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Visitor Experience #1: T.S.
Uncommon Scents
My ghost story takes place in Los Angeles in 1995 in a building built in 1940.
My roommate and I moved into a small apartment building (3 apt.s) a few blocks east of the Beverly Center. We lived on the ground floor in the back of the building. The front apartment was rented by one of my best friends and the apartment above mine was vacant - and had been for a few years.
The first 'occurrence' was when I was home alone and heard someone walking around upstairs. Thinking the landlord was showing the apartment, I thought nothing of it. This happened a few times and I didn't give it much thought, nor did my roommate. One night I heard someone walking around upstairs and called the landlord to see if he was in fact showing the apartment. He was shocked, came over and checked everything out, only to discover that the place was locked up tight as a drum. I didn't mention that I'd heard footsteps on numerous occasions.
I mentioned the incident to my friend in the front apartment and he said that both he and his roommate often heard people laughing and talking in their living room. But when they entered the room, everything was silent. It was at that point, we decided that we were not the only inhabitants of the building.
One evening I walked into the living room to talk to my roommate and his friend who were watching TV and I suddenly smelled something burning, a really strong odor of smoke. I asked my roommate what was burning and neither he or his friend smell anything. We searched the apartment and went outside and found nothing burning, but in one spot of the living room, there was a distinct, strong smell of smoke which lasted about 10 minutes and then went away. We never figured out where the smoke smell came from, but we compared it to a cold spot - only it was a smoke spot!
Two of the scariest incidents occurred while I alone. Perhaps I was the "chosen" one as my father was very psychic as is my sister, but that's another story.
One evening I'd been in bed about half and hour and just couldn't get to sleep so I got up, turn on the lamp and turned to the door and there, standing in the doorframe was a large, solid black figure of a man, his frame nearly filled the doorway. I froze. I stared at the figure for a number of seconds then turned away, looked again and there was nothing there, just an empty door and hallway. I walked into the hallway and it felt a lot cooler than the bedroom - I figured I was just hallucinating or something and went back to bed.
The scariest incident occurred when my roommate had gone to San Diego for a few days. I had just gotten into bed and turned out the light when I heard what sounded like someone walking across my kitchen floor dragging heavy plastic. Needless to say, my heart stopped and I froze. It was a slow walk and drag across the kitchen and into the hallway when it stopped. I sat up and tried to figure out what I could use as a weapon on the intruder. There was nothing but a large flashlight with built in radio. I picked it up and slowly made my way to the bedroom door, standing inside my room so the intruder could not see me.
I heard the footsteps start up in the hall and the sound of the plastic dragging. My only option was to jump into the hall, flip on the light and pray that I could get past the intruder to the door or the phone. I slowly counted to three, jumped into the hallway, threw on the hall light and raised my weapon - there was no one or nothing there. It was at that point that I stepped back into my room and realized that it was freezing in there. Quietly I went to the hall phone and called my friend next door and told him that I thought someone was in the apartment. He came over and I went into the living room to open the door. The door was locked, as was the deadbolt and the safety chain. He came in, went through the entire apartment and found nothing amiss. The back door was also
locked/dead bolted and the chain was still latched. We walked back to the bedroom and found it to be about 30 degrees colder than the hallway and rest of the apartment. After about 15 minutes, the cold disappeared as quickly as it had come.
When I relayed the incident to the landlord and asked if anyone had ever died in the building, he quickly changed the subject and it never came up again. There were a few more incidents of us hearing people walking upstairs, but nothing as frightening as my night alone.
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