apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

My first college apartment was a quaint little circle of buildings, they were perfect for "starter families" or single parents, so there were a lot of young children scattered throughout the place. We were also located right next to an elementary school, it was such a cute little neighborhood. One day, a neighbor had a knock on her door from the police asking about the man who lived upstairs. They didn't run background checks on the residents and this guy was wanted for child molestation and other child/sex related charges in other states. And here he was, living in an area crawling with children. The landlords didn't seem to do much about it, saying that there was nothing they could do. It was a matter of keeping an eye on all the kids while they were outside, being a helping hand when they needed it, a babysitter while they ran to the store. I felt awful for the parents in those complexes.

Well, I used to live in this beautiful walk-up that was right near all the bars. One night I woke up to the fire alarm - I thought it was some prank but it turned out that someone torched a shed attached to the back of the building (two floors below my apartment). I grabbed my boyfriend and we started to leave - when we noticed that everyone had left the doors and windows wide open!! We ended up knocking on doors, closing windows/fire doors. That was more upsetting then anything else - they just bolted and didn't think at all about trying to save the building.

Anyway - not to make a joke of the situation but when the firemen arrived, that really changed everything. After hiking up all the stairs (four floors), they came down all sweaty and hunky and charming - it just seemed to make it all okay.

What didn't make it okay was when our landlord rebuilt the shed out back using the charred remains. He tried to hide it under a fresh coat of paint - we complained to the city inspectors.

Wow, what a scary experience! I'm sorry you had to go through that.

That is one thing about apartment living that does scare me but there isn't much you can do about it. We do have to rely on our neighbors to not put us in danger and that lack of control is very scary. I always think about that when I see apartment fires on the news. You can live as safe as possible but you can't control your neighbors.

I experienced a break in when I lived in Atlanta. They broke in when I was at work and went through EVERYTHING I owned. Every drawer, cabinet etc.. was opened. Everything had been touched. My clothes were all over the floor.. It was so violating. I was terrified that they had been watching me and knew my patterns and that they would come back.

I couldn't get over the fear.. my door had been kicked in and the lock didn't stop them. I had to move immediately because I just didn't feel safe at all.

It actually took quite a while for me to feel safe again. I was jumpy for a long time when I heard a noise but it slowly passed.

I hope I never have to go through that again. That sense of violation and fear was really difficult to deal with.

I hope you are able to move past your experience and find that sense of safety again. Your home should be your sanctuary.

As a student, I had an unstable neighbor who started to leave me gifts and creepy notes. When I went to the local cops, they said they knew all about him, but couldn't do anything until he hurt himself or someone else. It got to the point that I was conscious of every move I made inside the apartment in case he was outside my door listening. I moved out of the building. I was lucky enough to be able to get away. My landlord was sympathetic, but the eviction laws protected the stalker, not me, and frankly, I just wanted to go somewhere he couldn't find me. Some women might be unable to get away from a bad situation as easily.

When I lived at Dupont Circle (in Washington) my apartment was on the first floor but above ground level -- the windows were perhaps about 9 or 10 feet above the sidewalk (well above most peoples' heads). One night someone tried to climb in through my bedroom window -- I must have heard something because I looked through the curtains and there were hands on the windowsill -- a man was pulling himself up -- I screamed & screamed, and the whole neighborhood woke up and the cops came. It was a very hot night and I had the window cracked open at the bottom -- never again -- I got locks to lock the windows to the frame & opened them only from the top, and slept with a hammer next to me for weeks.

Burglary. Coming home to find your stuff gone through, scattered and stolen really stays with you. For two years after I felt that I'd just missed someone leaving every time I came home.

A couple of years ago the NYPD busted into my place by mistake ... It was the middle of the afternoon in the summer, and I was taking a shower to cool off between working on illustrations (it was one of those days where the humidity makes the paper stick to your arm!), and I gotta tell you it was the scariest feeling in the world ... Shivering in the bathroom in a towel while I heard the battling ram come in my front door, having no idea who it was busting in and being too frightened to come out of the bathroom. I literally had nightmares for MONTHS about people (govermental-type men-in-black sorts) coming in to haul me away. It was awful and my place hasn't quite felt the same since.

(It also didn't help that the swarm of cops that came in were REALLY mean and not even apologetic when realizing the mistake.)

I live in what some folks refer to as Hudson Heights on the northern end of Cabrini Boulevard, a quiet residential street of art deco buildings (mostly co-ops) that overlooks the Hudson River and runs into Fort Tryon Park. One evening this past summer, as I was hunkered down at my computer in the bedroom in the back of the building at about 7 p.m., a drama was unfolding on my neighborly little street four doors down, just across from the elementary school: three apartments (in a rental building) were being raided in a $7 million heroin bust. Six people were arrested; one guy broke his leg jumping out a window to escape. $100,000 was found stuffed into a Cap'n Cruch cereal box. And I missed the whole thing!

i used lived next door to a young girl who befriended a lot of homeless/ strange/ random people and would frequently let them sleep at her place. we were right off a main parkway near a transit stop, so there were always a lot of random people in the complex. one night, one of her friends knocked on the door starting at 11.45pm and kept on knocking every 15 minutes until 1.30am. finally, he decided to let himself in by smashing her front window. the next morning, i had overheard her talking to the complex manager, and come to find out she was passed out in her bedroom during the whole event. that same afternoon, i left a deposit for a new apartment in a new neighborhood.

A few months ago after driving cross-country to attend my high school reunion, I came home to DC and found my door wide open. Everything of moderate value (to a crackhead at least) had been stolen, from radios and computers to tools and poker chips. Yeah, even poker chips.

I still worry about that door, and every time I come home my blood pressure spikes just a little bit until I see that it's still closed. Fortunately, the stress wanes a little more every time I go home.

I dealt with the loss (did I mention I had no renters' insurance?) by thinking of the incident as a check on my materialism, and trying to focus all the negative energy (grief, anger, etc) to on the things that actually matter in my life.

It sounds cliche, of course, and was far easier in theory than it was in practice. In the end, though, I had developed a great coping mechanism: when I think about loss, I reflexively focus on my family, my friends, my job, or any of the number of things that mean more to me than anything that can be stolen.

Most of the time, that is. A little catharsis (batting cage, driving range, or grilling a steak) is needed now and then to round out the self-prescribed therapy.

I live in Montreal where we have a very low crime rate. I never used to lock my doors (when I was home) unless they locked automatically. One day, after telling my landlord I'd be moving (news to which he reacted quite badly), I came home to find a light-up magnet on my fridge was lit. I never turned it on, because frankly, it was tacky, so I knew someone had been in my place. My landlord lived downstairs and all I could do was imagine him sniffing my laundry. Glad I moved out!

Then, this fall, a week after there were two attempted murders (teen gang related) in my area, an antique dealer was found murdered in his home a block away from mine. Not knowing if it was drug or gang related, we were pretty nervous as we have 2 back entrances accessible from an alley, and no back neighbours. We kept all doors and windows locked, all drapes pulled (so-long morning sunshine! :() Then we found out it was a lovers' quarrel, so luckily, we were able to go back to normal.

After my car was broken into thrice in three months, I was a little uneasy, so I can't imagine what would happen if my home was broken into. The bomb scare thing is scary. But, I guess what's scariest is just the not knowing of what exists. It's the lack of control that's scariest, I think. I live on Capitol Hill, and there is often random police activity (usually because of muggings) or "persons of interest." The one time I felt most unsafe in my home, though, wasn't anything to do with this. I lived in Annapolis, MD and they were calling for a Cat. 5 hurricane to hit (Isabel). Obviously, it didn't, and I feel silly even talking about it after the real devastation that happened with Katrina, but my boss at the time--a real weather fanatic--was painting all of these horror pictures for me, something in the line of what actually did happen in Katrina. The powerlessness of having to deal with nature definitely put my actual safety into perspective, not to mention the lack of community that existed around me--who would help me? Who would need my help? I went to a friend's for the day of the storm, but the feeling of not knowing what would or could happen opened my eyes a bit. We lost electricity for a week, and I had no light except for a small flashilight and no hot water. Things I never really thought about.

To deal with the uncertainty, I found that in the past few years, putting together an emergency supplies kit has made me feel a little more in control of those kinds of situations. I have sort of accepted that if someone were to do a real attack with a dirty bomb or something on the Capitol, I'd be toast, but if I have the necessary supplies all together for, say, a winter storm, or if I were to have to evacuate somewhere for whatever reason, at least I know I've done what I can. It sounds cheesy, but it's helped me rest a little easier.

BTW .. .that was meant to be "battering" not "battling" ram ;-)

This is actually a very timely post for me as my next door neighbor's house caught fire on Saturday. I live in a row house on a quiet street in a suburban Washington DC neighborhood, and a passerby noticed the smoke coming from the neighbor's house on Saturday afternoon. He knocked on my door and that of another neighbor and said "your neighbor's house is on fire!" Talk about startling! Fortunately the neighbor was not home at the time, so she (and everyone on our row) were not harmed. But one of her cats died from smoke. The cause was a faulty furnace, which she had been telling her landlord for weeks had a problem. This incident has definitely caused me to reevaluate the safety of our home and emergency plans. As a cat owner myself, I am especially concerned about the safety of my pets when I am not home. I have already learned a couple of things from this experience: 1. Know your neighbors, at least enough to know how many people live there, their names, and if they have any pets. When the firefighters arrived on the scene, they wanted to know who, if anyone, was inside, and we were able to tell them. 2. Make sure at least one of your neighbors has a phone number to reach you in case of an emergency, and if you know and trust your neighbors well enough, give them a key to your house to get in if necessary. We knew the neighbor wasn't home at the time, and another neighbor had a phone number to reach her and tell her to come home at once. 3. If you live in a situation where your landlord is not responsive to maintenance issues, especially those that could pose a safety risk, contact the appropriate authorities or get out! It's a lucky twist of fate the fire at my neighbor's house happened when she wasn't home, otherwise she might have died of smoke inhalation had it happened at night and she was home asleep. It may be expensive to break a lease, but it's not worth risking your life if the situation is potentially dangerous.

I had a creepy downstairs neighbor that used to leave plants outside my door. I actually still have one of the plants, 8-9 years later. He was weird and creepy and sweaty and well...ick. I stopped doing laundry in the building for fear of running into him in the basement. How'd it stop? My other neighbor who was not creepy (in fact, darn hot...) worked with the band Pantera. The Pantera guys were at his place one day and the creepy guy was at my door...so I called the good neighbor and Pantera came to my door like a Texas tornado...and the creepy guy never returned. Thank you Pantera!!!

My first apartment was broken into. I was in my second year of college, living in Clinton Hill. He climbed in through my bedroom window of our ground level apartment. It was a hot night and I had left the top part of my window open. Until then, I never noticed the bars on the windows all the first floor apartments seemed to have. The management let us switch to a third floor apartment which helped a lot. But it took a long time to regain any sense of safety. It was years before I slept with my door open, I still am adamant about checking locks. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to live on the ground level again.

I've experienced two very different situations that made my living environment a little questionable.

My first apartment was haunted. Crazy, right? That was really the only explanation for the things that happened there. Anyway, it was very difficult to ever feel at home there even if the things that happened weren't really scary.

Just this past December, a college student who had gone missing was found dead under the crawl space in her apartment just a few blocks from my house. One of the most frustrating (and necessary, I guess) things is that the authorities aren't releasing any information. Our doors are always triple-locked and I don't answer if a stranger knocks and my husband isn't around. Our dogs bark if someone knocks or rings so I hope that would deter someone.

You can't say it was haunted and leave out the details, Swan. And if the body was found in a crawl space of her own home, it wasn't some random stranger crime. Why should a stranger bother hiding the body? They don't live there.


A few years after my burglary, I came home at dusk and stopped on 181 Street. I had a back apartment above the Henry Hudson Pkwy and you could see the window from the 181 Street entrance. My curtain was fluttering out the window. I was agonized thinking it had happened again. Turns out the window latch had slipped and the window popped up to it's preset clearance. What a relief.

Jane-- It was my parents' building that had the big heroin bust. My dad stuck his head out his window and saw a bunch of NYPD and SWAT guys swarming the place. He thought it had to do with a rash of burglaries in the building, and he thought it was a bit of overkill. Once he saw the story in the Post, he made about a dozen copies of it and mailed it to all his friends and relatives, thus guaranteeing that if they ever come to NYC, they will *NOT* be staying at my parents' place! :)

(Sorry to hijack the thread everyone)

Lady J -

The details:

Our apartment was the top floor of a house built in the early 1900s. The space downstair has been occupied by several businesses over the years. While I lived there, a frame and art store was downstairs.

- Very early in this ordeal we started calling our ghost Miss Mary. That is very important later.

- The first sign was the sound of a grandfather clock chiming in our dining room. We spoke to the owner of the frame shop and she didn't have a chiming clock in her shop. She also said that she heard things there all the time and closed early because she wasn't comfortable there after dark.

- A chair literally slid across the kitchen. The floor was ceramic tile. My room mate and I were both there just a few feet away.

- Our security alarm beeped if someone opened our apartment door. It beeped like that constantly. The alarm company could find no shorts in the wiring.

- My room mate's 13 year old basset hound used to follow something around the apartment growling. Often times he would post himself in the doorway from dining room to living room after following something around for awhile. Sometimes he would follow something into my room mate's bedroom and then sit on her bed growling at something on the wall.

- One night, very late, I was trying to sleep and couldn't because I could hear something that sounded like church organ music. I started bargaining with her and promised that she could make as much noise as she wanted on the weekend because we could sleep in. Immediately after, I started thinking, "I wonder where she is right now." Just outside my bedroom door, I heard someone whisper, "Here." I ran to the door expecting to catch my room mate running back to her bedroom but her door was shut.

- At least once a week, we heard footsteps down the hallway to my room mate's bedroom.

- On several occasions, pictures in the kitchen had something in them. It was never the usual orb or ball of light. They had bubbles in them... like the kind kids blow through a plastic wand.

We started researching and asking questions after awhile. We found the daughter of a man who owned the building in the 60s and 70s and ran a small grocery downstairs. An older couple rented the apartment upstairs for years. The wife became very ill and the husband had to do basically everything for her. Eventually, he grew tired of that and took off. When authorities were notified (because of the stench), they found the wife in horrible condition, comatose and near death. I'll spare you most of the details but there were bugs. Lots of bugs. She died before they could even get her out of the house. Her name was Mary Elizabeth White.

We searched through census records and directories at the library. We found the Whites listed as residents in our apartment in the late 60s/early 70s. We also searched microfiche but couldn't find any record of her death.

WOW Swan...I literally got the chills when I read that you heard someone whisper "Here". That is some seriously creepy *beep*! I got really freaked out once when my dog was barking angrily at something in the kitchen that wasn't there, and he wasn't normally a barker at all (golden retriever) so it felt really scary. He was by the doorway barking at something in the middle of the room and sorta had this stance like he was backing away. Fortunately that was a one time incident and I really forced myself not to think about it (until now!).

Anyway, thanks everyone for sharing their stories, some of which were incredibly scary, so I'm glad you're all okay. The scariest thing for me was about 2 months ago, shortly after I moved into my own apt in Chelsea. I was home alone on a Sunday night folding laundry and watching TV when I heard what sounded like a bang of thunder. I looked out the window and it didn't seem to be raining, so I was confused. Then I heard it again and heard my neighbors in a commotion outside my door, so I peeked out the peephole and noticed the hallway light was flickering (and my lights were flickering too but I didn't think anything of it at first). I went to the hall to ask what was going on, and my neighbor said there were explosions right outside of our building! I called 911 since I hadn't a clue what was going on but I was so scared for my safety. I threw a bunch of "essentials" in a bag, like water, warm socks, and a sweater and locked up and thought maybe it was better to evacuate. I found out shortly after that the sounds were from 3 manhole explosions on my block...apparently they were anticipating a snow storm which never really came, and the rain/salt totally caused an electrical explosion underground. The fire trucks had arrived and there was fire coming out of the manholes.

The situation made me realize that I needed to have an "action plan" if something like this were to ever happen again. Christine (the one in DC) mentioned earlier about keeping an "emergency supplies kit" around, and it's absolutely a great idea. Living in NYC seems to be so unpredictable sometimes, and it's scary when you've lived through things like 9/11 (and watch movies like Cloverfield...lol).

Thanks Swan. That was deliciously spooky. When I was in second -fourth grade we lived in an apartment that was haunted. My mother recalls this, not me. My toddler brother woke up screaming at night a lot. He said there was a little girl in his room. One night I sleepwalked into the kitchen and broke a plate. This I remember - as I woke up as I dropped the plate - but my mom says I told her I was going with a little girl.

I still sleepwalk on rare occasions.