Otherworld - Episode 129: The Kitchen Gnome

Episode Date: July 21, 2025

Ashley wakes up in the middle of the night to use the restroom and grab a glass of water from the kitchen when she notices the glass screen doors to her backyard are wide open. Puzzled, she walks over to close them - only to see, standing in the middle of her kitchen, a small, grumpy-looking figure dressed in ragged human clothes. Check out our Merch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow us on:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ For business inquiries contact: [e-mail] If you have experienced something paranormal or unexplained, email us your story at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail] To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Otherworld. I'm your host, Jack Wagner. When the email for this next story came in, I'm pretty sure somebody from the team instantly forwarded it to me or sent me a screenshot of it. I'm not sure if they did that because they thought I would find it funny, or because they knew it was exactly the type of far out there, absurd story that I can't resist diving into or both. Either way, this one is indeed weird, and it's weird in a sort of whimsical way that I love certain other world episodes to be.

It comes from a woman named Ashley, and she told me that she lives on one of the oldest streets in Toronto, and that her apartment building is 120 years old. And her story is a fairly straightforward one about a night when she encountered something very unexpected in her own kitchen. and what she encountered was not something that was there one minute and gone the next. Ashley got a very good, long look at this thing. She even sort of interacted with it. And she had a very specific way of describing how it looked, which is what originally caught my attention.

I think you'll know what I mean once you hear it for yourself. This episode is called The Kitchen Gnome. And you're listening to Otherworld. Yes, it is. At its core, the science, you can't argue. I'm worried about all the science. Open the sky. It's almost frustrating that it's happening.

I'm going to die. I'm going to die. It's limbs were just like wrong. Everybody moves back into the light, even if it takes them a minute. So I'm Ashley. I'm from Toronto, Ontario. I work in the music industry. I live in a older house in the city, pretty centralized to downtown.

I do do some band management and help organize a festival that happens at the end of May in the city. Very lucky to have this opportunity. I always kind of dreamt of working in the industry and it just kind of fell out of the sky from me. So, yeah, happy to be doing it, really enjoy myself. I'm originally from the East Coast, so back in Nova Scotia. You know, it's like a heavy Polish community, a lot of Germanic traditions.

So a lot of superstitions did kind of end up coming to me when I was pretty young, listening to my grandmother and her friends talk, talking about signs of death coming, like harbingers of death and, like, ghosts and mysterious circumstances that they've had. And my parents were actually really into UFOs and paranormal as well. So I kind of like grew up with like a little introduction to the paranormal. and then read deeper into things and ended up really enjoying mythology and old folklore. And a lot of it just kind of came naturally to me.

And I guess I would say that I have like a pretty reasonable grasp on what's up in that realm. When I was younger, I did explore Wiccan for a little bit there. I just like read books at the library and like even attempted to like, you know, cleanse my grandmother's apartment at one point. but I kind of moved away from that. But I do feel a certain connection to nature and the earth and the planet. And I'm kind of a person that, like, tends to listen to those messages. So this probably happened sometime in August last year. So August 20, 25, pretty normal day.

I was starting my time at the music industry. So I was just finishing up at another job I had at the time at a barbershop, coming home at 8 o'clock. Doing what I normally do, walk and feed my dog and my cat, make dinner, hang it with my partner, watch something on TV, just get ready for bed and go to bed. Pretty normal August evening, pretty hot. Toronto gets pretty warm. Went to bed without any complications and found myself awake around like, I want to say it was like maybe 3.30 or 4 a.m.

Still pretty groggy. you know, half asleep. My bed is pretty close to the wall, so I kind of have to like, if I'm trying to get out of my bed and if I'm trying to use the washroom, it's like a whole production. Like I have to get out of my bed, walk around my bed, go into my bathroom. So by the time I get to my bathroom, I'm like fully awake and I head through the door that's leading from my washroom into my kitchen. So I'm grabbing a glass of water, making sure it's pretty cold because it's so hot, like hot August evening. And I'm definitely awake at this point. You know, I can feel like how cold the is. And my kitchen has these like really large glass doors that look out onto a small black patio.

And that's kind of where we park our cars. We have like a small gated parking area. We put our bikes out and like a fire pit and, you know, like our gardening supplies and what have you. So my glass doors kind of look owed onto that. And I immediately look right at my doors. And I see that they're open. Kind of terrifying. I don't know how that would happen. Like we keep things pretty locked up overnight.

And that's something that we would not forget. Living right in the middle of downtown Toronto, you know, Like, there's no way that these doors could have been open, especially because I walked past them before on my way from the bathroom. And there are two reasonably set, like, large doors. You wouldn't miss, like, the door opening sound, like, that sliding noise. You wouldn't be able to miss it. And there's two doors.

So, you know, forgetting one, if I did forget, makes sense, but forgetting two whole doors. Pretty weird. So, very bizarre, like, super-carriage. kind of freaked out at this point. So I noticed something in the corner of my eye and I looked down and standing about four feet away from me, I would say, is this small being, just looking up at me silently, something that I can't really describe anything more than a gnome. Never thought in my, once in my lifetime that I would come across something like that. So how do you categorize something like that. It wasn't, it's not like it just came into my back door. It was like a couple

feet away from my back door. So it was actually like properly in my kitchen. So I can like immediately feel like my hair is standing up. Like I'm getting like goosebumps and I could just feel like the hair is on my arm kind of lift up why we're like like eye to eye like deadlocked looking at each other. It's maybe like a foot, a foot and a half tall, and its features were very striking. It's almost like its features were implanted into my brain right away. You know, instead of taking the being in all at once, it was just like its face, almost like I zoomed in right on this being's features and its face. Its hair was very kind of like shoulder length, hair very coarse, gray, brown.

hair. It was definitely tan. It had some, like, almost like it was outside, more of, like, a tan complexion. Its eyes were bright, even though I feel like the eyes themselves might have been brown, but it was just, like, piercing up at me, like, just steering right at me. It almost had, like, a hawkish features. It had, like, a really sharp, bigger nose, kind of, like, a down-turned frown, you know, just, like, didn't look very happy. The creature was kind of wearing this like coarse knit looking, almost like a child-sized, like, sweater. And it was gray and black. I was super surprised to see that it, like, had some kind of repeating pattern on it.

There's, like, things that I, like, kind of made up in my mind of why it would have, like, a knit horizontal striped sweater. I'm just, like, assuming it, like, stole it from, like, an actual, like, baby or, like, like a small child or something, because that to me is the only probable way that it could have this sweater. It just looked like definitely use, you know, I think there was definitely some like dirt and twigs in it, some like dirty canvas, like heavy material pants that kind of looked like it might have stitched itself, but hard to tell, you know, I was just like so captivated by its face. Like I was taking in the look of this thing, but I, like, I, like, I, like, I said, like, I was almost like hypnotized by its eyes.

Not to make light of the situation, but I do find it funny that you're looking at a gnome standing in your kitchen, but like you're on board with the idea that you could see a gnome in real life, but you're not on board with the idea that a gnome could make its own sweater. Yeah. It would have to steal it. I'm a doll. Well, I have no idea.

Like, that's the thing. It could have made the sweater. I guess it could have, but. I guess I don't really think it like that. I just, you know, who's to say it would think horizontal stripes are cool, you know? But that just kind of adds an extra layer to the situation that it's like trying to make cool sweaters for itself. Yeah, we're just like staring at each other. I can't remember if it was wearing any shoes or not.

It might have had some black shoes on, but I can't remember if it did. I can't really remember if I, like, took a look at its. feet, but its eyes were just very captivating, like, its eyes. I feel like we made, like, prolonged eye contact, just looking at each other. Seems, like, pretty androgynous when I was looking at it. It definitely didn't have any, like, boobs or anything. It was, like, fairly stocky, like, its shoulders were broad. You know, you, like, see and hear, like, pictures of gnomes and, like, fairies and small creatures,

but this just looked like an awful mean-looking person, like angry and sad and kind of hateful. It was kind of a terrifying experience in retrospect just because I really felt like it was like peering into my soul at some points. I just felt like I was like consumed by its eyes. So we're looking at each other. I think I just start to try to communicate to it, to be honest. my body was in kind of fight or flight mode.

Like I felt uneasy. I felt like in the moment, I don't think I was thinking anything other than like, what the hell is this? I think I ask it why it's there. And we're still looking at each other and making eye contact. And it just like shakes its head, no. Doesn't move its mouth or anything.

I started to ask if it could speak to me. and it was shaking its head no. And for whatever reason, I decided that I needed to see this thing a little closer. So I took like a step forward and decided to pick it up. It was probably like five pounds, maybe less. So it was like a little bit on the stockier side. And when I picked it up, I could feel how coarse it's like knit sweater was. I could feel it start to kind of.

like squirm underneath my hands. Like I kind of picked it up underneath the armpit. Almost you would like a kid or something. And it wasn't a fan of that. Something else I noticed while I was looking at it, you know, like kind of holding it away from myself was that its stomach was really large, not in like a like a bigger way, but like its rib cage almost was like extended.

Like it's almost like it protruded further than like a normal person. It almost seemed like belled out words. It's almost like its rib cage went up further. It went all the way up to its sternum and then all the way down to its pelvis. Like it was like a large stomach. And it wasn't like fatty. It was just like a rib cage almost. So that was super strange.

Never seen anything like that in my life. But I'm holding this thing and it's clearly uncomfortable. I'm asking it to talk to me and if it could talk to me. And it keeps shaking its head, no. and that's when it starts to kind of like wave his hands around. It's not touching me. Like it's not like putting its hands on me. It was kind of just like panicking.

It was almost like waving its arms around and kicking its feet. So it was like really wiggling and struggling against me picking it up and shaking its head. I think I'm like really taking a closer look at it this time. Like I was just like so engross with its eyes and making eye contact that when I pick it up and I'm looking at its face a little closer, I can't help but notice it looks almost identical to Livia Soprano like Tony Sopranos mom and the Sopranos. Wait, didn't you say it was a maybe a male gnome? Yeah, it was definitely, it definitely was feeling more like it was like I still am unsure of the actual sex. but it did like kind of give, it was a stocky dude kind of vibe. But also that kind of looked like Tony Sopranos' mom.

Yeah, it was just like the hair, the features. This is so strange. Yeah. It's oddly specific. That was kind of like what struck me right away was how it looked almost just like her, regardless of like gender or anything. It's just that's what I was getting. Just like a mean kind of like a mean face.

Just like a downturned mouth and like the nose and its eyes and like a heavier brow. It just looked like it wasn't having a great time. You know, we never spoke to each other and I couldn't get like a different vibe or energy from like our experience together. But it just looked mad. I was clearly making it a. uncomfortable and it was just kind of like warming around in my grasp and I was a little nervous it might hurt me so I decide to like put it down so I just gently put it down on the ground not not too slow mind you because I kind of want to get rid of this thing I put it on the ground and um just kind of

turns around and starts to kind of walk away it has like it's like not walking fast it's like pretty small, but it does have like some kind of swag or to it. It just kind of turned around and started heading out my back doors. It's so hard to like even explain how I was like feeling in that moment because it was almost like just staring at this creature and you know, just like watching it start to walk into my door. I think I was just like a gape. It was almost like shock. You know, I don't think anything really. registered at the moment. Yeah, I just like literally could not believe my eyes. Really didn't think that this would be happening to me. So I'm watching it kind of just like swagger out of my apartment.

But I'm standing much closer to it at this point. It's on its way out and I kind of follow it a little closer and I stop and watch it go out onto my back patio. And I'm pretty much standing in my doorway, holding on to the side of the door frame, watching it make its way out onto my patio. And I'm close enough that I can see it turned backwards towards my stairs. I have about five steps that go down into the concrete where we park our cars. And this entire time, it never looks at me again. Like, after I put it down, it just kind of like turns on its heels.

and like meanwhile I'm just like gaping at this thing. I just like watch it turn around and slowly kind of go down my back stairs. Similar to like a small child would like, you know, slowly puts like its feet down on the top step and like is holding on to the very top of my patio. It was just kind of like slowly crawling backwards down my steps, putting its hand on each step and like, slowly putting itself down on the next step until it got to the concrete of my parking space there. It was going like a pretty slow pace, so I'm able to like watch it going down my back steps.

You know, I'm hearing the crickets and the frogs around and like the noise from like nighttime noise and I can hear cars and traffic and I'm just watching this thing slowly leave my home. All right. We'll be right back after this quick break. I step out on my back deck because I'm following it. I'm still not sure what's going through my head at this point. I am not a balzy person. I am very risk of birth. I don't know why I decided that I need to be close and following this creature.

I think I was just really intrigued about where it came from. And I'm kind of looking over the side down off my patio onto my concrete. onto my concrete, looking at the little creature, and it kind of starts to wiggle its way underneath my back patio deck, drops to its stomach and just like shimmies itself under there. And I can hear it moving in the leaves, like old leaves. Like sometimes we store our tires and like ice and sand underneath our deck just like for safekeeping. And I can just like hear it rustling underneath my deck. not really sure what to do with myself at this point after after experiencing that. So I'm just standing out there and, you know, it stopped wiggling around in my leaves and it just went quiet again with normal nighttime sounds.

Like I could hear the traffic and like crickets. Other than that, it was like a pretty peaceful quiet night and I was just standing out there for a couple minutes. not really feeling like I should go any further and follow it. So I just decided that I should go back to bed. Yeah, so I go back between my doors and shut everything up and make sure the doors are locked. And I finish my glass of water and go back to bed. You know, time wasn't really in my mind. I was just kind of like watching this.

But from when I got up and like went to my kitchen, like was drinking water, I would say about 15 minutes maybe. Yeah, it was like relatively quick. It just kind of felt like it happened. And then it was over. It was hard to really put like a time on it. I was definitely thinking to myself like before I went to bed. Like what was that? Was that something real?

Is this like, is it a dream? is it, I felt fully awake, you know, but like I started doubting myself. I absolutely thought it was something that I just like imagined or hallucinated, but everything felt so real. Like I felt how coarse its sweater was. And I like, I was feeling how cold the glass I was drinking was and like heard all like the night sounds and like I could feel like my deck underneath my feet. And like, It just, everything felt so real. It just felt so, yeah, it just didn't feel like I could be hallucinating or imagining it. It was just right in front of me.

So at some point I wake up in my bed and I definitely start to feel like an inkling of panic. I think I like bolt right up. I'm just like, what the fuck? It wasn't a pleasant wake up. It was almost like everything. I wasn't feeling during seeing this thing just like was like a tidal wave on me. Just all the feelings and emotion just kind of hit me at once. And I got, I definitely like was afraid, like waking up scared, almost like a bad dream.

You know, I could definitely feel like my heart was racing. Knowing what I do know about like paranormal, I guess and all of these things, I like was really upset about the whole experience because I don't think gnomes are necessarily always friendly. I don't want to invite them in my house and encourage them to be there. I wouldn't want to give them any gifts. I just was really pissed off that it happened, I guess. You know, even if it was a dream, I still in that moment was thinking that it was definitely like a bad thing or like a bad omen, but after I'm up and going in my kitchen, I see the glass that I drank from that night before. And that's kind of when my stomach just like drops. I didn't necessarily feel like in danger

at the moment, but I kind of sprung into action and started like researching a lot of stuff and messaging friends. I think it was like still fairly early at this point. So, 5.30 or 6 a.m. So, you know, I'm like looking at my phone, looking up Nulam encounter, like immediately snapped into action, just started Googling waves to like ward this thing off, you know? Seeing the glass on my counter, the whole experience just kind of just kind of terrified me to the point where I started to build protection of my house through any means necessary. Like I looked up and they didn't like silver. So I had like a silver horseshoe that I like laid in front of my doors where they would have, where this being

entered. I just kind of like propped up a horseshoe. I started sprinkling the threshold with like salt and basil because I hear that kind of wards off bad energy and visitors. I took like a candle, like a white candle and like carved protection ruins into it. And even though I've read about these things before, it's not something I always like have practiced necessarily. So I was like, all right, I guess this is what we're doing. Just tried to investigate some ways that I can like make sure this thing never sees me and I don't see it ever again.

So I'm just kind of like sitting. I have like a desk in my kitchen where I work from, and so I'm sitting there, just kind of like looking at my phone, like going on Reddit and Google and researching things. And at this point, I have like set up my horseshoe and candle, basil and salt, like around the back door, almost like like a protective kind of shield.

And my boyfriend gets up. You know, I'm just kind of like sitting at the table. I have like the stove light on, just staring at my phone with all this stuff on the floor. I think it takes him a second to look at it. And then he's like, what's up with this? Like, what are you doing? Then I tell him that I think we had a creature visit our house.

And obviously, it's hard not to, like, doubt myself at this point. Like, this is, like, he's, like, the first person I told. And I'm still kind of reeling, dealing with myself about this as well. Like, I'm still doubting myself. I'm still talking. myself through this experience, but it's undeniable that the glass was on the counter, you know? That was like kind of like the confirmation for me. He was definitely shocked is one way to explain it.

He was definitely afraid. He knows my history. He knows that like I can pick up easily on like weird vibes and energy. So I don't think this was completely out of the realm of stuff for me to tell him. But I don't think he was ready. to realize that, like, it was actually in our home and that, like, it opened our glass doors and was standing in our kitchen.

But he also kind of, like, trusted me to do the research and protect her house, you know? And I've had some people encourage me to, like, reach out to this being and gifted and talk to it and try to communicate. And I think he's kind of on this, my partner is kind of on the same page with me as, like, we don't want this thing in our home.

I start to talk to a couple friends of mine that are more educated about this than I am. You know, I have to, I'm still like finishing up at another job at the time. So I like have to go to work. You know, I just kind of like lock up my house and like turn on my radio from my pets. And just like I'm frantically texting people. So I'm like distracted the whole day. Coming to terms with it, it's like less of like a panic and more like, my intentions were set that I don't want it to visit me again,

it's going to obey my intentions. I think I actually said at one point when I was setting up my horseshoe and stuff was like, you're not welcome here just to kind of like set the story straight. Don't come in here. Yeah. And like throughout the day I'm just like kind of glued to my phone, like waiting for friends to get back to me. I think I'm like telling a couple people this story. I don't really know how to feel normal about something like this.

The situation never really leaves me in the evenings. I, like, feel weird in my kitchen. We keep, like, our stove light on late at night. And then, like, before bed, we go shut it off. And I, like, find myself, like, I kind of scampering in my kitchen and shut the light off. And I, like, I don't look at my back doors. I don't necessarily feel like something bad is going to happen, but I just, like, don't want to take the chance. And, like, I don't go underneath my back deck.

Like, I feel weird about doing anything. underneath my deck, even though I'm like fairly confident it's probably not there anymore. Like I have no explanation as to like where it's come from or where it's gone. I don't feel like it's there anymore. I think maybe it lingered for a little bit after, but I don't really feel like I might see it again. Well, like Ray can clean up our back area and I'm not the one that does it. Like my boyfriend does it and I'm like, don't disturb anyone's home. you know, like just being probably too cautious.

I just don't want to take the chances. I just, you know, want to show this thing respect in a certain way, but also set the law, bring down the hammer. Like, it's not allowed in my house. Since it was in my house and, like, that night when I saw it, there was some, like, weird little circumstances that were kind of unusual, you know, electronics were being a little funky for a day or two afterwards. I read on a Kindle and my Kindle was absolutely wiped.

Like I had to download everything back on it. It was turned off even though I keep a charge. Like it was just, you know, and like things happen with electronics, but like this has never happened to me and I've had this thing for years and like maybe it's just like something that randomly happened. But during my research, you know, and like what I hear about gnomes and these things is that like maybe they do mess around with electronics and other things. and that, like some of the produce I bought that week that I would just purchase would like be rotten right away, which reading about this, this is definitely something that sounds like pretty characteristic of something. It was definitely weird for a little bit there.

Since then, nothing else has really happened, but I still feel nervous, you know. I still am painfully aware of the circumstance. and like what happened and still feeling weird and like the way it's impacted me most. And I've always kind of felt this. But what happened like this encounter has kind of just like made me reexamine what lies like parallel to our existence. Like is there something that we're not like attuned to? I've always felt like nature like has truth and like nature is always like something to be listened to and appreciated and respected. and I feel like whatever this is might have just been like an extension of that.

I feel like this was like a being of the world and like nature. And I'm not sure on what scale. Like is it like a parallel universe? Is it something that shows itself to certain people? I think it's definitely made me feel like I need to start listening to what these little like circumstances and happen.

happenstances tell me, like, you know, when I have a weird feeling and like, if I feel, if I'm in a place and I feel uncomfortable, like, maybe that's something I should really put more thought and my energy into. Maybe this is something I should obey more is these, like, feelings. I think at this point, though, I'm, like, trying to find people with, like, similar experiences. It happened to me. So it has to have happened to somebody else, you know, Like it has to. There has to be somebody out there. All right.

Thank you to Ashley for sharing her story. And also for dealing with me laughing a little bit in disbelief when she brought up Livia Soprano as a visual comparison for how this gnome looked. That is just a very, very specific reference. I love hearing from people with experiences this vivid and shocking because I'm always so interested to just hear their reaction. Like, what did they decide to do or not do in a situation that no person could have ever been prepared for? In Ashley's case, she decided to pick it up and eventually sort of yell at it, which is sort of funny, but then again, I have no idea

what I would do if I was in her situation. And her description of this thing was so specific and unexpected. The weight of it, the texture of its clothing, how it felt, also the fact that it had a hard belly. Now, I have no idea if gnomes are real. I don't even know if what she saw was a gnome at all. I think that was just the best word that she has for it. I think no matter what you believe about this,

even if you think this was all some sort of super vivid, prolonged hallucination. I just couldn't imagine experiencing such a thing while going to get a glass of water one night and then having to continue on with my regular day-to-day life the next morning. I know in Ashley's case, that was pretty difficult for her, and she's still afraid of that area below her house,

and I don't blame her. This episode was called The Kitchen Gnome, and you've been listening. to Otherworld. Otherworld is executive produced and hosted by myself, Jack Wagner. Our theme song is by Cobra Man. The soundtrack of this episode

is by Juice Jackal. This episode was edited by Theo Krantz and engineered by Theo Schaefer. Our associate producers are Nikki Kate Delgado and Haley Pearson. Our artwork is by Coltysak Studios. If you want to hear bonus episodes of Otherworld, you could become a patron

at patreon.com slash otherworld. Please show us your support by subscribing, leaving a five-star review, and telling your friends about the show. Our social media is at Otherworld Pod. Thank you to the team at Odyssey. Leah Reese Dennis, Rob Marandi, Eric Donnelly, Maura Curran, Kate Rose, Colin Gaynor, Michael LeVay, Josephina Francis, and Hillary Schuff.

Follow and listen to Otherworld Now for free on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. And finally, if you or somebody you know has experienced something paranormal, supernatural, or unexplained, you can send us your story at Stories AnotherworldPod.com.