Leafs suck! Go Sens go!
For someone with the name "escargot", you are spookily fast.
This is probably going to be an even more long-winded one, since I have rampant logorrheic tendencies, so don't say you hain't been warned!
To set the scene: for two years I lived in a one-bedroom apartment, alone with my cat(s) (I acquired the second while I was living there). Incidentally, this place was just across the hall from the *two* bedroom apartment I moved to later and where I had my "footsteps in the office" experience.
I was initially quite nervous being alone there because it was the first place I'd lived totally on my own, without roommates. Also, it was set up so that if you were standing at the front door, you could see right down the hallway and into my room. For some stupid reason I'd placed the bed so that when I was lying there I could look straight ahead and at the front door. I kept expecting someone to come through it or something (oh, those girlish nerves!). The living room, of necessity, held just about everything: the usual living room stuff, a kitchen table pushed up against the wall, stereo, computer desk, etc. You can understand why I grabbed the vacant 2BR place like a shot.
I worked at home a lot and usually had the radio on from morning till night--just plain ol' CBC One (the talk/news one, for those of you keeping score at home). I started noticing, when I turned it on, that the function button would be set to CD or Tape, though I rarely played either in those days.
Another thing (which, strangely, I've only just remembered): I was sitting on the couch one evening when I heard a noise and looked over just in time to see a pile of papers on the table, which had been stacked up against the wall, slide over and tumble across the desk onto the floor. What strikes me now about the memory was how fast they moved, not as if they'd slowly overbalanced. It was more like they'd gotten a hard nudge. I think I blamed the cat, even though he was only walking past and isn't *that* heavy.
That was the apartment where I heard voices in my ear, too.
Another night, around midnight, I was on my computer when there was a knock at the door. I got up and looked through the peephole, saw nothing, and stupidly opened the door. There I found two representatives of the local constabulary, each one carefully standing to the *side* of the door (the reason for this will become clear in a moment). One said they were investigating reports of a gunshot in the area; would I mind if they looked around? Well, whether I did or not, you kind of feel obliged to let them in, and so I did. One stayed in the living room talking to me. While my overly-familiar cat practically climbed up his leg begging to be petted, he asked me if I was alone and if anyone else lived there. I told him I hadn't heard anything out of the usual; it was warm out and the windows were open, so I certainly would have heard. The other one was checking out the other rooms and confirmed that I was alone. They apologized for disturbing me and left.
This was sort of weird, but then again I *do* live in the prison capital of Canada (how's that for a dead giveaway, folks?) and the local citizens aren't always on their best behaviour. (Once nearly walked into an armed robbery in progress, but that's a whole other story) I kind of shrugged and went about my bidness.
The next evening I was coming back from aerobics when I was practically accosted by a woman I was friendly with, who lived downstairs. The gist of it was that both she and my next-door neighbour distinctly heard a gunshot in my apartment, consulted with each other, and decided to call the cops. They were sure I'd killed myself. [While guns aren't impossible to get in Canada by any means, it's rather uncommon for a private citizen to have a handgun, and besides, what would a grad student be doing with one? There are much easier ways to top oneself] Anyway, Neighbour couldn't believe I hadn't heard anything. I suppose this, like the stereo, papers, and voice, had a perfectly rational explanation but added together they were looking a bit weird.
The capper came one night when I was in bed. I'd gotten into the habit of sometimes leaving lights on in the living room while I slept--that security thing again, or...? I woke up feeling like someone was there. I raised my head, squinted, and distinctly saw a dark silhouette in my bedroom doorway. I grabbed my glasses, and REALLY distinctly saw the shape of a man standing there.
This is hard to believe, but I immediately fell back asleep and didn't wake until the next morning. With my glasses on. I think I moved later that summer.
Later, safely ensconced in my 2BR across the hall, I was talking to a very 'sensitive' friend of mine, who confirmed that she sensed a young man in that apartment, who finally showed up one night because he was curious about me and had been trying to get my attention. I jumped when she said that, because I did sometimes get that "something is trying to get my attention" feeling--sort of a low hum, metaphorically speaking, at the back of my mind. She also described a sort of "vortex of energy" (what the feck?!) in the wall separating the kitchen and living room! I suppose one would logically think that he shot himself, or was killed there, but curiously she could neither confirm nor deny this. The gunshot thing still puzzles me; I don't know if it was genuinely supernatural, or whether my neighbours heard something else, or what.
Oh, and for the record, I've since moved out of that building completely.
Sorry for being so damn longwinded again; it would probably take me three pages to describe a sneeze.
[Edited to add:] I'd had ongoing problems with depression, which got worse and worse while I was living there. Part of that was surely due to being alone so much and working on academic stuff, which was very stressful. After I moved out, the place was taken over by another female student, who kept to herself, and the aforementioned downstairs neighbour later told me that she, the student, was also very depressed and in fact her dad was coming to take her home, she was in such a state. I felt much better after I'd moved to the bigger place, and I hope she felt better after leaving, too. Unfortunately her leaving coincided with a new landlord and the place rapidly going downhill; for a long time my old place was inhabited by a succession of drug dealers--see earlier comment about prison town. :hmph: Before I left the building for good, the apartment finally had a nice guy living there, a single dad whose son stayed there on the weekends. We used to chat a lot and I asked him if he'd ever noticed anything strange about my old place. He gave me a significant look and said the place creaked a lot, but refused to say anything else.
Thanks for reading this far! Drinks are on me!
