Hello, first post here.
Was just gonna chat about my weird, crazy, wacky grandmother and her old house. Specifically one time spending a night there as a kid.
Her house was fairly old, built in the early 70s, sort of a dutch colonial styled house. 2 floors with a basement. It had it’s eeriness in its cramped floor plan with sharp hallway corners, steep stairs and creepy storage spaces. Which the storage spaces detail is what I will be talking about during this story.
One weekend, when I was about 11 or 12, I came over to her house to spend some time there. Just one of those casual childhood things where I’d go over there, go to a few parks with her, or arcades, or mini-golfing and such. Had loads of fun during the day when we’d get out of the house. Once we got back and it started to get dark outside.. that’s when it got a little creepy in the house. You know how certain times you go to a friends house or even your own home might have a cozy/sleepy feeling when the sun goes down? Her house never had that feeling at night.. Especially due to the ambiance. The house had a very loud AC unity that would kick in at 15min intervals. The house was overall very creaky. Then you have the sounds of the large oak trees flowing in just the slightest breeze outside- And a train a few blocks down that would lowly roar at night and day (also the house over looked a cemetery). I will try to include some picture for this story to prove how strangely placed and creepy this house was.
One particular night, I was up in the top floor sleeping in my grandmothers bed while she slept down stairs on the couch or the guest room upstairs (not exactly sure why she’d always give up the master bed to me, it might have been due to having a bathroom right next to the bed. The other bathroom was situated right in front of the steep staircase to get down to the first floor so that must explain it. Just a grandmother being cautious and not risking me falling down the stairs in the middle of the night, lol).
The bed was huge, tall and super comfortable, like the ones you’d lay on at a furniture store. The ones that are all made up with comfy sheets and such? I slept directly in the middle of this behemoth. To my left was a night stand and the bathroom. To my right was another night stand, the slopped/vaulting ceiling from the roof and a little further to my right was a protruding window. It over looked the non-cemetery-facing side of the property and faced the street. Since this was a protruding window, it had some free space inside the roof. A triangle of storage space to be exact. How did one access this space exactly? Oh- by a tiny 4ft door of course.. There were 3 protruding windows on the roof that had these little storage doors. They had no latching either. They were just on hinges and shut via snug fit in the frame. The nobs were small drawer nobs. They did not twist, you just pulled it and it would open.
After I feel asleep to some TV- which was watched on a small screen in this massive armoire wardrobe that was used like an entertainment center. I had a pretty good 2 to 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Until for whatever reason, the AC, train or whatever it was woke me up. I jolted awake, yawned and flipped to my right side and tried to get back to sleep. my eyes adjusted a bit to the darkness. The most illuminated part of the room was the protruding window. It bled some of the street lights into the house. It also illuminated the tiny storage space door as well.. I remember staring at the door for a long time. Like.. it was all I could do. I guess maybe in that moment I was going to perpetually stare and eventually slowly close my eyes and fall back to sleep but.. Then I heard noises. The house was very silent, so any noise was immediately heard- and there was a definite shuffling or bumping sound coming from the door.
I remember freezing up. Having a bit of a sleep paralysis-esc moment in the bed. Couldn’t move, sweating and breathing heavily and such. The sounds happened for about a second or two. Then 30 seconds later, it happened again. Then maybe a minute or two later when I was starting to think whatever it was stopped- it happened again. It trickled a prickly itchy feeling all over my back and neck whenever I heard the sounds. At some points it sounded like scratching as well. Out of nowhere the AC kicked in yet again and overpowered any quiet bumps or scratches in the night. This also knocked me out of my paralysis state and gave me a bit of a jump as well. I remember going under the covers for the rest of my sleep. Finally sleeping through the rest of the night with the help of the AC drowning out any creepy noises.
I remember the next morning getting out of the bed and looking towards the door now that there was sunlight lighting up the room. It was still shut and nothing looked out of the ordinary. This only happened once in all the 100s of times I’ve stayed at my grandmothers house, but for whatever reason I remember it vividly. I walked down stairs to greet my grandmother cooking breakfast and I asked her about it. Told her that I heard weird sounds coming from the little storage space behind the small door. Which she replied something on the lines of, “Hmm? Oooh yeah. It was probably the neighbors dogs ghost [dog name]. Heard scratching right? He was trying to get out, probably.” (couldn’t remember the dogs name)
I don’t think I even responded to her in anyway because I was struck so hard with a ‘WTF’ moment.. I was like whiplashed by her response. My grandmother is a character that’s for sure.. Aliens, the supernatural, other dimensions were things she had no problem believing in.. and claiming to see such things..