Suspicious Silence

Well since I started writing to this blog last week, Marty has been eerily silent. It's as if it knows I'm paying attention and is deliberately keeping quiet here on the third floor. Or perhaps it's busy with some of the other tenants in the building. I keep expecting something to happen, but it hasn't. Maybe that's the key - just pay no mind to it and stuff happens (like so many things in life!). I f you think about it too hard, it gets all screwed up!
Will keep you advised...

Josh and Susan Get Involved

3/5/05
Today was the first day in a week that I haven't heard footsteps in my apartment. The idea of having a ghost in my apartment doesn't bother me at all. At least it doesn't leave dirty dishes and laundry around, and it doen't eat my food. I've had worse roommates.
I went to work tonight and went to talk to Susan. She said the thinks the ghost paid them a visit today in Josh's apartment. They were asleep today and around 1:30 or so they woke up to the sound of dishes clanking around. She said Josh walked into his kitchen, thinking I had come to get back some plates he had borrowed. I wasn't there, being asleep in my own bed. But they could still hear the clanking sound. It was coming from the piece of attic that he has in his apartment, similar to mine. He walked into the attic part, and the noise stopped!
Josh later confirmed this story. He said he heard footsteps in his house, then the clanking dishes sound. Finding no one in the kitchen, he realized the noise was coming from the attic area. As he was getting his flashlight to check in there, the noise stopped and there was nothing in the attic when he opened the door!

My attic. The little speck of light is where the roof joins the floor. No other door but the one I was standing in to take this picture.

The Ghost Gets Noisy

3/4/05
For the last five days, Every time I'm sitting in my apartment, I hear footsteps walking around. I keep expecting Josh or Susan to walk in (Josh moved into apartment #5 in January and his girlfriend stays there a lot. They're good friends of mine from work. We're constantly in each other's apartments.) But no, all I hear are footsteps. No one there. Sometimes they're coming from another room, the bedroom, the bathroom, the closet, the kitchen. Sometimes they sound like they're right in the same room with me. I've yet to capture anything with the camera trick Dean used.
Two days ago, on Wednesday, my wife came by to drop off my cell phone I had left at her house. We got to talking about my ghost, and how several people have commented that there's "something" going on in the attic area. So she asked to see the attic. I opened up the door and showed her the attic. Nothing, as I expected.
Hmph! she grunted, unimpressed. So I closed the door to the attic, and locked the deadbolt, pushing the latch thing down. I turned around to talk to her and right behind me I hear click! I turned around and looked at the door. The latch on the deadbolt was pushed up! I made sure I pushed it down! Now it's turned up! What the fuck?

In the Morning- A Picture!

The next day, I got home from work around 6:30 am or so. Dean was asleep on the couch. He woke up and asked how my night was, what's new, etc. I said 'Fine" and asked what happened with the ghost thing last night.
"Let me show you something," he said.
He pulled out his PDA, a Sony Clie with a built in camera. he pulled up a picture of my living room. There was my desk, my computer, the coffee table, the ottoman, the lamp... and in the middle of it all, a column of blue light standing right in the middle of the room!
"What the fuck is that?" I asked him.
"I don't know, but that's what I took a picture of."
"You saw this?" I asked, incredulous.
"No, I didn't. It just occured to me to pull out my little camera on this thing and look around. I was panning the room, looking at the screen and I noticed this in the frame. It wasn't till I moved the camera away that I realized something was there, so I panned back, and there it was. So I took this picture."
Holy shit!
I've seen photos and stuff on TV and the internet of that kind of stuff, and I figured that they were special effects or atmospheric phenomenon or hoaxes. But this was a simple picture taken with a PDA! And Dean has no graphics software to edit any special effects into it. And I know that there are no atmospheric phenomena going on in my living room!
I even took several pictures of the room from similar and different angles with the same lighting and with different lighting at the same time of day and at different times of day. None of them reproduced the blue light column in Dean's picture.
Unfortunately, Dean moved back to Ohio the next week and forgot to give me the picture. His cell phone is cut off and I have no way to contact him. Dean, if you read this, please send me the picture! renegator@hotmail.com
Maybe I really do have a ghost in my house!

I'm Not The Only One

In January 2005, my friend Dean moved out of his apartment and was moving back to Ohio. He needed somewhere to stay till he actually left New Orleans, so I said he could stay with me. He stayed for three weeks. No problem.

One day I was at work and Dean called me on my cell phone.
D: Hey, how's it going?
Me: Pretty good. What's up?
D: Not much, but I have a question for you.
Me: OK.
D: Who's that guy in the picture on your fireplace?
Me: That's my dad.
D: Is he dead?
Me: Yeah he died about 10 years ago. Why?
D: 'Cause I think he's here.
Me: (Thoughtful pause) ...I beg your pardon?
D: Yeah I spent the day at the museum, and when I got home, it felt like someone else was here. It just feels like someone else is here in your apartment. And every time I look at that photograph on the fireplace, it just seems to be glowing.

Oh great; Dean's flaking out on me! I think to myself.
Me: Well, are you ok?
D: Oh yeah, I'm fine. I'll try to find out what I can and call you back.
Me: OK, you do that. Let me know what happens with that. Bye!
Click

Terrific. Dean's a flake.
Later...

Ring!
Me: Hello?
D: Does the name "Marty" mean anything to you?
Me: No. Why?
D: Cause I still feel this presence in your apartment, and the name "Marty" keeps popping into my head. You sure it doesn't mean anything to you?
Me: Well, my father's grandfather, my great-grandfather, was Martin, who came here from Ireland. Other than that, no.
D: Well, ok, I'll try to see if I can find out any more.
Me: OK, you do that. Let me know what happens with that. Bye.
Click!

Hmm. I recall the incident with the door a couple of months ago. There's no way that door could have opened by itself. I wonder if these two events are related? Maybe there is something to Dean's story. I've never thought of him as the type to be much of a flake. I wonder what he'll tell me in the morning?

The picture of my dad on the fireplace. Kitchen in background.

The Cat

After that incident, I didn't really think too much about it. But one thing I did notice was that my cat had a bizarre preoccupation with the panelled wall that the door to the attic is in. He would spend hours trying to climb the wall, pawing at no-see-ums, and just staring at it. Every time I opened the door to get something in the attic space he would clamor to get in there. Again, I didn't think much of it, other than I had a crazy cat.

The infamous wall

In The Beginning...

OK - here's how it all started. I moved into my new apartment after getting separated from my wife. It's a cool place at City Park Avenue and Allard Blvd in New Orleans. My apartment is on the third floor, it apparently used to be attic space that was converted into two apartments. I live in Apartment #4. Also on the third floor is apartment #5. When I moved in, #5 remained vacant for about four months, though the real estate people would show it to prospective renters all the time.

In my front room (the living room) there is a wall with heavy wood panelling. A door in this wall leads to the unconverted attic area which I use for storage. I'll post pictures on here soon.

I work at night, so one day in November 2004 I was asleep, when a sound woke me up. I knew I didn't imagine it because my cat heard it too. I saw him staring intently into the living room from my bedroom. The sound was a door opening, and scraping against carpet. At first it figured it was the real estate agent showing the other apartment. But then I realized that Apartment #5's door doesn't sound like that. The only door I've heard that makes that sound is the one that leads into my attic. Not only that, but that is the only door that really latches well (it's an old house), so you have to actually turn the knob and push it against the carpet to open it. It doesn't blow open from the wind.

Realizing that someone had to open that door, I jumped out of bed and walked into the living room. Sure enough, the door was standing wide open! I checked to see if anyone had broken into my apartment, but the front door was closed and locked, the balcony door was locked, and the window was shut. Could someone have come in from the attic? I got a flash light and checked. Nope, no doors or hatches. the only way in or out was that door! So who opened it?

Not one to put too much credence in ideas of poltergeists and haunted houses, I went to the hardware store and bought a deadbolt lock for the door. Done and done. That should settle it. No more mystery catburglars coming into my house!

Or so I figured.