A True Tale of a Haunted Texas Apartment

From: Dianne (ravyncat@yahoo.com)
Story type: Ghost
Location: Austin Texas
Source: Form Submission

This is another true ghost story. I have always been able to see and hear ghosts, so I wasn't too surprised to find that my new apartment was haunted.

Things started on November 18, 2000. This was the day that my sister, my niece, and I all moved into a two bedroom apartment in South Austin. These are older apartments, built in the early 80's. (Ok, old for Austin). I don't know their history.

We leased the apartment in the morning and then both had to work. We were planning on moving our stuff out of a friend's house later that night. On my lunch break, I decided to go visit our new "house". It was about 6:35pm and the sun was setting. The apartment was totally empty and a little eerie. I remember thinking 'what if it's haunted?', and then laughing at myself. I was wondering through all the rooms, and I ended up in my sister's bathroom. In the mirror I could see the darkness of her bedroom and the brighter square of her window--the bedroom does not have an overhead light, so it was dark. In the mirror I saw a blurry guy walk across the room. He had long hair, a white shirt, and blue jeans on. I turned around and no one was there. I searched the apartment, which had no furniture, and found it empty except for me. The front door was also still locked.

Well...we moved our stuff in and weird things kept happening. Usually something small every day. I grew up in a haunted house, so most of the stuff didn't really bother me. Whenever it feels too scary, we burn candles and insense, and it seemed to help.

Here are a few events that have occurred:

Appliances break...a lot. The Oven. The Air Conditioner. The Hot Water Heater. The Toaster. The Heater. The Clothes Washer. The Phone. My Computer. The Toilets. Seriously, our air conditioner breaks every month or so. This really sucks in hot South Texas summers. The hot water heater has broken and caught on fire three times! Light bulbs burn out really quickly too. We've also gone through two cordless phones. Our apartment has also lost all power three times..and only our apartment. The rest of the building was fine. Needless to say, mainteneance people can't ever find anything to cause it all.

We had several pictures hung on a Living Room wall that fell off simultaneously several times. This often happened overnight, and we blamed the cats. Then one night all the pictures fell in front of my sister and her boyfriend while they were argueing. (We eventually had to stop putting pictures there, because nothing would stay.)

In April of 2001, we were getting ready for Easter. Our front door has a short hallway that leads into the Living Room. This hallway has an overhead light. My sister was putting decorations up near our front door, when the glass light cover suddenly fell off and shattered on the floor. My niece, who was two, screamed and said that 'a monster' had thrown the cover down. Me and my sister didn't see anything. The light cover shattered in very little pieces--almost little balls of glass. I still think that was weird.

In July of 2001, I had to be at work by 4am, so I went to bed about 8pm. I was awakened about 12am with a feeling that I was being watched. I turned and looked out my bedroom door into my bathroom (The doors are directly across from each other). In the bathroom door, I saw a misty shape standing there. It freaked me out, and I got up and shut my bedroom door. I could still feel it looking at me, and then it was in my room by my door. I told it to go away, and it left my room, but I could still "feel" it. The shape was in the bathroom the rest of the night, and it kept changing it's height like it was standing up and sitting down. I didn't get anymore sleep that night!

On Halloween of 2001, we burned candles and insense. The next day we did the same, and left out candy and cookies for the 'spirits' to celebrate the Mexican holiday of The Day of the Dead. It seemed to settle our ghost down.

We've all had very bad dreams here. Several times the dreams will all have the same basic theme, like killer werewolves or zombies. (I know that sounds silly, but the dreams are scary.) My sister has seen what she describes as a 'little goth girl'--about 14, or 'banshee' walking around. She also sees a child--about 4, occasionally. I've seen a little girl whom I thought was my niece, only to have my niece appear in a totally different room. Note: My niece has talked about her 'friends' whom she says are other kids, since we moved here. She is four now, and still mentions them. We still live in our apartment, and it is still haunted. We've found it very helpful to put clove oil over all doors and windown in the house. Smudging also helps, as does burning insense and candles. In extreme cases try Holy Water--either Christian or Wiccan.

Try to remember that ghosts aren't generally harmful. They are just lost and wanting attention.