In Philadelphia, at the corner of Broad and Pine Streets, there is a very old building that currently houses freshmen at the University of the Arts. Prior to this, it was a "school" for the deaf (read: asylum), and was also supposedly a "home" for fallen women (probably an even worse asylum). So prior to it becoming a college dorm, the building was probably not a place where you would have wanted to find yourself residing.
On the second floor of one of the wings, at 6.00 every single morning, you would hear a door slam and footsteps running down the hallway.
In my friend's room on the third floor, you could hear what sounded like someone tapping their nails on the window in the living room (yours truly got to discover that in the dead of night while trying to sleep on the couch). Their bathroom sink was also constantly getting turned on full blast when there was no one in the bathroom. And my personal fav? When you were sitting on her toilet, you could hear whispering coming from the direction of the bathtub.
Another friend once saw a man standing in her bedroom doorway--a man whose clothing did not look like it belonged in the 20th century. When she stopped freaking out and went to investigate, there was no one in her bedroom or living room or kitchen, and the door remained locked.
One apartment on the first floor got so bad they gave up trying to make people live in it and just used it for storage.
My 2 roommates and I lived on the top floor. Most people think "dorms" and imagine a shoebox with a shared public bathroom down the hall. Not at the University of the Arts. There were a few studios, but in all the dorm buildings, most of the housing was 1 or 2 bedroom apartments with their own bathrooms and kitchens. Mine was a one-bedroom, and because we were in the top floor of that nice old building, we had the super high vaulted ceilings and skylights.
We also had The Blob.
At first we took no notice of it. Just a stain on the ceiling or something. Until
Psycho-Roomie and I shrugged it off, but not Supermodel-Roomie. She kept track of The Blob every day, and it was indeed moving about the room.
If something does not have an explanation but keeps happening anyway and is not doing any harm, I have the ability to keep shrugging it off. Yes, The Blob was moving around on a daily basis; no, we never actually saw it moving; and yes, it was very strange; but it wasn't causing any of us harm; so I really didn't care about it. But Supermodel-Roomie could not just let it go.
She tried using a super zoom lens on my video camera to get a closer look at it, but as luck would have it, all three times she tried to do this, The Blob had relocated to the highest and darkest part of the ceiling. All we could see was that it was in fact a black blob of....... something.
Then one day I came home from class and
A week later, I came home to find Supermodel-Roomie pushing the refrigerator across the bedroom, positioning it directly underneath The Blob. She had also made a long chain of wire hangers.
She climbed onto the fridge and proceeded to jab The Blob with the wire hangers.
It wouldn't budge. Like it had been superglued to the ceiling. Supermodel-Roomie said it felt--as well as she could tell through the wire hangers--almost rubbery. She kept poking it, determined to pry it off of the ceiling, but eventually she had to admit defeat.
The next day, The Blob had relocated to directly above Supermodel-Roomie's bed. She slept on the sofa that night.
So The Blob continued to move around and Supermodel-Roomie continued to glare at it for the rest of the year, but she gave up trying to get it off the ceiling. We never figured out what it was. I'm tempted to go visit the dorms and see if it's still there....
What about the rest of you? Share some fun ghost stories!
