfriend was allergic. Okay, fine. “And there’s a poltergeist,” she added casually.
I’m sure I had a half-shocked, half-horrified look on my face. I’d seen that movie. “Don’t worry,” my acquaintance said. “A poltergeist is just a mischievous teenager spirit—you know, with a lot of energy. This one is a 14-year-old boy. You’ll be perfectly safe.”
I moved in the very next month. The apartment was on the bottom floor of a former carriage house, located behind my landlord’s home. To get to it, I had to let myself in through a locked gate and then cross a courtyard under a long, grapevine-covered (my landlord was Armenian) pergola.
The apartment was large, dark, and musty. I didn’t care, because I was out most of the time. (Again: $350/month.) The only problem was the cats. Skittish and destructive 24-7, they leapt across furniture and knocked objects to the floor. Sometimes I’d even enter a room to find a framed print askew on the wall. Also, they hated me, which hurt my feelings. I couldn’t remember what my friend had told me their names were, so I called them Satan and Damien. They leveled death-glares at me from the tops of the floor-to-almost-ceiling bookcases.
One night after work I stood outside my apartment, fumbling for my keys. Just as I finally found them and reached out toward the lock, I heard a click–and the door opened. By itself. Whoa. A weird burst of wind from inside the house? Sure, indoor tornados happen.
And even though I heard some weird buzzing noise from the dark living room I stepped cautiously inside. You know, just like those movies where the too-dumb-to-live babysitter is determined to investigate the creepy basement where the killer is lurking. (Remember: $350/month.) I flipped on the dim overhead light and there was my ancient vacuum cleaner. Smack in the middle of the living room. Running.
I knew for sure I hadn’t left it there. I almost never vacuumed. Had my landlord’s elderly mother let herself into my apartment to spruce things up and then run out with the vac still running? There was only one exit from the apartment—the door I’d entered–and all the windows had bars, so I hadn’t caught anyone in the act of invading my space. The ever-intimidating cats, for once, were nowhere in sight. I seriously doubted they’d lugged out the vac, plugged it in, and engaged in some light housekeeping to welcome me home.
I turned off the vac, yanked the cord from the outlet, and headed straight to the bedroom per usual to check my phone messages on the answering machine. The little red light was blinking twice. Yay, 2 people had called me. I pushed “Play Message” for the first one and got…the vacuum sounds on tape. Well, that was annoying. I quickly erased and jumped to the second message—the vac again. How was that even possible? To use the answering machine as a tape recorder, you had to push two buttons down at the same time and hold them there. I doubted my landlord’s mother, who didn’t speak a word of English, had been involved, or that Satan and Damien were that talented with their claws.
And then there was that click I’d heard in the hallway. Who had unlocked my front door for me upon my arrival, plugged in my vac, and recorded the annoying buzzing on my machine? And fled the scene through a brick wall?
I’ll never know. And really, I’m fine with that. But be on guard against renting haunted apartments. (Unless you can find one for $350/month, moo ha ha.)
Readers, how do you feel about ghosts? And have you ever lived in a truly bad rental apartment? Tell us in the comments!
Chicks on the Case 
Lisa, I choose to believe that your poltergeist was trying to give you a little help around the apartment. I mean, I bet that one spot on the floor was nice and tidy!
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Ha, JC! Honestly, I never looked at it that way.
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I crashed in some goddawful apartments in NY, of which there are many. (I had a friend whose place on Ninth Ave shared couple of communal toilets with the other residents of us tenement floor.) As to ghosts, they’re welcome to visit and vacuum any day.
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The things we did to save a buck, lol! For long stretches, I ate one full meal a day for $4.99 at the University Place Dallas BBQ (1/2 chicken with baked potato and corned bread). With dollar slices or a street dog (brr) to break the routine. Our bosses were also really nice about giving us assistants their party invites (back in the day when there were a LOT of publishing parties) so we could fill up on wine and fancy hors d’oeuvres. But communal bathrooms, I dunno. Now that’s scary.
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hestia here.
I have no problem with ghosts, especially if they clean my house.
No apartment creepy stories, but let me tell you about a hotel I stayed in (stop reading if you already heard this).
Picture it. Dallas, Texas, 2001. I was staying at the Aramark hotel for a month for work classes. I went home one weekend and came back early Monday morning. I dropped my stuff off in my new room and went to class. When I came back, it looked like my bed had been slept on.
I called the front desk to see if they’d accidentally double booked my room, the person laid down then realized there were suitcases next to the dresser. Or maybe one of the maids came in for a Power Nap?
security came up and said no one had been in the room since I checked in (I got a feeling they didn’t check), and asked if anything was missing. I still had the 2k tennis bracelet from my stepmom, so I said no. The investigation stopped there.
also that same week, a friend was coming down so we could all go so karaoke. She was stuck in the elevator for 35 minutes, it just going up and down, the doors never opening. In the same tower where my room was. Fortunately she was frazzled, but not hurt.
I found out later it was allegedly the haunted tower. No wonder they didn’t book rooms there unless the rest of the hotel was full.
This is one of the reasons I don’t like tall buildings. Plus, I can’t leap over them in a single bounce.
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Yikes! I’ll have you know, I tried to find this hotel online. Guess it’s gone? What a shame. Not.
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Yikes, Lisa, that is…weird! I’ve never had an interaction with a ghost or poltergeist, but as Hestia says, I’m all in if they’ll do the vacuuming!
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I’d prefer to have ghost-free living arrangements. I have had three kinda negative rentals: 1) a place that didn’t have any windows and was basically one long corridor from front door to kitchen–actually lived there for a few years because it was cheap; 2) a home with a heater that wasn’t working during a rainstorm, which the landlord conveniently forgot to mention; and 3) an AirBnB that doubled as lodging for centipede and other insect friends & had some dodgy wiring…
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Eek!! Jen, those definitely qualify as negative rentals, lol. They had a lot of those “railroad-style” (as in, one long train) apartments in the section of Brooklyn where I lived with a friend for awhile. Now they’re super trendy, with sky-high rents. (Hello Williamsburg and Greenpoint.) Our downstairs neighbor used to jab a broom handle at the ceiling whenever we walked (even tiptoed) around. And speaking of insect friends…My daughter shared a garden flat in London with a friend–and giant (like, HUGE) slugs sliming up and down the walls.
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If I was in an apartment with a ghost that wanted to run the vacuum, I’d have absolutely no problem with it. LOL
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We have a lot of takers for housecleaning ghosts! Still a hard no for me, lol.
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A vacuuming ghost–now that’s my kind of haunting!
I’ve never had a brush with the other side, but I’ve had a couple of bad apartments. I always had great roommates, which made it feel more like an adventure!
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No haunted apartment. But when our dog died in our house after a bout with cancer. we got ghost dog. A neighbor drove by the house and saw her looking out at them from the front window where she always looked after her death. Then when we got a new pup. We had taught her a few things, but all of a sudden, she did all of these things that we taught the other pup–like sitting and waiting to be released to eat. This from a pup out of 12 pups and kind of the runt and they all fought for the food. She never tried to go upstairs, never got on furniture, always waited to be released to go outside or eat, and so many more things. I do believe in ghosts–human or animal.
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Aw, I love this ghost story!
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Thank you. I loved your story that got me started thinking.
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