Spooked - Under The Stairs

Episode Date: October 19, 2018

The Basement: When one of Daniel’s kids started seeing ghosts, he was scared. When two of his kids started seeing ghosts, he was petrified. Under the Stairs: Mido discovers that the former tenants of her apartment left some breadcrumbs behind. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Listen, it is very simple. When someone tells you that their house is haunted, and snap judgment's underground layer, you are listening to Spoot. Stay. My grandmother told me that after she passed, she told me exactly where she was going to sit, which is exactly where she always said in the front room, next to the TV in her cushion chair.

And nobody else bed not ever sit here, neither. Not ever. Mm-hmm. She said no one will to disturb her blankets either. That she laid them blankets over the chair like that for a reason, and to keep your nasty hands off of them, and there won't be no trouble. You hear me, baby? Yes, them.

I don't know you hear me, but the rest of you fools better hear me, too. My cousins, my uncles, my aunties, they scattered when Granny was in her mood. I said that you hear me I'm gonna sit right there in that chair and I'm finally going to get my rest baby and after she passed after the flowers after the singing after the preachers after the funeral

and after the food Granny's chair and Granny's blankets they did stay right where she left them stayed there for a long long time but after some setbacks, some criminality, after some tragedy, my family doesn't own that home anymore. Some other family does, and I always felt bad for them

because if they thought to mess with the decor, to move that chair, or touch those blankets. My name is from Washington, and spook starts to walk this path and opened these doors with us. May recall a few episodes back when we heard a story from a man named Daniel Joseph about the time he was working a drywall job

and came face to face with a decaying head. Since then, you've asked for more Daniels or friends. More Daniel you shall have. What I do for a living is Monday through Thursday. I run a drywall business in central Wisconsin. In the weekend,

they're working a metal fab, parts out of sheets of steel, working three 12-hour shifts. I'm a father of five kids. The first three from a first marriage, which they'd see me on weekends. My daughter was born in 2009. We noticed that she would be acting like she was talking with somebody, interacting and playing and laughing, and being scared of somebody that we could not see.

And she went through a spell there for, I want to say, two years. My daughter would wake up, like, between 3 and 3.30, like, every single night of her life, having these insane screams. We took her to a doctor, her family doctor, and night terrors or something. This is what the doctor told us. We were confused and definitely scared. Because normally, you know, if she was scared of someone while she was awake, you could hug her, talk to her. I mean, in this time of night, you couldn't. Her eyes wouldn't even open up.

You couldn't touch her. If you touch her, she would just act like it hurt and scream even more and just wanted you to get away from her. But sometimes when she, near the end of those, actually, she would wake up and talk to us. And then she would start screaming and pointing. The kids are jumping on my bed. We didn't know what to think.

So at this point, my wife would grab the camera and start snapping off pictures. And that's when we started seeing all these the orbs, I guess people are calling them, but the little balls of light all over like the top of her bed, everywhere. And like, you know, what the hell is that? So it's a DSLR cannon,

and we're seeing all these little dots of light all up and around my daughter's bed. We've been through the dust test with this before. we would just take random pictures in the room and ask our daughter, actually, do you see anything there? She would say, no, when we're taking pictures, absolutely nothing there.

There's no orbs, there's no dust, there's no lights, there's nothing. It's a normal picture. It's a clean, clear picture of the room. Yet when my daughter points to something, says they're right there in a specific area, and you can see it in her face that she is definitely seeing something

because she is terrified while she's pointing and you take pictures and you see it on the screen with the camera, the lights, the orbs, whatever you want to call them, they're everywhere in that area she's pointing to. But I want to talk about one of the stories with my daughter. Okay, this isn't just night terrors, there's more to it. I believe she was three years old. We have never, like, talked about any of that.

Ghost or spirits. So one night, my daughter woke up. We thought she was having the night terrors, but she kind of snapped out of it, and she was screaming for us. I grabbed her, picked her up, and so I turned around, we kind of walk fast down the hallway towards my bedroom to put her in there, but we stop in the doorway because she starts to scream. And this is where she's kind of more terrified of what she sees in here, and she's pointing to above my bed, and she's like, Daddy. daddy, daddy, the old man, he's right there above your bed. And she said it's like an old man's face is what she would see. I mean, she was trying to basically hide her face into my shoulder and everything.

I'm getting angry, honestly. I'm trying to protect my child, you know. And so we go down the hallway and I ask her going down the hallway, do you see anything in the kitchen? And she's like, no, no, there's nothing in the kitchen. So we go into the kitchen and we sit down and we're trying to comfort her and not sure what to do

because what do you do in a situation like this? Waded out is what we decided to do and everybody's like, well, just get the hell out of there. Well, you can't. You've got a house full of stuff and I try not to give it any attention. We've learned this from talking with other people in the ghost business, I suppose.

we've heard ignore it and don't give it the attention it's seeking and life will be a lot more peaceful and that's kind of the route we're taking now but sometimes you still can't it was a few months later one of my older kids i believe he was probably about 16 or 17 he'd come for the weekend he was an a student he was uh made the state teams for baseball football and basketball actually Yeah, he had come for a weekend visit. And one night he had been in the basement. The basements in these houses that we live in are usually finished basements. We had made a video, trying to do a music video with him or something.

He was just goofing around. Regardless, we had a video camera going. And there was a... Yeah, we didn't notice it while we were filming. We went back to look at it, um, to do some editing. And we see this ball of light. It was kind of like floating up behind him around the ceiling and stuff. And actually at one point the ball of light, like an orb on the video, it like flew from the ceiling, kind of curved down in front of his face.

And like it went like through his head through the video. And then back up on the ceiling and it was just playing around and stuff. We all kind of freaked out. He's like, oh, that's just creepy, you know. I don't even want to be here if it's going to happen like this. It was around like a 3 o'clock in the morning. I was actually in my bedroom. I hear my son screaming for help.

He's screaming and he's yelling about an old man. I get out of my bed, I run down the hallway to the basement door, and all these boxes were just like stacked up in front of his door. It was a few boxes deep. and just very tall, almost to the ceiling. And I said, what in the hell is this? What's going on down here? There were large, somewhat heavy boxes.

It would take hours to actually do this. And he's just screaming for me. Yeah, dad, there's a man in my room. He's watching my TV. And I think, whoa. What? I'm digging through the boxes, actually. I'm pushing boxes over.

Enough to I grab the door handle, which had no locks on them. None. the door's locked. I can't, I can't get through the door handle. This was actually in the wintertime because it run back upstairs, I put my boots on, my snow boots on, and run out of the house around to the back where he's got his, the cross space windows in the basement rooms. I can see through his window through the curtain, because there there was a, you know, just like a lacy kind of curtain, see-through curtains,

and I see a man sitting in a chair. The, you know, reflection of the lights from the TV are lighting this man's face and his body up in the chair. And my kids sit down his bed, like, froze in with his fists up by his face, his blanket on him. He's just in there, like, just his eyes are wide open, and he's screaming. He's like, help me, help me, whatever. Dad, help me. Get this guy out of here, whatever. I can't move.

My heart is pounding. It's pounding. I'm terrified. I'm scared shitless, yet I'm ready to get in and kill somebody. Why is there a man in my house in my kids room and in my basement at 3 o'clock in the morning? There's no footprints in the snow. There was nothing in the snow. You know, I'm actually in pajama pants and a t-shirt in my snow boots.

and I kicked through the window. I busted up the window, jumped through that broken-ass window, and I'm watching this man as I'm doing this, and he just, he vanished. Just, he kind of looked over, like in the area of where I was, kind of looked over by me, and just vanished. My kid all of a sudden wasn't feeling like he was being held down anymore

or squeezed either, he said. He just felt freed up. He was free, and he's jumping out of the bed. He's trying to get through the, door while I'm coming through the window and I'm yelling for him to just freaking stop don't move just stop I'm gonna find this fucker I'm gonna kill him don't move stay on that bed don't move but you know I look under the bed I look in the closet still there's nobody there he he just disappeared he was just gone

it's just the guy was gone I grabbed this door I we pushed the door open and moved boxes and stuff like that. He ran his butt upstairs real quick. I kind of looked around in the basement. Where'd this guy go? I go back up. We're all sitting in the kitchen area. The worst part, the guy out of nowhere,

shows up outside the window. They got out of our kitchen window. We see him just peering through the window. The man has, like, white hair with the old white shirt and, like, a black coat. staring through the window. But his guys, like, eyes. His eyes are kind of, what I remember, he's focused on me.

He's staring at me now. Oh, my God, that was real. That he's there. Shit. My son was watching him, too. So it's one of those moments where you got, it's not just me, but there's somebody else there watching. My wife is actually watching too.

And everybody can confirm it, the same thing. Well, like, what did you just see? I just seen this. And I tell my God, what can you do? I don't know. I don't have answers. What are you supposed to do? You know, I'm dead.

I'm the protector, so I have to look and act fearless as I am yet, I'm afraid. Like any smart person would be. I yelled at him a lot. Get out of my house. If I get in there, I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill you.

I'm going to catch you. I'm going to kill you. Get out of my house. And then, of course, he banished her. It was just good. gone again. I would like to think that I was something special to be able to just scare him off, yes. I don't know. I'm a big dude too. I mean, I'm a martial artist and all that stuff too, and it'd be cool to think that, but I'm not going to be arrogant about it like that.

Never, never seen that again, never heard anybody speak of the old man again after that. My son, like, you know, he went back to his mothers. I'm not going to stick to a around tomorrow, but he never really came back for any overnight visits. Honestly, that really kind of hurt. But I understand. You have no answers either. Nobody does. Because how do you deal with that?

You can't. I'll burn some sage or whatever in your house. Get out of here with that. No, no thanks. Here's what I have to say to the non-believers. There's something creepy and it's bothering my kids. it's in my house. It looked at me.

It's something is there, period. I'm not going to deny it. If you want to deny it, that's your business. Thank you, Daniel Joseph. Someone's spook returns. The lesson you should already have learned by now, didn't I inform you when we started? If someone tells you

that the place is haunted in just a moment, stay. There is a time. For laughter, for playing the fool, for cracking jokes, there is a time for that. Certain things you never talk about. And the next storyteller, Nido, she didn't understand this basic concept around. Some lesson you have to learn the hard way. Spooked.

Okay, let me move my feet a little bit because, let me find it comfortable position first and talk about the story. Okay. Nita was a freshman in school for design at a university in the city of Taipei in northern Taiwan. Taipei is a metropolitan city that has a lot of trees, a lot of people, a lot of scooters.

And her boyfriend, Charlie, they needed a place to live that was close to campus. And they found the perfect apartment. Three bedrooms, two baths. Yeah, it was a great catch. You know, it's just fun. You stay away from your parents and live with your boyfriend and your classmates. And we set up like a PS station.

We have like mahjong table and we always have beer in the fridge. The only thing that seemed a little off was the staircase to nowhere. Now on the sixth floor, the landlord at that kind of rooftop apartment on top and then build the stairs into it. But then she wants to rent that part. So they just permanently seal that stay case with a lock. So there's like permanent stairs in our apartment, go to the sixth floor, but the door can never open. Kind of kind of creepy in that way.

So I was laying in bed. I remember the light coming from the living room. And Charlie just suddenly woke up after midnight. And then he walked towards the living room. and I presumed that he was going to go play some more game online. He just froze right by the bedroom door. And I remembered how odd it was because he was standing there for a minute or even two. And the sudden he just ran back to the bat and then covered himself.

He was just shaking and scared. I'm just like pure fear there. And he just like, can you just please go to check? if there's someone in the bathroom. I'm like, okay. So I walk out and I checked. There wasn't anyone there. So I checked everywhere.

You know, the whole house, there was no one there. So I come back and then he said, please close that door. So I closed that door. And he said he saw a girl with really long hair walking to that bathroom. I don't think I had any feeling about it. I was just listening.

and then accept that what he see what he see. I really thought he was just dreaming. I think he just woke up and his head wasn't clear and he saw some random things and he just made it all up in his head. During the second year, we got another roommate and his name is Venson. We just told, you know, Vincent, we have a spare room.

It's close to school and you give you cheap, and he's like, deal. He's like this really tall guy with glasses. He's a big guy. He's not like a small, easy, scared person. I think was the third day. So the third day he moved in with us. That night we have four people playing mahjong.

Normally we have bigger party, but that night I think it was a school night. So, you know, like, Madjong make a lot of noise. Kikla, click, click, clack, kick. that, right? And then it was like right after midnight. And Vincent suddenly just burst out from his bedroom with tears, like running down his face and then like sweat. His face is like bright red. Like everyone was shocked because he was burst out out of nowhere. First thing, he's like, why no one hear me screaming? I have been screaming the past hour and no one come to help me. And he ran into the couch. He just covered himself.

with blanket because he said he's cold and he just like shaking back and forth. It's midsummer. It's really hot, right? So one of the girls go to ask him if he's okay, but he doesn't answer. He just like shaking. A day after, he told me that he wanted to move out of the house immediately. And I'm like, okay, you can move out, but I'm not going to give a deposit back. He's like, I don't care about deposit. I don't care about the rent.

I'm just going to move out. Okay, okay, okay. But at least you have to tell me. what happened. So Vincent said that once he got off the school, he was so tired that he didn't even take off his pants or anything and just facing up and then just pass out. And he woke up and he heard us playing mahjong right in front of his door because it was so loud. But he couldn't move his body at all. He's trying to move his finger. He's trying to move his toes. But he suddenly felt like someone is holding his right hand.

He looked right and there's a tiny, tiny hand grabbing his hand really hard. After he saw the hand, he was freaking out. He just screamed. He said he was screaming so hard. He felt like everything's hurting. Like he just keeps screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming. And then suddenly that can just... release him, he suddenly can move

and he just burst out from his room. Then that's what we saw is that after Vincent moved out, I started to notice odd behavior from my cats. It's like to go walk to the staircase and just stare.

It's not like just stare. It feels like they see something. And that's really creepy to be honest with you because my cat didn't do that before. I I don't know how to say. It just doesn't feel comfortable.

The whole house just feeling really uncomfortable, to be honest with you. One night, right, it's also right after midnight. I was playing PS2 and Charlie was sleeping on the couch right behind me. I turned back and look at him and then trying to tell him something. And I saw his eyes was wide open. And his eyes wasn't blinking at all. The tears just keep running out of his face. Ice just red.

His mouth was drilling. And that's when the point I'm like, okay, this is really terrifying. No one can keep the eyes open for that long. This whole period is probably like 10, 15 minutes. His eyes was like wide open. I don't know what to do. I really don't know what to do.

Like what are you going to do with this kind of situation. So I just call 110, which is, you know, 9-1-1 in Taiwan. So I died at 1-0. the phone's ringing He just suddenly slowly close his eyes and he started to snore like deep snore like deep sleeping snore

I wake him up I'm like what are you doing he's like what are you talking about so after that happened I just decided we should move out I mean by then I'm pretty sure that there's something wrong with this house

but you know there was already March and the semester end like in June so I'm like we're going to wait for three months so in order to stay there for three extra months and I don't want anything happen to us I do the instant and paper money burning ceremony Incent burning and paper money burning ceremony is very traditional part of the Chinese culture

and the traditional part of the Taoism culture It's the way that we communicate with the debt. In Darwin, we believe that if we give money to the ghost, so they can use it in the other world, the ghosts will leave us alone. It's like a bribe. So I go down to the corner store to buy the paper money, and I borrow a metal pot,

and then we just set the pot right on the balcony. You basically throw all the paper money in there and burn it, And at the same time using the instant and saying your prayer and the instant will carry your message. You know, the smoke goes up. So it will carry your message to the heaven or the other world. You know, please accept our money. Please accept our message that we're going to move out.

We want to just be peaceful with you. Please don't harm us, basically. It worked really well. It works really well. We should have done that long ago because the whole atmosphere was just so much easier in every single room in the house. So that three months, everything was fine, nothing really happened. This is hard for me because this part is what I really see, right?

So the day we're moving out, I'm just going to have a last walk through the whole house and just trying to make sure we don't left anything behind, you know. And suddenly I feel I should. check under the staircase. There's a closet, you know, room closet under the staircase. It was just so dark and so dusty in there. I opened there probably once or twice, but never really cared to go looking what's in there.

So I opened a closet door and then I climb under the stair. You know, that's such a tight space. You basically have to climb into it. and I find a stack of 16mm film canister in there. And no one used 16mm film ever in Taiwan. So it was just so strange. I was trying to open it and look at it in the closet, but I couldn't because it was dark.

So I pulled them out in the living room. They were positive, so I just pulled it out, pull the one strip out and towards the light and look the film through the light. that's how I was able to see what was on that film. The subject was one girl. She looks probably like 12, 13, but she had like a square face, big shoulder,

two braided pig tails, all the way to her knee. And she was playing the playground, which is like three, four blocks away from the house. She was on the swing. Just only... by herself, like there was no playmate, no one on the street, and she didn't smile. She just stared into the camera, and I just saw that facial expression is something I would

never forget. In her eyes, there were just so much anger. Even till this day, I can still feel that girl staring at me. I'm very skeptical person, but I did see that film, I'm pretty sure about that. So I was just looking at that film and Charlie would just like suddenly show up, he showed up. So I showed him the film and I was like, is this the girl that you saw? He was just like, insist to just throw it away. He didn't want to do anything with it.

So we'd take it to the dumpster, we just dump it into the dumpster. I think she wanted to tell us something and we didn't listen I don't know if she really was haunted us or she was just maybe she was also scared but she wants someone to pay attention to her but yes I think that girl was the girl on the film was the girl walking around in that bad story it comes from me do lee medo's a spook listener let me tell you

We love it. When you share your terrifying tales of spook, drop us a line. Let us know how you bumped into the inexplicable spookpodcast.org. The record reflect. We are running toward all hallowed Eve. Halloween pushing back the boundaries between the shadow and the darkness. Before it is too late, tell everyone you know that the truth is out there.

Spookpodcast.org. Real stories be afraid. And if you did your stories From the light of day Subscribe to our sister podcast Snapjudgment.org Spook is brought to you by that crash

in the middle of the night and produced by Mark Ristich Anna Suss with John Fasiel Eliza Smith Our theme music was composed and performed by Pat the CD Miller Original soundscaping

for this episode by Leon Mornimoto Now you might move into a place that comes with kindly written instructions on what to do, when to take out the garbage, how to unplug the sink. Understand

no matter what it says on that scrap of parchment. Remember, never, ever. Never, never, ever, never, ever. Never, ever, never, never, never, never.