Adventures in Little Rock - Vol. 2

My apartment is haunted.

I know what you're thinking. "Oh Andi, you're so overdramatic."
So I will explain the events as they unfolded....

I arrived on Monday and dropped my luggage off in my room (#7) and left immediately for a trip to the grocery store to stock my kitchen.
I returned to unload groceries and the apartment was frigid. Not just chilly... COLD. So, I went to turn on the heater.... and my A/C unit was dead.

No worries. I put in a call to the head honcho in charge of that stuff and he said he'd have a repairman out to take a look at it the next day. When I returned from rehearsal, there were four space heaters in my apartment to get me through the night.

Fast forward to Friday.

I got a call that the repairman had to go on the roof to inspect the unit and found that mine (and only mine) had been hit by lightning.
Wow. Crazy. But not too creepy... yet.
It'll be a while before I have actual heat, so the space heaters are destined to be my friends for the next few chilly nights.

I returned to my apartment after rehearsal on Friday and promptly made myself a BLT (without the T - 'cuz I hate raw tomatoes) and sat down to watch 'my channel' - Investigation Discovery.

I was just getting to the details of an 'unexplained disappearance' on the show when I heard a 'pop' and the TV went out. Along with my ceiling fan. No big deal. Prolly just flipped a breaker or something, right? Nope... it was just the fan and the outlet that my TV was plugged into. Everything else on that breaker was working fine. I switched the power cord to another outlet and the TV popped right back on to the same channel I had been watching.
And that's when the weirdness started.
The TV flipped out and started changing channels on it's own - landing on some random channel with a movie I recognized - The Crucible. It tuned in just in time to see John Proctor's hanging.
Okay, a little heebie-jeebie-ish, admittedly. But at least the programming had spared me from the performance of Winona Ryder in that piece of schlock.

I scanned the room for the remote control and the instant my eyes found it, the TV popped off again.

I called Lillian, who drowsily answers the phone, and tell her that I think my apartment is haunted. She immediately responds with, "Don't say that! #7 was MY apartment last time I was here and I thought the same thing!!" We giggle a bit and I let her go, since she has to get up early... and return to the task of entertaining myself without my beloved television.

The power cord for the TV wouldn't reach any of the other outlets in the living room, so I opened my laptop and decided to check email and chat with my girl on Facebook instead. It was getting close to bedtime anyhow.

I started chatting with a full battery on my laptop (good for a few hours of basic browsing) and about ten minutes later, I got a low battery warning. Only 9% left. Odd.
I plugged it in so it could run on outlet power instead. About five minutes later, I got a warning that the battery was no longer charging. The outlet had gone dead.
(Insert theme from Twilight Zone.)
I plugged it into another outlet. About five minutes later, that one went dead... along with the remaining light in my living room.
The same scenario repeated as I chased the outlets through the hallway and into the bedroom... only to have them fail after five to ten minutes.

I finally settled on my bed, using the outlet in my bathroom to plug in the laptop. The ONLY outlet in the entire apartment that works... and it is now 2am local time. I have power in my bathroom... and power to my fridge and the light above the stove. That's it. Everything else in the apartment had gone dead. (Goodbye to my space heaters as well.)

After chatting well into the morning, I decided it was time to get some sleep. Since my clock wasn't working, I set the alarm on my phone to go off at 10am. It is now decidedly chilly in the apartment, so I bundle up with the heavy comforter and drift off to sleep.

At 8am, I was startled awake by a loud bang in my living room. I got up to inspect... only to find that my TV was on. (Incidentally tuned back to the ID network that I'd been watching before all the craziness started.) I turned off the TV and padded back to the bedroom, figuring that my power was back. I went to plug in my phone so it could charge a bit... only to discover the outlets still weren't working in my bedroom. So, I walk on back to the living room to plug it in to the TV outlet - 'cuz obviously that's working.

Only it's not.

WTF?

I also realized at that moment that I was sweaty... and it dawned on me that the apartment was no longer chilly. It was hot. Like a summer in Arizona hot. Stagnant, oppressive hot.
I go to open the windows in the living room that I've opened and closed half a dozen times already... and they're stuck. Both of 'em. I can't open the windows!!

I finally get my bathroom window open and lay back down for another hour (because I'm tired and haven't slept very long or very well at this point). Before I crash, I call Peter (the head honcho who has been orchestrating the repairs and maintenance of our living quarters) and leave a message letting him know the power in my apartment has gone wonky. I curl up on my bed (no covers, 'cuz it's still really warm) and doze when my phone rings about half an hour later.

It's Peter and he instructs me to go through the motions of flipping the breakers back and forth. Nothing happens on the first or second tries. The third one works and the apartment comes to life with a click and a hum...

Now here's the thing... I only flipped the living room breaker. But ALL of the power came back on. The living room, bedroom, and kitchen... even though they're all on separate switches.

It's after 10am and sunlight is flooding the apartment, so it's too bright to get the true creepy creepers, but my hair was standing up on end all the same. My mind kept flashing to Cusak in the movie 1408, which only succeeded in creeping me out more.

It can all be explained away, of course. It's an older building. The wiring could be faulty, etc, etc...

In the meantime, I'm making sure that I charge the battery for the video camera in case there are any more strange occurrences.
If I disappear into the vortex that is apartment #7, I will at least have left an account of the goings-on... and Lillian will totally back me up.
She named the ghost Steve.

On nights like last night, though... I really wish I had my dog. Or some holy water. Just for peace of mind.


Oh, Little Rock... you quirky, creepy little town. I like you. :)


Stay tuned for the next adventures...