Ghost Stories

Ceiling Board.

-this story was shared by Digsdaws on reddit-

Here goes: a few years ago I moved in to an old 1 bedroom apartment in Melbourne, Australia. This was the first time I had moved in to my own place and it was nice to not have crappy stealing roomates. The apartment block (which only had 8 units) was built in the 1930's. It was mouldy and the rent was "interestingly" cheap. The first few months go by without a hic up and I'm enjoying living in this place. I come home from work one day and I go in to my bathroom. Something catches the corner of my vision.. The board which covers the manhole on the ceiling (that has access to the small attic space) is broken in two pieces on the ground. I remember standing there for about 2 minutes trying to make sense of it. I examine the two broken bits of wood. The wooden board is about an inch thick and would have taken Bruce lee to break it in half. My initial thought is that the land lord may have sent an electrician around without informing me and they my have been working in the attic space and broken the board (if that makes sense). But the more I think about it the less likely that scenario seems.

Anyway, I take I couple of pictures and email them to the landlord asking if anyone was in the property that day (with an undertone of me being a bit pissed off that she didn't tell me). I receive a reply at around 7:30am the next morning. Her email reads "please call me as soon as you are able to." I was worried thinking shit someone has broken in. I call her and she explains that her last two tenants said the exact same thing happened to them "amongst other things" and she will send someone around to replace the wooden board. If I wasn't so busy with work I would have thought more of it.

I lay awake at night for the next few weeks thinking what the fuck caused the board to break in half and my first conclusion is that someone was living up there in the tiny attic space of this apartment(which seemed very unlikely. About a month later I wake up suddenly around 4am,which is very unusual. I have so many goosebumps it feels like someone is rubbing their hands on me. Everything is silent for ages, but then I hear this weird sound coming from the roof above my bed. It's this dragging sound. Like someone is pulling a sack of potatoes along the floor. I freak the fuck out and I'm frozen stiff with fear. Someone is up there for sure, I think. There's no way a possum would make that sound. After about 5 minutes of listening to this intermittent dragging sound I work up enough courage to turn on the light and walk in to the bathroom where the manhole is (armed with the cricket bat I keep next to my bed). The new board covering the manhole is broken in two pieces again. I felt sick. I turn on the bathroom light and stare at the black space where the cover on the man hole would be. As tough as I like to think I am, I'm 100% frozen with fear. The dragging sound has stopped. But there's another sound. There's a whispering. I thought my mind was playing tricks on me at first but the whispering was clear. It was coming from the fucking attic. Please let me stress at this point that I'm not making any of this up. The whispering sounds like children's voices. It's gibberish mostly, but there's one sentence that I can make out.."it's your turn.....it's your turn..." It keeps repeating. I turn on every single light in the apartment as well as the TV (to try and make things feel normal).

It's about 5am and it's still dark outside because it's the middle of winter. I'm watching TV to try and unwind. Then fuse blows and everything goes silent. My pet budgie in my kitchen (who never makes a sound at night time) starts squawking like he's being strangled. I've never heard him make these sorts if noises, he's literally screaming. I grab my car keys and run the fuck out of my apartment and go sit in my car. I wait until the sun comes up. People are now walking their dogs and starting their day and this comforts me enough to go back in to my apartment. The front door is open, but i don't think too much of it because I figure I booked it out of there so fast that I didn't close it. Everything seems normal and I go in to the kitchen to check on dexter (my pet budgie)..he's not in his cage..what the fuck! I let him out most days to fly around but there is 100% no way of his getting out unless someone lets him out. I start to feel sick again. I look around everywhere but can't see him. All the windows are closed and the wire mesh screen door at the front door was closed when I came up. I open the door to the bathroom...again - I OPEN the door to the bathroom and I can hear a splashing sound. Poor little dexter was half drowned in the toilet. I take him out. Wash him and dry him off. I thought he was going to die because he was breathing in water. I was so confused. The only logical explanation is that someONE did this.

At about 8am I called the landlord and gave her a watered down version of what had happened. "Oh wow you heard the whispering too!" She said. I stayed in that apartment for another 18 months (I only moved out 3 months ago). I heard the whispering again on a few occasions and twice the manhole cover "moved" but wasn't broken. The landlord called me last week. She sounded embarrassed and said that the new tenants (a young Japanese couple) had begged to speak with me about some of the shit that has been going on there. Fuck that. It's their problem now.