Episode #0001 The Florida Apartment

Our first story comes from J. Clely.

Never underestimate just how alone you are in your own home.

Years ago, I moved to Fort Lauderdale FL, to live with a friend and her roommate. It was to be a temporary stay until I could get a job and find my own place. I was grateful for the opportunity to stay with my friend, but she owned very loud bird that squawked quite a bit, even at night.

After a few months of staying there, I realized that her other roommate Jill and I both wanted to live someplace without a loud bird. So we decided to move out and find a new place together. We looked for a newer, cleaner place and found a large high-rise apartment building that seemed perfect. It had a beautiful pool out back by the canal, a large parking lot with plenty of open space, laundry in the building, etc. It was everything we wanted.

We spoke with the manager of the apartment building and moved in to a two-bedroom, one-bath apartment within just a few weeks. The building was ten stories tall, and with our place on the 8th floor, we had a great view of the city below.

Jill and I were perfect roommates in a lot of ways, especially because I worked during the days, and she worked as a waitress at night so we didn’t see each other much at all – we both felt that we had a place to ourselves most of the time. After a few weeks of living there, my roommate Jill asked me what I thought of the place. I told her I loved the place -it was a quiet apartment, had the pool, laundry in the building, restaurants nearby, and nice neighbors as well.

When I asked Jill how she liked the place, she agreed that she liked it as well -however, she said that sometimes late at night she would hear somebody calling her name as if it came from the vents. I told her that sounded strange as the building was pretty strong, the walls were pretty thick, and I didn’t usually hear any neighbors talking. However, a few days went by and I was up late one night before Jill came home- and I thought I heard somebody call my name. I have a very unusual name (think Delilah). I knew that there was no way somebody could be calling my name at random. I also still didn’t hear neighbors’ voices at any time during the day. I didn’t say anything for a few days but then I spoke with Jill and let her know I had heard a voice call my name as well.

A few weeks went by, and while we were both busy with our jobs we found time to do some shopping and purchased new furniture, a sofa, and a dining table. We finally felt fully settled into the new place with the new living room set. I didn’t go out often or stay out very late because work kept me fairly busy. But because my roommate worked nights I usually came home to an empty apartment, when I did get back late at night. I began to notice things such as the cabinet doors opening if I was across the apartment in another room - they would open in the kitchen. Then I also heard other things moving around in the kitchen when I was in the back bathroom. Again, I didn’t say anything to my roommate. One night after my roommate came home earlier than usual, I told her about feeling like things in the kitchen had moved as well as sometimes hearing noises in the place late at night. She agreed that she had also been hearing some noises while she was home alone, and many of the times she had noticed things moved in the kitchen when she was the only one home. We both thought this was rather odd, but we laughed about it, said maybe we had an extra guest, and went about with life as usual.

It was weeks later when I again heard my name called at night. A few more days passed, and I was out late with some friends and came back to the apartment empty once again. I opened the front door and when I glanced into the empty dark apartment I thought I saw a shadow in the corner of my eye. I flipped on the light and when I looked at the sofa in front of me I saw a man sitting on the end of the sofa. I turned to get my keys out of the door because at first what I had seen didn’t register, and when I turned back to look at the sofa again and see who was sitting there, I realized there was no one there. I convinced myself it was my imagination and my eyes were playing tricks on me- maybe I had too much to drink, and I went to bed.

Jill enjoyed our apartment, I still felt very comfortable living there, and there was so much to do in the neighborhood. I didn’t think much about the strange occurrences of living there over the last few months, other than it was just odd. However, I started to realize over the next few weeks that there were three or four more occasions where I would come home late -and once I flipped on the light switch I could see the shadow of a middle-aged man sitting on the side of the sofa. But as soon as I focused my attention on the sofa I realized that there was no one sitting there. It was probably a few days after my most recent late night that Jill was finally home for a few days off, and we sat together one evening after dinner to just catch up with each other. We talked about what we had been up to at work, what friends we had been seeing, as well as times that we enjoyed the pool in the back of our apartment building. We chatted at length about a few of our other neighbors as well.

Our catch-up conversation led to Jill asking me about some strange occurrences in the apartment. She said that she had still heard her name called on occasion while she was home alone, and she had still heard some kitchen noises on occasion, but what was strange was on the night or two that I had been out and she was getting home before I did she felt that when she came into the apartment and flipped on the light switch- she saw the shadow of a man sitting on the sofa in front of her. She said it took a bit for her to realize that she had seen something and by the time she looked at the sofa again there was nobody there- but this had happened to her on a few different occasions. At hearing this I was silent. I wasn’t sure what to say or, or how to react. I didn’t want to have her feel worse about staying in the apartment, as I liked the apartment. But at the same time, it hit me that we were both experiencing some really strange things. I replied to Jill, asking what side of the sofa did the man sit on? Jill replied he was always sitting on the left side closer to the lamp. I shouted and jumped up when she said that- as that was the exact spot I had seen the man sitting as well! We also realized we had a similar description of the man we saw -slightly balding, middle age maybe 30s or 40s - and that we had to do something.

We agreed that we had to speak with the apartment manager and find out if there was anything that had happened in our apartment before we moved in. The next morning, we went to the apartment management office on the ground floor and asked to speak to the apartment manager. She was available and was happy to see us. She asked how we were settling into the place, as it had been a few months of living there. We weren’t sure where to begin, or if we should try to explain the strange things that had been happening in the apartment… instead, we decided to keep it simple. We simply asked her had there ever been anything strange in the apartment before we moved in? Had anybody died before we moved in similar to how real estate agents need to disclose if somebody died in a house before somebody bought it? We figured the same would apply to an apartment being rented.

We were partly joking about it as we spoke, and said we knew it was a really good deal- and we really enjoyed it and we were surprised we had found it so quickly months back! She smiled and was chatty and simply said “well, no, nothing’s happened in that apartment that’s odd. We’ve had a few renters there, the building is probably 10 years old or so”. We started to turn and walk out of the office, and then she added a couple more sentences. She said “Well, there was this one thing that was kind of strange. Just before you had moved in, maybe 2-3 months before, we had a guy who had lived there for about a year and he had given his notice to move out. He moved all of his stuff into a U-Haul truck which was parked in our parking lot. And then we didn’t see him. The truck with all of his belongings sat out in the parking lot for about a month before we realized that he hadn’t come back for it and hadn’t driven it off. We had to call the city to have it towed away”.

My roommate Jill and I looked at each other in shock. We didn’t say anything other than “ok – thanks!”. And as soon as we got to the elevator to head back to our apartment, we yelled at each other. “OMG - that’s it!! The guy didn’t survive, he never came back, but he’s in our apartment!!” We both agreed he wasn’t very troublesome, he seemed to just like our company, and so we went back up and that night we started talking to him. We said we know who you are, you’re welcome to hang out but please try and keep the noise down. After that, I did see him a few more times sitting on the sofa when I came home late at night but I knew who he was. He was only there for another few weeks, then we didn’t hear anything or see him after that -he must have left and found some other place to go.