Radio Rental - Episode 25

Episode Date: May 13, 2022

On today’s tapes… >> Old Man in the Room > The Crash

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plus a Tenderfoot merch pack. It only takes a few minutes and it makes a big difference. Thank you for being part of our community. We can't wait to hear from you. Oh, you startled me. I just wasn't expecting you to be there. Oh, I know how this might look. Sitting here, watching static.

I just, well... I know it's going to sound crazy, but I think I saw someone in my TV after this tape ended. I know, I know, it's probably nothing. But then again, you know how hard it is to find complete static on a TV these days. So... Did you hear that? I don't know. Never mind. It's probably my hyperactive imagination getting me in trouble again.

So moving on. So you're back for another scary story. How about I just reach into Terry's box of treasures here and... Pick another tape. Aha! Ooh, this one looks good. I don't know why I'm saying that. It's completely unmarked, and I have no idea what's on it.

But here you go. Anyway. This would be in the early to mid-'90s. I was seven, so 1991. I lived in a city called Pine Hills, but we called it Crime Hills because it was a really bad side of town outside of Orlando, Florida. I'm second oldest of eight children. I have five brothers and two sisters, and my sisters and I are, we have the largest age difference. We're about 10 years apart.

My family and I are really close. Growing up, you know, typical sibling dynamic where we'd fight a lot. Grew up in a very religious, conservative home. We went to church every single Sunday. We went to a thing called a Juana every single Wednesday. We were always doing church activities. So we were a very close-knit family. My siblings in Iowa, let's say, were all best friends. The house I grew up in was really, really small. When you consider, like,

at the time I was seven, there would have been five, almost six of us. We had a barely three-bedroom home, one and a half bathrooms, just tiny. I mean, you're talking about like a thousand square feet. That was one of the oldest homes. That home was built in the 1940s. And the neighborhood that it was built in was built in probably the oldest area of that town. So there was a lot of like stories about weird things happening there. The house wasn't built right.

So there was a lot of areas where it wasn't finished. You had like a laundry room that wasn't unfinished, so like you'd have open wooden beams or you'd have like walls that didn't have drywall on it. The laundry room terrified me. I hated going down there. It always felt off. It was cold. It was dark. There was always noises. You'd always feel like somebody was watching you. And I never would go down there at night to the point where I would get in trouble. There was something there that wasn't good. I remember vividly there was a time where I kept trying to tell my parents there's something weird going on. And my mom kept brushing up, oh, you know, it's not a big deal.

And then two days later, she's like, we're going to pray on the house. She would have us lay our hands on the walls and then just pray over the house for God's protection and that nothing bad would happen to us. I was probably five or six years old and I was helping my grandmother do laundry. I was in that room, and just all of a sudden, I just felt really weird, and I got really shaky, and I was looking at my grandmother, and I'm like, what? This feels weird in here, and she was like, oh, it's always like that. Okay, well, grandmother said it was fine, so if grandmother says it's good, I'm a kid. What do I know? The original master bedroom of the house, my sister and I shared that room.

I was laying in bed. I was seven at the time. And I was laying there and I didn't want to go to sleep. I wanted to read. So I was trying to find a way of hiding reading. But it was before cell phones, so it's not like I had a light that I could easily do that. And I looked up and I saw my door crack open.

We always slept with all the doors closed. That was just a thing with my family's home. All the doors were always closed. All the lights were always closed. All the lights were turned off. So it wasn't normal for the door to open up. I sat up a little bit and I looked up and I remember seeing a hand at first. Then he slowly started walking in the room. He was an older white guy with gray hair, and he was dressed with a white shirt,

and he had slacks on, and he looked relatively normal. But that was weird because I'm biracial. My dad is black, my mom is white, so to have an older white man in the house would not have been something that would have happened. I was terrified. Why is this man in my house? Why is this man in my room? Instead of calling for my parents, I just covered myself up. I burrito'd in a blanket, covered my head,

and I just laid there. I waited until I heard the door close. It felt like an eternity. It was probably only a couple minutes. So when I heard the door close. It felt like an eternity. It was probably only a couple minutes. So when I heard the door close, I look up and there's nobody there. My bedroom door is closed again. The room is empty. I was too afraid to tell my parents. I know I didn't mention it to them because I thought, oh, well, this is weird. Like no one should be here. I know I should tell my parents, but they probably won't believe me. So I just kind of brushed it under the rug thinking, oh, this is maybe my imagination or maybe somehow somebody snuck into our house. Like I said, we lived in a bad neighborhood. It would have been weird for somebody to be in the house,

but it wasn't impossible. I'd forgotten about it. I kind of brushed another rug, and about two days later, I'm laying in bed. I'm trying to go to sleep, and I hear the door open again. This time, I'm like,

oh, it must be my dad. My dad would come and check on us every now and then, and so I'm like, oh, it must be him, so I sat up. This is the second time I saw him. He was wearing the exact same clothes, a white shirt, gray slacks. He sees me this time, and then he starts walking in the room, and he walks up to the edge of my bed,

and he just stands there, and he just stares at me. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't really move after that point. He just watches me. I was terrified, so I just was frozen, and I remember trying to slowly lay back down, and I just laid there, and I was too afraid to cover myself with my blanket, so I just closed my eyes and just waited.

A few minutes later I hear footsteps and then the door closed. This time I did mention it to my parents. So I remember when I get up in the morning I told my mom that there was an old man in my room. Oh you must have been dreaming. There's no one in the house. The doors were all locked. There's no way anyone could get in. So it you must have been dreaming. There's no one in the house. The doors were all locked. There's no way anyone could get in. So it must have just been a really bad dream. Mom says it's a bad dream. So it must have been okay. The third time the same thing happened, I hear my door, but this time I was too scared to sit up. So I laid in my bed, but I turned my head. He sit up so I laid in my bed but I turned my head

he walks up to the side of my bed and he watches me I just stared at him for the longest time and this time he starts reaching out towards me but then he pulls his hand back and he just watches me and then I close my eyes and I just pretend to be asleep. And again, a few minutes later, we hear footsteps and he walks out the door and closes it. After I heard the door closed, a couple minutes later, I was just like, I'm not staying in this room. I'm too scared.

So I go to my parents' room. I told my mom that I think I had a bad dream because it happened again. So she gives me a blanket and a pillow and I sleep on the floor on the side of my parents' room. I told my mom that I think I had a bad dream because it happened again. So she gives me a blanket and a pillow and I sleep on the floor on the side of my parents' bed. And from then it became a regular occurrence where it was every other night or every two or three nights that he would come in and I would hear the door. I would look up and I would see him and then I would just go and sleep in my parents' room. I was about nine years old, so my sister had been born at this point, and we shared a bedroom from the time she was born.

She's an infant, and she's sleeping in our room. So it's been about two or three years of this just happening, and I remember him walking in, and I sat up. I remember looking and going, Who are you? What do you want? He just looked at me. He didn't say anything. He just slowly shook his head no and then just stood there, walked to the side of my bed, watched me and then walked out the room. At this point, that's when I noticed that he wasn't completely solid.

You can kind of see through him a little bit. And that's when I knew there's something else going on. Like something is happening. It was a few years later. At this point, I would just watch him. He walks in the room. He walks up to me. He goes out to reach for me. It was a few years later. At this point, I would just watch him. He walks in the room. He walks up to me.

He goes out to reach for me. And he stops, turns around, and he walks to my sister's crib. He looks down at her, and he starts to reach both hands down, like he was trying to hold my sister. I just remember telling him to stop, leave her alone. And then he sat back up and he walked out the room. This went on from the time I was seven till I was about 14 when we moved out of the house regularly from the time I was a kid to I was in high school. We were getting ready to move. He hadn't come in my room for a while. I think because of that point, I was much more aggressive when I would see him. At this point, I had two sisters. I had a seven-year-old sister and I had a less than one-year-old sister, and we were all sharing the same room.

It happens again. It's at night. My baby sister and my sister were sharing a bed, and he walked in and I said, No, you can't be here anymore. We're about to leave, and I want you to leave us alone. You can't follow us. He stood in the room, this time a lot longer, and he walked up, came to the side of my bed again, and he stared at me. He wasn't reaching out. He just watched. And then he turned around and he looked at my sisters and he went out to

reach for my baby sister. He pulled his hand back. And he stood and stared at them for a while. And then he left. And that would be the last time I would have seen him. I am 33, 34. And I'm talking to my sister. She's 23. I was like, you know, I've never talked about this. I've never told anybody, but when we were little, our room was haunted.

She was like, really? And I started explaining it and she was like, huh. Didn't say anything. And it wasn't until last year, around February of 2021, we were talking about supernatural things. I start telling the story again, and then Carrie's eyes just get really large. She looks at me, she's like, I remember you talking about it, but I didn't want to say anything then. But I remember him. He's my earliest memories. Him walking to my bed and watching me and reaching out for me. I remember just sitting there

and being terrified of this older man watching me trying to hold me. My mouth, I just dropped. You're kidding me. Okay, describe to me what he looked like. White button-down shirt, gray slacks, older Caucasian man with gray hair, close cut, just described everything that I had seen.

For so long, even though I knew something was happening, I still try to rationalize it like, oh, well, maybe this is this. Seven years, you know, after a while you would go, I'm going to say something, but obviously I'm crazy. Obviously this can't be real. I didn't believe in ghosts. I didn't believe in things like that.

We're describing the same things and she remembers so much. How did you know this? Describing how he would slowly walk into the room and he would stand there and how he would reach out to her, never reached out to me, and then stare and then walk out the room. And she's like, as soon as I'd hear the door close, I knew it was okay and I could go back to sleep. When she told me that she was experiencing the same thing, it was just sheer shock. I was just sheer shock.

I was just at a loss for words. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do because it was just this feeling of weight being lifted off of me. I wasn't alone. Like, I was not imagining this. It happened. Oh, I had forgotten about that one. Unsettling stuff. Speaking of unsettling, I really do think there's something in this TV.

I could have sworn I felt some fingers tousling my bob when I knelt down to hit rewind. Why don't we cut to some ads before things get weirder around here? I am so dreading groceries this week. Why? You can skip it. Oh, what, just like that? Just like that. How about dinner with my third cousin? Skip it. Prince Fluffy's favorite treats? Skippable. Midnight snacks? Skip.

My neighbor's nightly saxophone practices? Uh, nope. You're on your own there. Coulda skipped it. Shoulda skipped it. Skip to the good part and get groceries, meals, and more delivered right to your door on Skip. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What comes to mind when you hear the word gratitude? Maybe it's a daily practice, or maybe it feels hard to be grateful right now. Don't forget to give yourself some thanks by investing in your well-being.

BetterHelp is the largest online therapy provider in the world, connecting you to qualified professionals via phone, video, or message chat. Let the gratitude flow. Visit betterhelp.com to learn more and save 10% on your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com. Now we're back, and guess what? You missed it. There is something, or someone, inside my TV monitor. And while it is not an adorable blonde child with her own catchphrase, they're here, it's still quite remarkable. At first, I'll admit I was a little freaked out,

but this entity and I just had a lovely chat about vegetable gardens. Frankly, now I just feel embarrassed by how resistant I was to making a new friend. Oh, exactly. Well said, my new friend. I could not have said it better myself. You are quite the raconteur. While we continue our discussion over here, how about I pop in another tape for our guest, hmm? We were a young couple with two young children.

The children were our son, who was about three and a half, and our daughter, who was about eight months. It was Easter Sunday, and we had spent the day with my husband's family. And it had been kind of a hectic day for the children especially. There was formal lunches and Easter egg hunts and a lot of kind of commotion. That day, at the end of all those activities,

we were planning to just go home and get these very tired children straight to bed. They had daycare the next day. We had work the next day. We were pretty strict about bedtime. We found that if we weren't, we really had to pay for it with tired, cranky children. I was probably the one that was the strictest. My husband tended to be a little bit more laid back than me and was willing to kind of let the bedtime slide a little.

I was more the, no, no, it's seven o'clock, she has to go down, we've got to get him down, everyone lights out at 7.30. All the way home, we talked about, oh, we've got to get these kids to bed. This was a long day, everyone is exhausted, these kids have to get up early, let's get these kids to bed right away.

We both agreed that was the plan. So we get home, we parked on the street in front of our house with a loaded car. With young children, you often have, you know, We parked on the street in front of our house with a loaded car. With young children you often have, you know, diaper bags and strollers and, you know, all kinds of paraphernalia. So, we had a lot of stuff to get out of the car in addition to getting the two kids out of the car.

I took the baby and said, I'll run her in the house and get her to bed right away. You bring in our son, let him play for a few minutes in the living room while I'm getting the baby down, and then I'll get him down. Ran upstairs, got her all squared away, and got her to sleep. My husband was needing to go in and out of the front door to get things out of the car.

He had waited for a few minutes and watched our son while I got the baby down. I came down the stairs and said, I've got it from here. I'll take him upstairs. But instead of doing that, for reasons really that even I didn't really plan on or really understand myself, I kind of just casually walked over to the TV and turned it on and said to my son, you want to watch a little TV with mommy? Of course, being three and a half, he said, yeah,

hopped on the couch and we sat down and started watching TV. My husband came in and said, what the heck? What is going on? I thought you were gonna put him to bed. Yeah, I'll do that. I'll do that later. What do you mean later?

It already is later. It's very late. You said we had to get the kids to bed right away. Yeah, I know, but I think we'll just watch a little TV. We were just kind of sitting in the dark with the TV glowing and no lights on, really, in the living room, and my husband's like, this makes no sense. Why are you doing this?

Don't worry about it. Just go out to the car, get the things out of the car. I'll take care of it. So he said, okay, and he goes back out to the car, gets more things, and I just keep watching TV with our son. And then my husband comes in and says again, okay, everything's out of the car, so let's get this kid to bed. No, we're fine. We'll just sit here a while. He couldn't understand it. He started getting a little frustrated with me, in part because I was the one who was so strict about bedtime, and now I'm violating all my own rules. I said things like, it's fine, I'll take care of it. Why don't you go upstairs and go to bed?

I'll put him to bed in a little while. I just kept pushing back. And the more he kind of got frustrated, the more I would push back. It went on like that for several minutes. We were almost arguing about it. I'm saying to myself, why am I doing this? He's right, this doesn't make sense. Why am I keeping the child up

when he really needs to get to bed? He's beyond tired and I'm beyond tired, so what am I doing? He was just kind of standing there fuming a bit when I said to him, look, you can go up, but we're just staying here. He wanted an explanation. He wanted to understand my reasoning. We never let the kids watch TV on school nights usually. So the fact that I was

letting him watch television, the fact that I was letting him drift way beyond his normal bedtime, and I hadn't even attempted to like take him upstairs, get his teeth brushed, get his pajamas on, or anything. I was doing none of the usual routine. I just kept saying, almost robot-like, "'No, it's fine. I'm gonna take care of it. "'You just need to go to bed. I'll handle this.

"'Don't worry about it. What's your problem?' He was getting frustrated. I was pushing back on him. But the whole time, deep inside myself, I was saying, what am I doing? I don't know why I'm doing this. It's not like he needed a treat or he asked to watch television or that he wouldn't have gone straight to bed after I put the baby to bed. He would have done all those things. You know, he would have cheerfully gone upstairs and gone to bed. I just got very resolute about not putting him to bed at that moment. It just made my husband more and more frustrated. I just kept saying, no, we'll go up later.

You go ahead. We're just going to sit here. Suddenly, we both hear a huge crash. It kind of shook the house like a big just crash. It sounded like something upstairs had fallen like a major bookcase had fallen or a tree had crashed through the home or something from the back of the house. The sound did not compute. We've never heard anything like that in our home. We looked at one another, both of us, our first thought was, oh my God, the baby.

The baby was upstairs and we knew something had crashed. Maybe her crib, her baby bed, like a leg broke or the baby bed has collapsed somehow. We both started going into action. I leapt up off the couch. My husband kind of ran out of the doorway into the foyer where the stairs were. I fully expected to hear her screaming and crying and I didn't hear her and that made me even more panic. As we ran up the stairs a big white cloud is coming from the top of the stairs down the stairs rolling over towards us which made us

even more confused. We were just taking the stairs sort of like two at a time, racing up to see what had happened. We fight through the cloud, very confused by the cloud because it's very thick and we're just kind of waving it away and we're kind of racing down the hallway. And we get to the baby's room we almost skid in ready to rescue her to our shock and amazement she's fine the room is quiet the bed is fine nothing's out of place there's no roiling cloud of dust in her room we just sort of stood in the doorway for a minute to reassure ourselves. We looked at her. She didn't even wake up. How did she sleep through that noise? Where did that come from? Did a window collapse? Did a tree fall through? Everything in her room is perfectly

normal and quiet, and she's fine. So that's when we turned around, started walking back out of her room and down the hallway to the next room in our house, which was our son's room. The cloud was kind of emanating from his room. It was coming out of the doorway into the hallway. We walk into his room. We both sort of at the same time looked over at his bed and huge pieces of plaster were covering the bed and one giant piece was right on his pillow where his head would have been. On the floor is the entire ceiling. The entire plaster ceiling in his room has collapsed. Huge chunks are all over his room. He had a lot of toys and he had play tables and he had his bed and bookcases

and all kinds of things. Those were all still in their place, but on top of them all were just pounds and pounds and pounds of plaster. We looked at one another and I said, oh my God, do you realize if we had put him to bed half an hour ago, he'd probably be dead by now. That would have been where his head is. There's no way he wouldn't have been gravely injured, even killed by something like this. We moved some of the plaster off his bed. The piece that was on his pillow was so heavy and so large,

I just don't see how it wouldn't have broken his skull. We have no idea why it collapsed. It wasn't like it was a bad storm and lightning struck the house or a tree fell on the roof. We had no warning in our mind that that ceiling was going to fail or going to fall. When I was downstairs refusing to put him to bed, I wasn't thinking, I can't put him to bed because I think something bad is going to happen.

I just didn't want to put him to bed. There was just something in me that prevented me from following through as I normally would and put him to bed. We went back down to see our son. We were both just so relieved and so grateful that he was still downstairs happily watching Wendy and the lost boys, watching Peter Pan. We didn't know how to understand what had just happened. People have said to me, well, it's mother's intuition, or you had a sixth sense,

or perhaps there was some guiding spirit that intervened. I don't know if there was a connection. There must have been something, but for whatever reason, I didn't want to put him to bed and that happened to be the night the ceiling fell. The coincidences aligned or something aligned so that it fell at a moment that I had prevented my son from being in the room. Could have fallen on a Saturday when they were playing in the room. My son and daughter would play in that room often, but it did not. It fell the one night where I inexplicably

violated my own standards and routines with the children. Because of that, my son didn't die that night. or popular games like Blackjack, Baccarat, and Roulette. Download the BetMGM Casino app today. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. BetMGM.com for T's and C's. 90 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you,

please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Crime Writers On is the podcast where authors and journalists talk about the latest true crime series, documentaries, and podcasts. Talk about what's on the charts and find those up-and-coming podcasts you'll be talking about. It's like a fun and smart book club discussing what makes good storytelling and teaching how to become a critical listener. Or not. And stick around for the Crime Writers Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down reviews. It's the original true crime review podcast.

Crime Writers On, wherever you get your podcasts. Like probably right here. Hello? Hello? Over here. Over here. Yes, I'm in here, rather. In the TV. Put it on Channel 3. Okay, so I guess stranger danger is still a good policy after all. I should have known this would happen. Far too trusting.

The entity, which I mistakenly took for a fellow gardening enthusiast, actually just tricked me into swapping places. While you were enjoying that last tape, I got sucked into my television and that duplicitous monster broke free. It took my car keys, which also had that tiny gym membership card attached to it. I love that little card. Anyway, so as you can see,

I need a little help getting out. Oh, Malachi, Malachi. Oh great, I'm so glad you're here, Malachi. I need you to go fetch some help. Perhaps you could call an AV repairman or the Long Island medium or that blonde boy, Tyler, what's his name? The one who scribbles on a pad with celebrities.

Someone with expertise. Wait, well, Malachi, what are you doing? No, be careful, Malachi, no. No, don't do that. Don't you dare turn this TV off. Malachi, I am warning you, don't. No, please, I'll do anything. I'll make you some extra T-U-N- Radio Rental is created by Payne Lindsay

and brought to you by Tenderfoot TV. Executive producers Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright. Hosted by Rainn Wilson as his character, Terry Carnation. Produced by Payne Lindsay, Mike Rooney, and Meredith Stedman. Thank you. Trevor Eiler and Rob Sheridan. If you have a Radio Rental story that you'd like to share, please email us at yourscarystory at gmail.com or contact us via the form on our website, radiorentalusa.com. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter at Radio Rental. You can also follow the illustrious Terry Carnation on social media.

Just search at Terry Carnation. To hear more from Terry, listen to his podcast, Dark Air. Special thanks to Grace Royer and Oren Rosenbaum at UTI, The Nord Group, Station 16, Beck Media and Marketing, and the team at Cadence 13. On behalf of the Radio Rental Store, we'd love it if you'd subscribe, rate, and review. And don't forget to share our show with a friend of the genre. Thanks for listening. stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you're listening right now.

Then join me if you dare.