This event took place in the early to mid-1980's.
While not really very frightening it's my only
experience with what was probably a ghost.
I shared an old farmhouse, located between
Silverdale and Poulsbo in Washington State, with
three roomates: John, his girlfriend Sharon, and
Ken. We were all around 25 or so.
The place used to be a small dairy farm owned by
Ken's grandparents. They'd built the place and
lived there most of their adult lives. In fact,
Ken's grandpa had died there. His grandma was
still living in a nearby nursing home.
I awoke one Saturday morning between 9:00 and
9:30. I threw on some clothes and went across the
hall to the bathroom (This all took
place upstairs). I looked out of the window to see
if Ken or Sharon's cars were there, intending to
see if they were home and might want to join me in
finding something to do that day. I knew that John
was at work and wouldn't return until Monday
evening as he was a paramedic in a nearby town's
fire department and on a 72 hour shift.
I saw that Ken's and Sharon's cars were both gone.
Sharon always took her dog with her and I saw her
cat walking across the back yard. I was completely
alone in the house. All this just took a few seconds.
I was still doing my business when I heard
footsteps climbing the stairs, coming down the
hall (the one really squeaky floorboard even
squeaked) and stopping just outside the bathroom
door. They sounded like the slow footsteps of an
old man, not the energetic steps of us young people.
I did the only thing I could think of: I called
out "I'm in here right now, Grandpa, but I'll be
done in a sec." After I spoke I heard nothing
else- no retreating footsteps, nothing. When I
left the bathroom I immediately walked through the
entire house including the basement, checking
every room. I then went outside and checked the
old barn, the chicken coop, the garage, the
woodshed, the smokehouse and the old outhouse. No
one else was there on the farm.
Sharon told me later that once she was in the
basement taking clothes out of the dryer and
folding them when she heard the same kind of
footsteps descending the basement stairs. These
stairs were completely open except for handrails
so she could see that no one was there, yet the
sound of footsteps continued clear to the bottom
of the stairs! Sharon beat a hasty retreat through
the outside basement door, called her dog, got in
her car and just drove around until she figured
that someone else would be home. I think old
Grandpa liked to pick on her for some reason. :)
I never felt threatened or uneasy in that house.
It was a nice place to live and I enjoyed my stay
there, even if we did have an extra roommate.
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