4 Times Someone Was in the Attic
Story 1
Helen was in the hospital recovering from a broken hip when her husband came home on October 17, 1941, and found a man going through his fridge. He confronted the man. But before he could react, the intruder attacked, beating him to death.
Concerned neighbors stopped by because they hadn't seen Philip that day and they discovered his body. The police were baffled. There was no sign of forced entry, no clues, and no explanation for how the killer had gotten in or out.
When Helen returned home she and her neighbors began reporting strange noises and foul odors coming from the house. Each time the police checked, they found nothing. Finally Helen moved out, but her neighbors kept calling.
In July of 1942 after numerous phone calls two officers were stationed outside the house saw a man inside the house. They rushed in, just in time to see a pair of skinny legs vanishing into an attic trapdoor. They caught Theodore Coneys who confessed to the murder. He had been living in the attic for months, sneaking down to steal food.
Story 2
We are going down under to Melbourne Australia where Jenny has just moved into her new one bedroom apartment. Well, it was new to her. The area was filled with old brick buildings that had been built in the 1930s but were still in pretty good shape. But that didn’t matter much to Jenny. This was her first apartment and her first time living alone, which was exciting and terrifying all at the same time.
A few months after moving in, Jenny came home from work, put her things down on the counter and walked to the bathroom. But she stopped short at the door. A wooden board which had covered an attic access hole was lying broken on the floor. Looking up, she didn't see anything, but it was dark up there and she couldn't see very far from her angle.
Carefully, she bent down and checked out the board. It was almost an inch thick and would have taken someone like Bruce Lee to break it. She doubted that the 8 foot fall from the ceiling would have cracked this board in half, but what else could it hav been?
Feeling like she was being watching, she looked up into the dark hole in the ceiling. Calling herself a scaredy cat, she settled on the idea that the landlord must have sent someone to work in the area while she was out and had forgotten to tell her.
A bit peeved, she took some pictures and e-mailed them to the landlord asking if anyone had been up there, letting her annoyance show that she hadn't been told.
Within a few minutes, the landlord had e-mailed back. But the e-mail just read " Please call me as soon as you are able to".
Flustered, Jenny called her landlord but what the landlord said took the wind out of her sails. The landlord explained that the same board had fallen in the same way for the last two tenants. No explanation of how or why the board kept falling, but Jenny was reassured that it would be fixed.
With the board secured to the ceiling a month goes by until one night Jenny is woken up at 4 am, covered in goose bumps. It wasn't the cold that had given her the goosebumps because the night was decently warm. It was the goosebumps you get when your hair stands up from fear. Jenny felt like someone was rubbing their hands on her, but no one was there. Everything eas silent in the apartment, and then she heard a dragging sound coming from above her bed. It sounded like someone was dragging a sack of potatoes.
She froze. Convinced that someone was in the attic above her apartment. There is no way an animal could make that kind of sound.
After 5 minutes of talking to herself, she convinces herself to get out of bed, take the few steps to turn on the light and grabbed her cricket bat. She then made her way to the bathroom. With her back against the wall, she peaked around the doorway and into the bathroom.
The board from the ceiling was on the floor, broken in two. She felt sick.
Right then, the dragging sound stopped and a new sound began... whispering. The sound was clear and definitely coming from the attic. it sounded like children were saying " it's your turn" It your turn over and over again.
Shaking her head, she got a hold of herself and turned on every light in the apartment to try to make things feel normal. It was only 5 am and still dark outside, so the lights were comforting. Jenny walked over to the couch, pulled her knees to her chest and turned on the TV to try to forget about what just happened. it couldn't be real. She had to have made it up. It was just a bad dream.
Then a fuse blew and all the lights went out. Jenny's pet bird, Dexter, who was in the kitchen started squawking loudly, like he was being strangled. She had never heard her bird make those kinds of noises before. She grabbed her card keys and ran out the door to her car where she stayed until the sun came up.
When people started coming out to walk their dogs and begin their mornings, Jenny felt safe enough to go back into her apartment.
As she walked down the hallway to her apartment, she saw that the door was open, but figured she must have left it open when she hauled ass out of there a few hours ago. Her first stop when she walked into the apartment was the kitchen. She wanted to check on Dexter.
As she walked up to his cage, she didn't see him. She looked on the bottom of the cage, but he wasn't in the cage at all.
The same feeling of sickness she had just a few hours ago came back. She knew all the windows were closed, so she began looking all over her apartment for Dexter. When she checked the bathroom, she heard splashing. The bird was half drowned in the toilet. Scooping him out, she brought him to the sink and rinsed him off and dried him. Jenny couldn't figure out how he had gotten in there.
It's now about 8 am, so she grabs her phone and calls the landlord. Jenny gives her a watered down version of the night she just had. Her landlord came back with the most unexpected reply and said "Oh wow! You heard the whispering too!"
After that night, Jenny stayed in the apartment for another 18 month before she moved out. She would occasionally hear the whispering and twice she noticed that the board covering the ceiling hole had moved.
The apartment was rented to new tenants who are hearing the whispers and the dragging sounds at night.
Story 3
In 1995, when I was 20, I moved to Enumclaw, a farming town in the US state of Washington, to be close to my brother and his family. I rented an apartment. My room was on the top floor but on my first night, lying in bed, I heard footsteps above me. Over the months, I started to notice things going missing. I would buy a six-pack of soda, drink one, come home from work and find only four left. It was the same with packets of soup and ramen noodles. I also noticed that doors I had left open were closed, or vice versa.
Mostly, I found it amusing – I assumed that my brother, who had a key, was coming over and eating my food. (Looking back, I should have known it wasn’t him because there would have been dirty dishes everywhere.)
I got a puppy. While she was being toilet-trained, I kept her in the bathroom. One day, when I was out, the apartment flooded. I came home to find the puppy in the sink. She was tiny. I didn’t know how she could have got up there unless someone had put her there to save her.
I continued to hear footsteps. There was a hatch in the ceiling, leading to what I assumed was an attic. I asked my landlady if there was any way someone could be up there. She said, “No way, it’s probably a squirrel or raccoons.” I pushed it out of my mind.
Then one day, I called in sick to work. I lay on the couch all day and at 11pm, turned off the lights, lit a candle and ran a bath. As I lay in the water, I noticed the attic hatch was open. Suddenly, everything slowed way down. What took about 30 seconds felt like five minutes. All the puzzle pieces fell into place: the footsteps, the food, the puppy – someone was in my apartment.
My first thought was, if they had wanted me dead, I would be dead. They had had access to me for six months. I assumed it must be a man, or someone tall enough to get up there without a ladder.
I knew I had to stay cool and not scare him in case he hurt me. I walked naked to the bedroom to get my robe, passing the mirrored closet I suspected he was hiding in. Then I went to the kitchen, got a hammer out of the junk drawer for protection and called my sister-in-law. I whispered, “I think there’s someone in my house.” She said, “Get out now, I’m on my way.”
Three minutes later, she was outside. We went back to her house and called the cops. They didn’t find anybody, but there was a nest of stuff in the attic: a sleeping bag, some food and a book (they never told me what he was reading). Next day, I told my landlady I was moving out and gave her a copy of the police report, which noted “signs of a possible intruder”.
Story 4
This next story comes from Bavaria in the 1920’s
Andreas had been hearing odd creaks and footsteps in the attic for months But assumed the house was settling, or worse, haunted. Then he was looking out the window and noticed footprints leading to the house, but none leaving the house. A few days later he noticed a newspaper on the table- but he hadn’t bought it.
Then, the keys to his tool shed went missing.
Days passed, and nobody noticed anything out of place—except that the daughter missed a few days of school, and the mail was piling up. When police finally arrived to check on the family, they discovered the entire family, along with their maid, had been brutally murdered. Four of the bodies were stacked in the barn.
The killer? Still unknown.
But what’s worse? Neighbors had seen smoke from the chimney and livestock had been fed in the days after the murders. The killer was likely living in the attic for 6 months prior and had stayed—living in the house long after the family was gone.
