February 16, 2007
The Man By the Window
Rate this encounter:
Jeanne, Sunnyvale, California, 1989 - 1995
As a child, one of the homes I grew up in was a 1970s three-bedroom. The
house seemed normal enough, but eventually strange occurrences started to
happen. I was stirred awake every night by the sound of footsteps in the
hallway. They would stop in front of my bedroom door, my door would open a
crack, and I would see a man who I assumed was my father checking on me. One
night, I asked him for a glass of water and got no response. I got up to get
it myself and was stunned to see the door to my sister's room across the
hallway opening by itself. I wasn't afraid but was rather extremely curious.
I peeked into her room and saw that her rocking chair was rocking by itself
and the window was open. As she was a baby, I bravely closed the window for
her and ran back to bed. The next night the man came to check on me again
and this time I rushed to the doorway. I found that he was in my sister's
room rocking in the chair and her window was open again.
This happened every night for the entire duration of our stay there. My
father never believed my stories and said that I was dreaming. One night, I
awoke to hear running footsteps in the hall and a giant crash, like a window
breaking. I ran out of my room to see my father standing with a baseball
bat. He apparently heard it too, but nothing was amiss in the house, and,
alas, there was no intruder.
We also felt rushes of cold air at times and I found strange, cryptic
writings on the walls of my closet that appeared out of thin air.
We eventually moved out of the home and years later were reminiscing about
the house. My father got very quiet and white as we spoke. He slowly told us
that, unbeknownst to us, he had rented the house for a very inexpensive
price because a death had occurred there. The man living there before us had
committed suicide in the garage, and he was a father of two daughters.
