Spooked - The Occupants

Episode Date: February 23, 2024

Old houses have seen so many occupants. And just because former tenants have moved out, doesn’t mean they’ve truly left. STORIES Mirror in the Bathroom When Pastor Sara Bishop looks in the mirror at her new house, she can’t see herself. She can see the last tenant... and he’s been dead for a long time. Thank you, Sara, for sharing your story with Spooked. Produced by Annie Nguyen, original score by Leon Morimoto Haunted Hacienda You’re not supposed to mess around with mirrors and Bloody Mary. You’re not supposed to mess around with Ouija boards. And you’re definitely not supposed to mess around with white magic. But Jose Moreno and his friends don’t know that... yet. Thank you, Jose Moreno, for sharing your story. Produced by Chris Hambrick with help from Erick Yañez. Original score by Davey Kim. Artwork by Teo Ducot. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Electric word life. It means forever and that is a mighty long time. But I'm here to tell you, there is something else. You're listening to Spoot. Stay tuned. I want to know what this journey represents, what it is we seek.

Is it a peak into the infinite void? Is it a whisper from one loss? Maybe. Maybe, but in the end, it's more. basic than you might imagine. In fact, in fact, a mystery. This mystery, it boils down to one simple question. Pull the cloak over your head and don't wander off the path because spook starts.

Now, Pastor Sarah Bishop, a pastor Sarah, she's a very keen eye for decorating the good pastor, she knows that a mirror can make any room bigger and brighter. But Pastor Sarah doesn't know is that a mirror can do so much more than that. I like to have strategically placed mirrors so that I can see my surroundings. Being able to see is one of those really key things. And plus, if you set them up just right, you can get the light to reflect beautifully

or you can get light on the plants. At least one hour a day, I sit down and I write fiction. So I'm sitting with my back to the door and I have a mirror above my desk so that if someone comes into the room, I can see who they are. So I am writing on my computer and glance up at the mirror

and I see this shape standing behind me. It's a dark, gray, fuzzy shape of a man. I spit around to confirm. whoever is behind me and there is no one there and I much more slowly spin back and look at the mirror and the shadow is still there I don't know what it is I'm seeing in the mirror but I know that I am not seeing it in the room so I take the mirror down and set it face down on the desk and say go away and sit down and pretend like I'm writing again this house is really cute and I really like it

But one thing I don't like is when I walk into a room and I walk past a mirror, it is as if somebody else has just walked past the mirror in the other direction. And there's nobody there. The way that I dealt with that was truly avoiding reflective surfaces. I decided that one of the things I needed to do was to confirm that this was not in my eyes. because I have what's called floaters. They're these large strings of protein inside the vitreous mass of your eyeball. I went to the doctor and said, I'm seeing these floaters,

but I only see it when I look in the mirror. After a full examination, she reassured me that, no, that is not how it works. If one of the floaters was getting large enough, I would see it. all the time. And so at that point, I had to go with the Sherlock Holmes when you've tried everything logical. You need to look at the illogical. And that was when I decided that I had to accept that there was something going on that I didn't know or understand. The bathroom has this hideous pink shagged deep carpet, which is easily the stupidest thing anybody's ever done.

and I'm putting on my eyeliner to get ready to go out. I've gotten really good at only looking at my face. I'm very focused on just my eyeball. I happen to glance up, and there's that shadow on the wall again. I make eye contact with the place that the face would be, and suddenly a face pops out. The eyes have crinkles around the edges of them, like laugh wrinkles, but it's more like frown wrinkles. And the eyes are angry.

And there's this grumpy old man looking back at me. I jump back away from the face in the mirror and streak eyeliner across my face, and next thing I know I'm sitting on the floor trying to figure out what happened. I have a recognizable crisis mode, and crisis mode is turning as much of the emotions off and dealing with the things that I can control and controlling them well, and I took all the mirrors down, except for the bathroom mirror, because that one was attached. It's Saturday, and on Saturdays Jane and I clean. we share the chore of cleaning each other's house. So then it only takes us two hours to get both houses done. And also, you know, you turn up the music and laugh and have a good time.

I'm glad that Jane has the bathroom because in order to clean the mirror, I would have to look at the mirror. So that's her problem, not mine. I'm vacuuming and she's done with most of the bathroom, and I hear the windex spraying at the mirror. and then there's this swallowed, scream, and gasp. I dash into the bathroom to make sure she's okay. I see her standing with her back against the wall looking at the mirror.

So I said, what do you see? And she says, well, he's this lean, old, angry-looking man with a really sharp nose and really bright eyes. I don't think I've ever seen so many wrinkles. Ever. And I said, I'm not crazy. She says, you're not crazy. I'm standing in the kitchen and I'm washing dishes. And it was one of those big, beautiful farmhouse sinks. And I look over to my left through the door into the laundry room. I get a glimpse of a kid sitting on the washing machine. He was just sitting there looking at me. This is just some normal looking kid wearing jeans.

and a yellow shirt with a black stripe around the sleeve. I look back at my dishes, and so very slowly I turned to look towards the washing machine. There was nobody there. Getting a glimpse of this kid on the washing machine is kind of conflicting because on one hand, I'm really relieved that it's not the old man. On the other hand, this is another ghost, So I decided that I was going to investigate this.

I called the property manager and pretty much accused them of renting me a haunted house. He insisted that he didn't. I asked, which is really kind of foolish, if there was any sort of protection for renters who are renting a haunted house. And of course he told me there was not, and that the house wasn't haunted. I asked about the history of the house.

Can you tell me a little bit about the past tenants? Can you tell me what's happened in this house? Can you give me any reason why I would think this house is haunted? He said that the last family had had two deaths. Two of their children died tragically. And it's why they broke their lease when they did. I wanted to know more about the kids. kids, but he's being pretty close mouth about it.

He's just telling us that it was tragic and unexpected and in relatively close time to each other. So maybe that's who the little boy is that I see. But it doesn't explain the old man, and I said, look, I'm seeing an old man. Can you tell me who the old man is? and I should have been a little suspicious at this point because he says, I tell you what, I will give you the contact information for the owner. Property managers aren't supposed to do that. And it took some time, but I worked up the nerve and I'm going to call the owner.

Hi, this is Sarah, and I'm renting your house in Colorado. We've been seeing some strange things around the house. Can I ask you a few questions? Very patiently, she said, sure. what kind of questions? And I said, well, I keep seeing this older gentleman. I didn't want to call him an old man because I didn't know if it was her husband or something. I had no idea how old she was.

And she said, oh, what kind of older gentleman? And I said, well, he seems to be grumpy. or annoyed at something. And she said, well, that sounds like my father. And she asked me to describe him to her. So I said, well, he's taller than I am, and I'm 5'3 foot 3, with very wrinkled face and kind of a angular aquiline nose. I think the thing I noticed the most is there's a lot of wrinkles and they're very frowning.

And she says, yes, that sounds a lot like him. And she said that her father had died a few years ago, and it was his house. And he'd taken great pride in the house, and he loved it. And she had decided not to sell it, but to rent it out. And that gave me enough information to think that this might be what was going on. That he just simply was not ready to give up the house, and he was really pissed about anybody being in the house. And I said, oh, is there anything I need to know about this?

And she said, I can't think of anything. And so that was, I was dismissed. That was the end of that conversation. She did not offer very much help. I get along with grumpy old men when they don't scare me. And I didn't particularly see him very often after that because I was avoiding the mirrors. But if I did, I would just see him. sort of do this terse nod, like, hey, and immediately move on.

We were moving from Colorado to Washington. My best friend Jane and I are driving across country. I had gotten a job with the Smithsonian, so I was happy. My degree was doing its job. I was pulling the car out of the driveway, and I turned my head to look at the house, one last time. The little boy is standing in the garage. And I said,

oh look, he's saying goodbye. And she says to me, I don't see him. And never turned. She didn't like it. And we left. Thank you. Thank you so very much, Sarah, for sharing your story with spook. Now, first up, I got to let

my younger self be the first to plead guilty because up at the event, what the ladies looking, I feel like you've got to You gotta be the first to have a party trick to set yourself out from the crowd, right? Right? But what if your cool caper goes a little bit of ride? Huh?

I grew up in a city called Pachuca, one hour north from Mexico City. My house, it was built on the grant that was a hacienda before. We had this big living room with big furniture and a bookshelf and some typewriters, two typewriters, to be exact, because my dad is a fan of typewriting. I used to stay up late watching TV and then I heard like someone was typing. I heard one tick and this typing started again. And it was like three or four letters each time. Boom, I get this feeling like goosebumps over my body. And it's like, uh-uh.

And I close my eyes. I felt like somebody else was there, but I couldn't see it. I was 12 years old. We had this school project. I invited oil my group of friends to my house. And we were like 10 kids. We had dinner there. But we actually did nothing about the project.

We were on the garden, we were playing, we were running, we were doing any other stuff. And then some of my friends then asked me, why is that cross on the garden? It's this white cross with some bricks inside it on the white stand. And I said, I don't know, it's nothing. It's just there because it's an ornament or something. But this is a really considerable size cross, like something you can find in a graveyard. And there was this kid, Lalo, that said, I think I can use it to play with white magic. It was like, what?

Yes, I can do white magic and can make things appear or disappear as I want. We didn't believe him because he was like the class clown. It was starting to get dark. And then one of my friends comes and tells me like, hey, I can't find my wallet. Do you have it? Of course I didn't have it. And my friends either.

So it was lost. Lalo, he said, I can find it. I can make it appear in front of the cross. Because I do white magic. He standing in front of the cross and make this sign with his hand against his forehead. And then he closed his eyes and we were all silent. Then he said, hey, look behind the cross.

And there was a wallet. And it was like, oh, please you put it there, you stupid. So he tried to do another thing to convince us he could do magic. He went for a notebook and a pen. And he drew something. and it was like, hey, something's going to happen, I'm telling you. And then nothing happened. We're like, okay, you're fine, keep doing your magic.

It's great. We started talking and running around and playing near the fountain and the cross. And then 30 minutes later, one of the girls screams. Then the other one says, hey, he fainted. Julian, this kid in our group, passes out. I'm really scared because I don't know what's happening and it's my house and someone fainted. So we run there and we start like checking him out, like giving him some flaps and moving him. But he didn't wake up.

Then he wakes up. And he's not the same guy? He was just small. small, weak brunette kid. Julian was like a bullet on our classroom, but when he wakes up, his eyes are red, his arms are really big, like swollen or something. He has like an angry face. Julian stands up looking at us and says with this weird mature boys, Castle in my castle That means what are you doing

in my house The girls freak out And they run to the house Then the boys freak out too And run to the house Behind the girls And one of them Says, hey, don't let Julian

come in Three of the boys close the door I was behind them Then Julian comes And he opens it with just one hand That's a really big door It's a big crystal door.

Three of my friends are trying to close the door, but Julian with just one arm can open it again. It starts to get scary because he has this really angry face, like he's going to do something to us. He's mad at us because of something, and he's also strong now. I have two of my friends crying on the couch, and the three of them trying to close the door

while he's opening it, and they are fighting. While all this thing is going on, Lalo is inside on the couch. He's not trying to close the door. He's not trying to do anything. He's just sitting there. I just yelled, Mom. And she was like, eh, what's going on? What's going on?

What's going? And it was like, please come downstairs. And she said, yeah, give me a minute. and then she goes slowly downstairs. What's going on? Why are you screaming? So everybody stops. The door was open.

And Julianne changes again to his normal voice and tells my mom, No, pas a nothing, seora, all bien? Yeah, we're going to caller. That means, oh, it's okay. Nothing's going on here. We will put the volume down.

It was weird because at that moment, his face is not mad. His face is his normal face. Maybe not his arms, but his face and his voice are his voice. She says, okay, and goes upstairs again. Then he looks back at me and says, Hey, why did you call your mom?

His normal voice is like high-pitched, like some kind of squeaky like, hey, me. So that's when I really knew. something was not okay. I really start to think there is someone else inside Julian's body. So we push him out again

and close the door and I'm kind of paralyzed about the situation. So I go upstairs and speak to my mom. She's on her bedroom and she's doing some ironing. So I

approach her and like, mom, this is going on. Julian is downstairs outside the door with this really weird voice and I don't know what to do. Then my mom says, you should go out and talk to him alone and ask him, why are you here? So when I go down the stairs again, my friends tell me Julianne wants to talk to me. I'm petrified. What if it passes on to me? It's dark outside now, so I really don't want to go out and talk to a scary person when it's dark outside. I opened the door. I go out. It was cold. I approached him. And He's looking at me with this really serious face. I just came and said,

Who are you? He answered, How who I am I, I'm Pablo, Pablo Lopez. I'm here. Pablo I live here. Pablo Lopez.

I'm 65 years old and this is my house. What are you doing in my house? What are you doing in my house? house. So I tell him, my name is Jose Antonio. I live here with my mom, my dad, my brothers, and my dog. Because we rent this place. And don't worry, we are going to take care of it. And everything is going to be okay. You can be in peace. You can be calm about it. So Julian slash Pablo, passes out again. And I felt calm.

I felt like something really went away. And my friends opened the door and go out and says like, hey, what's going on? Why is he on the floor again? And I say, I don't know. I just talked to him and told him, why are we here? I didn't say anything else to them because they didn't really need to know it.

It was like a private talk between Julian Pablo and me. Then Julian wakes up again. With his arms looking normal, his eyes looking normal again. And just with his normal voice again and asks, hey, what's what are you doing? Why are they crying? I was really angry. I said, oh, you were joking. you stupid and everybody started jelling at him and bullying him again.

20 minutes later, his mom comes and get him and take him home. Then we really talk about what happened. We just cleaned up, their moms picked them up, they went home, and my parents were like, okay, just keep calm. Nothing's bad, nothing's wrong. I was really worried anyway. The morning after that, I found a drawing that Lalumade. And it was like a star.

I think it's called a pentagram. I really think I'm not alone yet. I think there's something else there. But we just happened to open a portal that day. I'm really scared that. There's something or someone else in the house trying to approach me or that they can get into me like they did to Julian. So I burned the drawing and I sleep with the light sun for three weeks maybe. For my parents, it was really casual to talk about it.

So one night when they invited the owners to have dinner with us, they told the story. So they asked the owners if they felt anything, if they had anything before. And they said, no, they said everything was normal. And they asked, do you know anything about this guy, Pablo Lopez, who lived here? And they said, no, but I don't know if it was him or if it was called Pablo. But we know before you came here, an old person, an old guy died here. I'm some kind of speechless. I just want to know why?

he trying to stay in the house? Why was he trying to approach me or us? Actually, when it was dark, I didn't want to go out. I didn't want to go to the garden because I couldn't put my

feet on the grass without feeling this energy or these goosebumps again all over my body. That's where I freak out. That happened for a long time. I couldn't

step on the garden at night for like two years. Much obliged to Jose Moreno for sharing your story of Spook. Remember, if you have a story that you'd like to tell, send it our way any way you can spooked at stampjudgment.org. We've reached the time to end to part ways, but not the end of time. There is so much spokeser, so many stories from the veil awaiting your listening, pleasure. The world has made of stories. And if you like your stories,

be told under the light of the sun. Check out our sister podcast. Snap, judgment. Every episode unfolds like a movie. Only a movie for your ears. It's an absolute certainty that these people will be the first ones bitten during the imminent zombie infection. Please run away. If you see him on the street from Mark Ristich,

from Anna Sussner, Chief Spookster, Eliza Smith, Chris Hamburg, Annie Nguyen, Rissadge, Tiffany DeLisa, Anne Ford, Eric Danyas. Seneca, Sena Khan, Lenzel Goryo, Dafi Kim, added his musical talent to that of Leon Monimoto, Jacob Winning.

Original score by Lauren Newsom. The spooked theme songs by Pat Lucille Miller. My name is Glen Washington now. You don't succeed. Consider yourself fortunate. Take that as a sign to never. Never, never, never, never.