Haunting Voices and Scratching Noises

From: Sarah ()
Story type: Ghost
Location: Long Beach, California
Source: Form Submission

Hi,

My name is Sarah and I'm in my mid 30's, these occurances happened this past year in the bedroom of my apartment that I've been living in now for about 8 years. I live on the top floor of a very old apartment building in Long Beach, California. The building was built in the early 1920's and has high 10 ft high ceilings that has beautiful coving all around and lots of handcrafted woodwork that you often find in buildings of that era.

When I found the apartment, I was so thrilled, because I love antique furniture and I've collected some nice pieces over the years; so my things fit perfectly in my new apartment. I've been told by friends and family when they visit that my apartment is like stepping back in time, like in the 1920's or 1930's. The apartment itself is actually very large for being a one bedroom. I believe you could call it a "flat", it has almost 1000 sq. ft. (I know this, because they recently replaced the carpeting in it and I asked the carpet measurer's how much the square footage was and that is what they told me).

When I first moved in, I got acquainted with the neighbors that lived just across from me. There are only two apartments located on the top floor of the building, mine and my neighbors. Their apartment was a 3 bedroom and there were 2 brothers and a sister who lived there together. They were all in their 60's, which I thought was very odd, but that's how it was and they had all been living there together, at the time that I moved in, for the past 17 years. The sister was the oldest, I think she was now in her late 60's, her name was "Judy" and she smoked cigarettes.

After settling in, I pretty much stayed to myself, but often liked to sit out on the back stoop area of the building in the evenings during the summer to cool off. In the back of the apartments, there is a nice lawn and a garden area, so it was nice to sit out there and enjoy the view while cooling off.

Well, it wasn't long after that Judy began to join me out on the stoop to have herself a cigarette, also I think she was looking for some company too. She would stay towards her end of the walkway area, so as not to bother me with her smoke. We struck up a friendship, but only talked to one another out on the back stoop, because she rarely left the apartment. She began to tell me the tales of her life, actually it was more like she was confessing her sins to me. I guess she felt the need and I didn't mind? She had lived kind of a rough life, had got married at a very young age and had 3 children, then divorced her husband because he was an alcoholic and had physically abused her and her children.

After the divorce, at that time, she was still in her 20's (which would have been during the late 1950's or early 60's) she struggled to keep food on the table for herself and her 3 children by working as a waitress. During that time, sadly, she herself developed a drinking problem. She admitted that she spent a lot of time in some of the more unsavery sailor-filled bars of that time and came home a lot of the time in the early morning hours, with barely enough time to get her kids off to school. She admitted that she had a lot to answer for with God, when it came to having left her children with people while she was out at the bars drinking. The only child of hers to visit was her only daughter, her 2 sons never came to visit and I can understand why. She had remorse, deep remorse for having been such a terrible mother and for having wasted 20 years of her life as an alcoholic. I felt sorry for her, because she seemed sincerely apologetic and sad about how she had squandered her life and neglected her children.

Eventually she stopped coming out on the stoop and I wondered why and wanted to know if there was anything wrong. One day, as I was leaving my apartment, I ran into one of her brothers, (who were also in their 60's) and asked him about Judy. He said that she taken ill and was diagnosed with liver cancer and wasn't given very long to live. I was sad for her. Eventually she got to come home from the hospital, her doctors told her not to smoke, but she refused to listen to them (I guess, at that point it didn't really matter) and when she regained enough strength, she began to come out on the stoop again to have herself a cigarette. Again we resumed our talks, or I should say that she did most of the talking. Sadly, she died not long after that. After she died, her 2 brothers continued living in the apartment for another 3 years, so her family ended up living in that apartment for 20 years! I think that they must have been pretty attached to it. Towards the end of the 3 years, one of the brothers also passed away and the one remaining brother couldn't afford to keep the 3 bedroom apartment on his own and so he moved out...and this is where my ghost story begins.

After the remaining brother left, the apartment was in shambles, they had never allowed anyone to come in to renovate or replace anything for 20 years! The only time someone came into their apartment was if they had a plumbing or electrical problem. So you can imagine the condition, everything needed to be repaired or replaced. So in come the painters, the plumbers, and the carpet guys and a lot of hammering, sawing and drilling began going on next door and this went on for about a month. The workers would all be gone by the time I got home from work every day.

It was during that time that things began to happen in the bedroom of my apartment. Late one night, right as I was dozing off to sleep, I hear a voice right next to my ear say loudly "HEY"! I sat up in my bed and looked around the room, knowing that I was NOT asleep yet...and that I definitely heard this voice just as clear as day say, "HEY" really loud in my ear! I thought, I must be going insane. I lay back down and began to fall asleep again and again the same voice said in my ear, "HEY"! Okay, that time, I freaked out! I got up and turned on every light in my apartment, checked every room and in the closets to make sure that I didn't have an intruder. That first night, I stayed awake for a couple of hours until I couldn't fight sleep anymore and ended up falling asleep with all of the lights on.

From that night on (but not every night) for approximately 2 months, right as I was falling asleep (and I go to sleep very late at night), I sometimes heard voices talking, like muffled voices or people talking quietly to one another. No one was living in the empty apartment and you couldn't hear anyone downstairs because everyone was sleeping by that time. Sometimes I heard what sounded like scratching on the walls. After a couple of weeks of being terrified off and on, I began sleeping with the bathroom light on that was just down the hall from my bedroom.

One night after I had just turned the TV off to go to sleep, I heard something fall onto the floor next to my bed. I have an antique table next to my bed that I have a lamp and an alarm clock sitting on, along with an antique music box. The music box had been pushed onto the floor! It wouldn't have just fallen off on its own, because it was sitting in the center of the table and not on the edge. I was freaked out (again) over that and called my mom in the middle of the night and told her about what was going on. She said that most likely the workers next door had disturbed the ghosts of Judy and her brother by tearing up their home and making loud noises and that they were the ones who were making their presence in my apartment. She told me that night to turn on every light in my apartment and say in every room "Judy and John...you're dead, you no longer belong here with the living and its time for you to go into the light". (I know that sounds so corny, but by that time, I was willing to try anything!). So I did exactly that and everything stopped from that moment on.

The apartment was finally rented to a young mother and her daughter. But now, 2 weeks ago I came home from work and found out that they are moving out of state, so the apartment will be empty again. I am keeping my fingers crossed that nothing like what I went through before starts to happen again!

Regards!
Sarah