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House In Salt Lake City

USA
August 2006

When I was 18 I moved out of my parents house in a small mountain town into a house in Salt Lake City with my sister and two other roommates. The house was two stories, the upper story being the main part of the the house with the kitchen, two bedrooms and the basement also had two bedrooms, those rooms were mine and my sisters. Since this was my first time living in a city, I was nervous about intruders and was quite paranoid about keeping our doors locked. I would often get up in the morning or come home to find one of our doors wide open. I would confront my roommates about this, but they would always deny that they were the forgetful one that left the door open. They could, of course, have been lying to cover for their own forgetfulness, but there were times when there did seem to be no explanation for the front door being wide open. My sister and roommate even once made a male friend spend the night after a really puzzling episode of a door being left open.
The phone would also constantly ring and when answered there would be nobody there. I don't know how many times I was woken up at 1 in the morning to the phone ringing with no one there, not even a dial tone, just nothing. Also, we would sometimes have strange messages left on the answering machine. You could almost, but not quite, be able to tell what the person was saying, one time something about "hot fun" (make of that what you will) and another time, an old man saying something about going to the cemetery. We would joke, somewhat uneasily, telling each other to tell their stalkers to quit calling.

One of my roommates that had the room directly above mine would often complain that she could not sleep well in her room because she felt a presence in the doorway. When I would try to get her to explain further, she would refuse to talk about it any more, something that drove me insane. I now take that with a grain of salt, because she would later prove herself to not always be very honest.
One night when her and I were the only ones home, we were sitting in the kitchen having a late night snack and chatting. Suddenly, we heard a phone ringing down stairs, it was not the house phone, and there were no cell phones downstairs at the time. We both looked at each other stunned, asking the other if we had just heard that. We then armed ourselves, me with a pairing knife and her with a bread board, and went downstairs to confront the psycho-rapist-killer that forgot to turn off his cell phone.
We searched the basement and found nothing, there was no way for someone to get in and out of the basement without going upstairs, the windows were much to small.
In my room I had my bed pushed up against the wall and since I like to sleep on my left side, I would sleep facing the wall. Early one morning, I was doing just that when I felt that someone, a man, was leaning over me and staring at my face from only a few inches away. I looked up suddenly and looked behind me at my room to find myself alone. Some people have told me I was just dreaming, but I know what I felt, you cannot mistake when someone has their face just inches from your own.
Over time my sister and I would have different roommates come and go. Eventually, my sister had her boyfriend move in and my best friend moved in. I moved to one of the upstairs rooms, in fact the room that my one roommate had claimed to feel a presence in.
I never felt uncomfortable, except for one time. It was my day off and I was home alone in the middle of the day and decided to lay down for a nap. I was asleep when I distinctly felt like I was being hugged, like someone was spooning with me. I was not scared at first, feeling rather comforted and loved, until I realized that no one should be in bed with me and that I was home alone. I then fully woke up a little shaken. My best friend was a little weary about living in the city being from the same small mountain town as I, and would refuse to stay alone in the house over night or even late at night.
One Sunday my sister, her boyfriend and I were all going to my parents house for dinner. I told my friend that we would be home around 9 p.m. She said she was glad since she had school in the morning and didn't want to have to go stay at her parent's that night. When we got home that night, she was gone and I remember being a little confused, but forgot about it. A few days later she told me why she left before we got home.
She had been sitting in the living room studying when she heard somebody whisper her name from the hallway area by the bedrooms. She didn't stick around, she just left for her parent's.
Finally after 3 years, it was time to move from that house, my friend was moving to Colorado and my sister was ready to buy a house. On the last day we had the house, my sister and her boyfriend had already moved all of their stuff out and I had plans on stopping there after work to pick up the last of my things. My friend stopped by during her lunch break to pick up her things. She knew she was the only one there, but she heard noises coming from the basement as if someone was down there. She wondered if perhaps the landlord was there and she just hadn't realized it. She called down the basement stairs and got no answer. She then went down and checked around the empty basement and found no one. She then left quickly, glad that was the last time she had to be in that house.
While living there, I was never really afraid or uncomfortable, just looking back now and adding up all of the different incidents over the three years I lived there I can't help but think there was at least one spirit there. I hoped they were not too annoyed with our parties.

USA
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