I’m still not sure which part is worse: the fear, or the humiliation of realizing I might be trapped here for the next 15 years.

I did everything people tell you to do when you’re chasing “the big life upgrade.” I emptied my savings, signed a long loan, and bought the apartment I’d always wanted in a central, beautiful neighborhood. The deal was insanely good. A company had bought the old 70s building, started renovating, got punched in the face by the pandemic, and needed liquidity fast. My friend in real estate said it was a once-in-a-decade opportunity. I believed him. I moved fast. Too fast.

Only after I moved in did I find out I was basically the only real resident.

Out of 12 units, mine was the only one lived in full-time. The others were being prepped for short-term rentals. The first floor had a tiny unit used as storage. The rest were silent, locked, and waiting for strangers with suitcases. It should’ve felt like a luxury—no neighbors, no noise, no drama. Instead, it felt like living inside a paused movie where the credits never roll.

The first night I stayed, I was unpacking until I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I fell asleep on the floor with the TV on. Somewhere between exhaustion and dreams, I started hearing something that felt… wrong. A strange chanting. Not music. Not a prayer. Not a voice I could recognize. It sounded human, but not alive in any normal sense.

I forced myself awake. Turned off the TV. The chanting didn’t stop.

It wasn’t coming from the screen. It was coming from the wall. From the apartment next to mine—the one that was supposed to be empty. At nearly 4 a.m., my panic turned into a stupid kind of courage. My balcony was almost touching the neighbor’s balcony. I climbed over.

The second my feet landed there, the sound died.

Instantly.

Like it had been waiting for me to cross a line.

I crawled back, heart punching my ribs, and told myself I was hallucinating from stress. A new place. A huge debt. A building too quiet for its own good.

The next morning I met the cleaning lady. She’d worked there since the 90s, the last link to the building’s original life. I asked carefully if anyone else had been around that night. She gave me the kind of smile people give the nervous new guy and told me old buildings make old sounds. Echoes, she said. Memories in the pipes. Wind in the wrong hallway.

Then she told me a story from 1984.

A 16-year-old girl who lived on the top floor ended her life by jumping from her balcony. Her father found her… and the scream that left him, the scream where he shouted her name, became a legend. People claimed that on some nights, they still heard it—like a recording trapped in the walls.

I tried to laugh it off. But later that day, she asked me to meet her on the rooftop. When she realized I lived on the third floor, her face changed.

“Lock your doors at night,” she said quietly.

She told me the third floor had a history. Three natural deaths over the years. One of them in my exact unit. But what chilled me wasn’t death—it was what happened after.

In 2000, three elderly couples bought all the third-floor units almost together. Best friends, retired dreams, a lifetime of loyalty. It sounded sweet. Until it wasn’t.

They installed a gate outside the stairs and elevator, blocking the hallway like it was their private kingdom. They stopped paying building fees. At night, they stomped, laughed, screamed, threw parties that felt more like rituals than celebrations. A neighbor once forced his way in to confront them and came out seconds later… eerily calm, silent, and changed. He moved out soon after. The couples were eventually evicted.

Then they vanished.

No proper answers. No clean ending. Just a story that everyone filed away as “we survived that era.”

I tried to breathe through it. I told myself I was safe because time had passed. Renovations had happened. Locks had changed. And I wasn’t a superstitious person—just a person with a mortgage panic attack.

Then, last week, a young couple checked into the unit below mine.

At around 3 a.m., they knocked on my door. The boyfriend was apologetic but frustrated. The girlfriend looked like she hadn’t slept in a year. They said they could hear someone above them—moving, chanting, pacing. They assumed it was me.

I opened my door wide to show them my dark, empty living room.

We stood in their bedroom together, listening.

Footsteps. Clear as day.

Not above their ceiling—across my apartment.

From my bedroom… toward my living room.

The girlfriend started packing fast. I tried to calm them and said maybe we could all sleep in one room, maybe safety was just being near another human being. They looked at me like I’d said something insane.

Then I mentioned their grandmother.

The old woman I’d seen earlier near their door.

They went pale.

“We’re not traveling with anyone,” the boyfriend said.

I didn’t even pretend to be brave after that. I left with them. I slept in a cheap hotel a few blocks away, staring at the ceiling, wondering how a dream can turn into a psychological hostage situation in less than a month.

So tell me honestly—if you were me, would you stay and fight for the home you sacrificed everything for… or would you run before the building decides you’re part of its history too? 😔🔥