Hotel Suite Poltergeist

From: Barak Cowling (phdtp@hooked.net)
Story type: Ghost
Location: San Francisco
Source: Form Submission

I should start out by saying that I am very skeptical of paranormal phenomenon, and if the following wasnt a personal experience I would undoubtably make jokes at the tellers expense. However, this is an absolutely true account.

When I first moved to San Francisco, I found a job as a night auditor at a small bed and breakfast hotel. It was a old wooden frame Victorian house converted to a 16-room hotel, and it included a one-bedroom suite complete with kitchen. All of the rooms were built around a square central courtyard, which meant that the windows of the rooms on the corners overlooked each other.

There were occasional entries made in the front desk log book that referred to guest complaints about unusual noises in the suite, but no one paid much attention to them. I, of course, made jokes about it.

I worked alone on the graveyard shift. One night at about 2:00 A.M., a guest called me at the front desk to complain that the people in room 206 kept banging on the walls and turning the lights on and off and he couldn't get any sleep. I told him I would speak to them, but when I looked up the room in the register, it showed as empty. My only thought at that point was that either one of my fellow desk clerks checked someone into the wrong room or the guest gave me the wrong room number. That was common, as someone in 204 may think the next room is 206 when it could be 202. So, rather than telephoning and potentially waking someone up to tell them to be quiet, I grabbed the master key per standard procedure and went up to the floor.

Everything was silent. Since room 206 sounded as empty as it was supposed to be, I opened the door with the master key. It was the suite, and the front door opened onto a hall that went past the kitchen door into the dining room. Through the dining room was the bedroom. I went in and it was, in fact, empty. There weren't even clothes or suitcases lying around. So, the guest must have told me the wrong room number. I turned out all the lights and stood in the hallway, holding the front door open with my back, listening for sounds of a party from some other room.

Suddenly there was a loud "thump" in the kitchen against the wall and simultaneously the kitchen's overhead light came on. It stayed on for about two seconds, then silently went out. It sounded as if someone flat-handedly slapped the light switch on, then calmly turned it off.

I forced myself to peek around the corner into the kitchen and manually turn the light back on. Of course there was nothing there.

I stepped back into the hotel's hallway and let the door close. A guy came out of the next room and recognized me as the clerk who checked him in. He said, "There, they're doing it again." I told him there was nobody in there. His eyes got big and he returned to his room without another word. I never heard from him again.

The hotel has a small switchboard to cut the electricity off to an individual room; that way, if a room stands vacant for a long time, the hotel won't waste money on a light or heater that's left on. Us desk clerks were supposed to turn a room's electricity off every time a person checked out, but we usually forgot (as the case with this suite). Hoping there was something wrong with the electrical wiring, I went back to the front desk and turned the power to #206 off. I then got the flashlight and went back up to the room.

I have not since felt as afraid as I did climbing the stairs to go back to that room. I kept telling myself that if there was a short in the wires, it could cause a fire. I had to check it out.

I opened #206 and checked the lights. They were, in fact, dead, everything was dark. I shined the flashlight into the kitchen and checked that light: the kitchen light was definitely out. I stood back and, as before, held the suite door open with my back and listened.

There was another "thump," and the kitchen light came on. After a second or two, it went out silently as before.

Again, I stood back and let the door close. Ironically, my fear was now tinged with frustration; that wasn't supposed to happen, there was no electricity in the room. I had just tried that light. It was breaking some sort of law of physics.

I went back to the front desk a little faster than usual. The only thing left to do was to put a note in Engineering's mail box to check the wiring. However, I doubt if that was the first request for that particular work order.

I found another job very shortly after that. A couple of years later,I ran into one of the other desk clerks on the street. I asked him if that suite was still haunted, and all he would say is, "Yes." He didn't want to talk about it any further.

I haven't mentioned the specific hotel as the owners would probably love to sue. However, if anyone in San Francisco is looking for a site for a seance, e-mail me and I have a nomination for you. I would also welcome any feedback. phdtp@hooked.net