Ghostly Happenings - Inspiration?

So I've been trying to think of things to inspire writing and I came up with this one. This is an email I sent to my BFF Morgan in Oregon, October of 2010. She was thoroughly freaked out and I was too upon reading it again this morning. So here you go, be prepared to squirm. Also, let me know if you would like this story to be hashed out, I could possibly run with this.

So my brother lives in this rental home in Santa Rosa that they only allow police officers to rent. He's been living there for almost a year and a half and nothing out of the ordinary has happened until just recently.

 

So let me preface this by saying Charles is a very logical individual, he tries to find a rational explanation for everything and so far he has not been able to.

 

So a few nights a ago, Charles and his roommates (a state police officer and his girlfriend) were in the livingroom watching TV when they heard a loud crash. They ran into the kitchen to find Veronica's sunglasses thrown across the room. She had set them down on the nook where they all put their sunglasses and keys. This could not be explained.

 

So another night Charles comes home to Veronica asking if he had tipped over the candle holder and he said "no if I did I would have picked it up," again no explanation.

 

Now here is where it starts getting scarier. Charles got home from his shift a little after 3am and was watching TV. He suddenly heard the screen door open and shut so he muted the TV and waited to hear anything else and that's when the door nob to the front door started turning and rattling and making noise like someone was coming in. Charles runs to his room, grabs his sidearm, and proceeds to turn on the hall light, the lights not working, what the hell, now he's really freaked out. He's yelling hey who's there, HEY!! All the while the doorknob is still turning and making noise. He turns on the bathroom light and everything goes quiet. The doorknob is still. He gets his flashlight checks the perimeter of the house, nothing. He goes back in and notices something very strange. He can't explain why it's strange but it is, something is out of place. He looks at the spice rack and notices three of the spice jars are pulled out slightly and the pepper grinder that sits next to the spice rack is balanced, almost elevated, onto the well positioned spices. He can't explain it, he's perplexed, he removes the pepper grinder and proceeds to try and replace it where it had been and it takes him forever to replicate what he saw. He shows his roommates the next morning, everyone is freaked out.

 

Now here is the worst part and it happened the night before last. Charles was asleep in his room, which he latches from the inside before he goes to sleep. He wakes up between 3 and 4am because he feels a sensation that someone is staring at him, he hears a noise, it's the latch, it's moving and making noise. He calls for his roommates, nothing. He gets up, the noise stops, he opens the door to hear the pitter patter of little feet running down the hallway to the kitchen, he chases it, nothing, looks around, and gives up. He's too tired to do this tonight. He goes back to his room, puts the latch back on and rests his head. He wakes in the morning to the same feeling of someone staring at him, he looks to his door, the latch is off and the door is cracked open. Holy crap I'm outta here. He packed his things and left, for now.

 

So now he is convinced there is something in the house that wants his attention, it feels like a child, a little one that is mischievous and playful. He said it sounds like when Maria runs down the hallway when he chases her, he felt like he was playing with a child.

 

So he finds out that he's not the only one, previous renters have experienced similar happenings.

 

The dispatcher that lived there with her husband said between 3 and 4 in the morning doors would slam, husband would check it out, no door was shut, all open and as it was when they went to bed. She said she also felt the presence was very childlike.

 

His Sargent lived there with his wife and their newborn and between 3 and 4 in the morning the faucet in the kitchen would turn on and a glass of water would be sitting by the sink.

 

Lorenzo, another police officer, was cleaning the house with his mom so that he could move in. While he was vacuuming it came unplugged and he couldn't figure out why because he hadn't pulled it tight so he plugged it back in and started to vacuum when he watched the cord lift off the ground, become tight, and pulled out of the wall. He and his mom gathered the stuff they had brought and he never went back, never moved in.