You have been led to believe that everything you have experienced isn't real, that there's
an explanation.
But what if they're wrong?
What if something reached out to you from beyond?
Let me tell your true stories.
Let me tell them until they all believe.
Hello and welcome back to Paranormal and Supernatural True Stories.
We have a fantastic story today
I'm calling it The Unseen Roommate.
This story is sent in from Linda from here in Pennsylvania.
This is a shining example of how we tend to rationalize everything without seeing the
paranormal reality of it.
It makes you wonder how often we have experienced similar situations as Linda and Stacey, but
we just explained it away.
Okay, please remember to send your story to mytrustory at myyahoo.com.
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Thank you.
Okay, let's get into our story, Beyond Scene Roommate.
My name is Linda, and this story begins in July of 1995.
Stacey and I grew up together.
We were best friends.
We had always planned on getting our own place to live, so eventually we moved into a duplex
when we were in our early 20s, and so excited to be on our own.
Just that feeling of independence and your first steps into the adult world of responsibility.
I want to mention that we had no thoughts towards the paranormal.
We didn't seek it out, nor did we really believe in it.
I guess you would just consider us skeptics.
Also, it's important to know that even though we were young adults, we really were not interested
in the party scene.
We didn't have traffic through our home.
Our house was clean, quiet, and well organized.
We were happy to hang out at home watching movies while other people our age were throwing
parties or out at bars.
We were the homebody type, but we were very content.
And at this time, neither one of us had boyfriends.
It was just my best friend and me.
Oh, and Carol.
Well, Carol was the older lady that lived on the other side of our new duplex rental.
She did not bother us, and we hoped we didn't bother her.
Our new landlady, Kathy, had told us that she would rather us not use the front door
as an entrance.
She explained that the carpet was new, and she would appreciate us using the side door
for entry.
We had no issues with this request, and so the front door was left locked.
With deadbolt, chain, and door knob, our bathroom was located in this cellar.
And we didn't care about that.
But I know it would have been a deal breaker for a lot of people.
We fixed it up real nice to take away from the drab cellar environment.
Our bathroom was cute and cozy, considering where it was located.
About a week into our residence there, my roommate yelled for me to wake up.
She was on the stairs, halfway to the living room, and I knew she sounded worried.
There was concern in her voice, and I wasn't sure I wanted to know what the problem was.
But I reluctantly went to see.
Stacy was sitting on the couch, but staring intently at the front door.
I followed her gaze, and seen that the front door was completely opened.
All three locks undone, and the door was wide open.
I checked the storm door, but it was still locked.
Whoever opened this door had done it from the inside.
I looked at Stacy and said this was not like this when we went to bed.
Someone was in here.
It sent chills up my spine to think that someone was in our home while we slept.
We decided to do a safety check.
We checked all windows and other doors.
All secure.
All locked.
Then how, we both thought, as we looked at each other in confusion.
Our brains already grasping for something rational.
Well, I said one of us must have done it in our sleep.
Stacy said, but neither one of us have ever sleptwalked before.
Well I said one of us must have.
There is no other explanation.
It was good enough for Stacy, and after locking the front door, all three locks again, we
went about our day as usual.
The next strange event was the appearance and odd placement of a white towel.
I'm going to add here that our washer was broken, so we each had to go to our parents
house to wash clothes.
When I found the white towel on our couch folded, I figured Stacy accidentally brought
it home from her parents home from washing clothes there.
But then she approached me and asked, Oh, is this your towel?
Maybe from your mom's?
The thing was, we both knew that we didn't have any white towels at our home, so it had
to be from somewhere else.
I told her, No, it's not mine or my mom's.
I thought it was yours.
We stood facing each other, completely perplexed of the origin of this towel.
Why was it folded and in our home?
This towel really bothered me because I could not think of how it came to be.
Not long after the towel, I began to hear footsteps, occasionally in the house.
Now yes, there was a lady living on the other side, but we never heard her unless we were
upstairs and in Stacy's bedroom as her bedroom abutted Carol's bedroom and apparently they
had thinner walls in that particular area.
Other than that, we never heard Carol on the other side.
One day I was in the shower and our bathroom was directly below our kitchen when I heard
footsteps, in our kitchen, and then the cupboards in the kitchen opening and closing as if someone
was searching for something.
I was home alone when I got in the shower and when one of us entered the house from
being away, we always, without fail, yelled, Hey, it's me.
I'm home.
Just to let the other know that it was safe and not some stranger.
So I yelled up, Stacy, is that you?
No answer.
I yelled again, literally screaming, Stacy, is that you?
No answer.
The noises continued in a bit of a panic, I jumped out of the shower, wrapped the towel
on myself and ran up the stairs into a silent kitchen.
No more sounds.
I checked all the locks on all three doors.
All secured.
Later when Stacy got home, I told her about it and she thought maybe I was hearing Carol
next door.
I hesitantly said maybe, but I am positive.
The sounds were directly above me from our kitchen.
However, it just made more sense that maybe it was Carol and somehow I had just heard
her that day.
Just not any other day.
We decided to talk to Carol.
We asked her if anything weird had ever happened on her side.
She said no, but she thought maybe we were just scaring ourselves, you know, two young
girls out on their own, but we knew better.
We were not the flighty young girls jumping at shadows.
We just wanted to rationalize some of the events.
So a couple of months go by with only the footsteps occasionally happening and we just
went on with our lives.
We didn't waste time trying to think about anything strange.
We kept all of our bills that were due in a basket in the kitchen.
This was from a time when your bills actually arrived in an envelope on a monthly statement.
So to keep them organized, we put them in our bill basket.
I want to mention our work schedule here.
I would leave very early, like 6 a.m. and Stacey would leave around 8 a.m.
So she was briefly alone in the mornings and I was home a couple hours in the afternoon
alone before she came home.
Okay, so one day I get home from work and notice that the bill basket was in the living
room on the coffee table.
I knew it had been on the table when I left that day, but I figured Stacey was maybe going
through the bills and just forgot to put it back.
When she got home, I asked her if she moved the basket and she said, no, I thought you
did.
That's where it was when I got up this morning.
We both knew that neither of us had moved the basket and we both were getting concerned
about how things were being moved in our home.
I said, I think it must be that Carol next door.
Somehow, she must have a key to this side and she's just over here nosing around.
We aren't home.
Yeah, definitely Carol over here nosing around.
So at this point in my story, Stacey and I both have boyfriends now.
Our boyfriends would come over and of course nothing would happen when they were there.
And needless to say, they laughed at us when we told them about the strange footsteps and
other incidents.
They figured, like Carol, that we were just scaring ourselves, two young girls on their
own.
But my mother expressed a growing concern for our safety and she said that I should
bring our family dog to the duplex for a few days and see what happens.
So we brought the dog over and nothing happened.
He slept, he ate, he acted normally.
He was only with us for three days and then I took him back home.
Stacey worked for a major food chain grocery store and we had lived in this area our whole
lives.
She knew a lot of her customers and would chat with them as they were going through
her checkout lane.
One day someone asked her how she was doing and that they had heard that she had moved
from her mom's a while back.
Where are you living now?
She asked.
Oh, Stacey said, I live with my roommate Linda over at Barlow's Duplex back on Jasper Lane.
The lady's face went near expressionless, like an almost shocked expression.
And she said, wait, you two live in that house?
Really?
Yeah, Stacey said.
Why?
What's the big deal?
The lady said, oh my, haven't you ever heard the stories about that place?
No, Stacey said.
I have never heard anything about that house.
Well, the lady said, I thought everyone knew that place was haunted.
Stacey looked at her in disbelief and maybe even quiet consideration.
Stacey came home that evening and told me about this encounter with the lady.
And I told her, that lady's nuts.
I don't believe what she says.
Well, Stacey said there was more to the conversation.
She said the lady also told her that our house was on the same property as a cemetery.
Immediately I said, no way.
I told you she's nuts.
There's no cemetery here.
Stacey, we grew up around here.
There's no cemetery behind this house.
And Stacey said, beyond our property, way up the hill there is a cemetery though.
Maybe that's what she means.
Stacey admitted that lady freaked her out and was slightly concerned.
And I told her to relax.
That lady's crazy.
She's just trying to scare you.
That cemetery is far off over the hill.
I don't think we should be so worried about something so far away.
So again, a few months pass with the normal footsteps occasionally and nothing else really
happening.
I was out all day and Stacey was home alone.
I arrived home around 6 p.m. and gave the obligatory, hey Stacey, I'm home.
And from the stairway, I heard Stacey say, you have to come up here.
Her voice sounded weak, like she didn't have the energy to speak any louder.
I told her I don't even want to know.
But Stacey was insistent.
And was that fear I heard in her voice?
Again, Stacey said, you have to come up here.
Come to your room.
So I headed up the stairs and went to my bedroom doorway.
I could see Stacey sitting on the side of my bed staring intently towards my dressers.
My dressers were against the opposite wall, but now they weren't.
They were pushed across a carpeted floor towards my bed and all the drawers opened and all
of my trinkets and belongings were knocked to the floor.
My head snapped back to Stacey.
Did you do this?
Of course I didn't.
Don't you see I'm terrified, she said.
This was like this when I got home.
I instantly said this was Carol and this time she's gone too far.
Stacey looked at me and said, Carol didn't do this.
Then who I snapped?
Stacey had no answers and she looked too defeated to even think of any.
I began moving the dressers back and cleaning up the mess, my mind racing to come up with
something, anything.
Should I call the landlady?
The police?
My mom?
Well, I had no answers either and that's when Stacey added that she found this mess.
She immediately checked all the doors and windows, but yet again they were all secure.
In March of 1997 I got engaged.
Our lease with the landlord was up in June and I wanted to move in with my fiance.
But I didn't want to leave Stacey in that house alone.
But Stacey said she would have to ride it out there alone because she had nowhere else
to go at the moment and didn't want to move back home yet.
So I moved out but was sure to speak with Stacey at least once per day.
And for weeks everything was great for her.
No events and Stacey was happy.
It is now May of 1997.
The lease was up in a month.
Stacey called me at work and she was hysterical, crying, sobbing into the phone.
When she calmed down enough to talk, she explained what was wrong.
She said, I'm moving today.
She said that she had to be up extra early for work that day, around 6am.
I would like to interject here to explain that we have never ever closed our bathroom
door.
There is no reason to close this door as it is already private and tucked away in the
basement.
So she said she was walking down the steps to the bathroom and she could hear water running
and thought, Carol's up awfully early.
How unusual.
With each step she took, she could hear the water getting closer, louder.
Instantly, she thought, oh, that's not Carol.
She wondered if the hot water tank may be broke and was leaking everywhere.
As she reached the bottom of the stairs and turned left to go toward the bathroom, she
immediately saw that the door was closed.
This door had never once been closed since she moved in there.
And now that she lived alone, there was no excuse for this door to be closed.
Stacey assumed someone was actually in there.
She quickly opened the door to find the hot water turned on full blast, pouring into the
sink.
The room, the steam, the mirror, fog, and the toilet was running as if someone had just
flushed it.
Stacey was frozen in fear, couldn't move literally for a minute or more.
And as her brain tried to again rationalize this, but realizing there was no logical reason,
she ran fast to the top of the stairs and quickly locked the door to the bathroom.
Stacey could not continue to live here with this strange event, especially alone.
She was moving today no matter what.
I advised her to call the landlady immediately to explain why she was moving out.
So Stacey called the landlady and explained that she was sorry but she can't honor her
end over the lease and needed to move immediately that day.
When Stacey told her it was because of strange events happening during the nearly two years
she lived there, the landlady never even acknowledged the reason, never even asked what was happening.
She just said, okay.
And that's all.
I told Stacey that she didn't care because she seemed like she maybe wanted someone else
living there.
Maybe she had someone already picked out.
Stacey said, I don't know about that.
She always gets her rent from us.
Our house is clean.
We take good care of it.
I don't understand why she would not want me here.
Still though, I insisted that was the reason.
Either way, it didn't matter.
Stacey was leaving.
So out she went.
You would think the story would end here as we both did not live there anymore, but we
were both moving on with our lives.
I moved away.
Stacey moved away.
Not far, but away.
We were both married now and our time in that house seemed to fade away as well.
It was now 2007 and I was working as a recruiter to hire people for work.
During one of my interviews, I noticed that this girl's last name was Barlow and was the
same as our old landlady's and she was also from that area.
So I wondered, hmm.
So I asked her, hey, I know this might be a long shot, but I know this last name from
that area.
By any chance, are you related to Cathy?
The girl said, oh, oh yes, yes.
That's my aunt.
Oh my, I said.
Some time ago, my roommate and I lived in that duplex she owns.
What a small world.
She asked me how long I lived there.
I told her about a year and a half, but my roommate stayed almost two years.
The girl looked a little bit like she didn't believe me or maybe confused and went, hmm.
I asked her why she was reacting like that.
So she says, well, can I ask you if anything weird ever happened when you lived there?
Her question instantly took me back.
Back to all the strange things.
Flashbacks of the footsteps.
The towel.
Basket.
The door unlocked.
The moved bedroom furniture in Stacey's final encounter.
Things I had rationalized and nearly forgotten.
And now all these years later, someone might be validating that I, I had been wrong.
Goosebumps raised on my arm.
So I said, yes, yes.
So many things happened there.
She wanted to know exactly what we experienced.
And I gave her a brief short story of our time there.
She looked at me and said, well, that's, that's our grandmother and she lives there.
She's been there many years.
She's harmless.
She does scare people though.
And I said, well, she sure scared us.
She said that most people that rent that side of the duplex don't usually last to fulfill
their one year lease.
Oh, I thought, well, that explains why Kathy didn't even ask about what events made Stacey
decide to leave because she'd already heard it from who knows how many people.
I asked her whatever happened to the house and she told me that it continues to be a
rental.
I was amazed at everything she told me.
And I think I went from skeptic to full believer the moment she validated without prompt that
this house was in fact haunted by her own grandmother.
I am now convinced that we do not fully understand everything about the world we live in or the
beings that share our space.
Thank you so much for sending in this story, Linda.
You know, we really do rationalize things so much.
On the other hand though, we can't blame everything that happens on the paranormal.
I guess the question here is where do we draw the line?
I know we rationalize because we have to.
We have to because it's what our brains do best.
Trying to make sense of extraordinary circumstances so that we can get on with our day as if nothing
is out of order.
To live in what we perceive as normal versus paranormal because normal is comfortable.
I also love how the validation came so many years later, like keeping you safe from the
truth all those years.
Since my interview with Linda, I have had a little update about the house.
The following day after my interview with Linda, she sent me a Google Maps pic of the
house she thought I might like to see what the house looked like.
I thanked her and I looked at the picture.
Just an average, ordinary looking duplex.
Nothing super scary.
Until I zoomed in and I thought I saw something in a window.
So I zoomed in again and I froze.
Seriously I thought, no way.
I saw what appeared to be an old lady peering out the window.
Surely this is a joke I thought and I texted Linda to say so.
To ask if it was a joke and she laughed but then she realized that I was serious as she
thought I was joking.
So her text was, Jesus, I think I see it too.
I will upload these pics to my Facebook page for everyone to see.
Thanks again for the story and have a great day everyone.
I want to thank you all for spending your time with me today.
If you care to send questions, ideas, thoughts or your own personal experience, please feel
free to email me at mytrustoryatmyyahoo.com.
I will see you all next time on Paranormal and Supernatural True Stories.
Thanks for being here today.
I hope to see you next time on Paranormal and Supernatural True Stories.
Will your experience be the next one I tell?
I will send all communications and stories to mytrustoryatmyyahoo.com.
In the meantime, leave the lights on.