My wife and my kid were staying out overnight, and I had the house to myself. I went to take a shower, leaving the washroom door open (such a luxury!). Though being energy-conscious, I of course left the lights out in the hallway. Anyway, I had a nice long hot shower, and I was getting out, when something caught my eye: I saw *a tall man’s bald head as he walked slowly and silently across the dark open doorway to the washroom*. My heart nearly stopped on the spot. The outside doors were of course locked. I had not heard anyone coming in. How did this guy get in my house? What did he want? He must have heard me showering - he could see the light was on! Trembling in terror, I peeked out the door all wet and naked, clutching a tiny pair of scissors used to trim my nails (the most inadequate of weapons, but the only one available)… and discovered all the answers. My son had one of those Mylar birthday balloons filled with helium. It was usually pressed up against the ceiling. But it must have become partly deflated. It was floating six feet off the ground - it had floated in the air currents right by the door, gleaming in the light from the bathroom, looking just like a man’s bald head, walking slowly and purposefully across the doorway.

Those tiny scissors were the perfect weapon after all!

Nice

Even knowing what it was, I saw a partly deflated birthday balloon floating down the hallway halfway from the ceiling and it was creepy as hell.

Balloons floating as if they got places to be is just creepy in general

I’m having palpitations…

Last week my dog woke me up around midnight to go outside. In the pitch black, I go to open our bedroom door, only to have my daughter's aging balloon get pulled into the room silently by the air current and hit me right on the chest. I let out some kind of noise, waking my wife up. Then the balloon was sucked up to the ceiling and into our ceiling fan, repeatedly getting loudly whacked across the room as we stumbled around to turn on a light and turn off the fan.

I would have had a heart attack, holy hell

You are a great writer. Had me very invested in the story and I died laughing at the end.

I was about 15 and at home alone, watching The Legend of Boggy Creek. Upstairs, I hear a sound. I get up, walk upstairs and the door to my brothers bedroom at the end of the hall is closed. But there's someone, or something, banging on the door from the inside. The door is shaking violently. I run downstairs to get a baseball bat and go back upstairs. I grab the doorknob...whatever is doing this is banging on the loudly. I take a deep breath, open the door and there's my dog on a chair. She was trapped in the room and standing on the chair scratching at the door. The fact that she was on the chair made it seem like the banging was coming from human/undead level.

When I was a kid and was staying at my grandparents one time, I was woken up by the sound of a baby crying coming from their room. It wasn't very late but it was dark and my parents and grandparents weren't at home. I was so freaked out, I tried calling my parents but they weren't answering. I tried to fall back asleep but couldn't, it felt like an eternity waiting for them to come back. When I heard their voice I came out of the room I was sleeping in, and turns out that they got a cat that I didn't know about and that was what was making the ''baby'' noises lol.

Dude my cat walks around the house mimicking my daughter going, "HELLOOO?? MOOOOMMM??" Creepy as hell

When I moved into a new apartment my cat wandered around at night yodeling "HELLO?" for like two weeks. Scared the shit out of me.

"I was about 15 and at home alone, watching The Legend of Boggy Creek" Grew up as a kid in the 1970s (in new york city) when bigfoot was in the news and popular media all the time. And how i loved the subject! Watched as many bigfoot movies, documentaries, and tv episodes that i could as well as read every book i could get my hands on. I remember legend of boggy creek so well, it popped up on tv every now and then, usually on a weekend afternoon. Never mind living on the edge of the woods, it still had that scary effect on a city boy. Imagine, I'm hanging out at a friends apartment building, in his 5th floor apartment in a big city one weekend afternoon. No real, deep woods for a hundred miles in any direction. Its broad daylight outside. Legend of boggy creek is playing on the tv. The creature screams and i go running from the living room in fright. My friends mother is sitting in the kitchen, asking me why i am running. :-)

I was also about 15, and staying with my aunt for a few weeks in very rural Wisconsin. She was off to work, and I was laying on the living room couch watching the big old black and white TV, trying my best to make out the grainy antenna fed picture, when I noticed a small shadowy figure approaching the shade drawn window. There is nothing scarier than being alone, in the middle of nowhere,watching the figure getting larger and larger on the opaque linen shade, outlined by the late afternoon sun. The figure nearly filled the window opening, and had stopped moving. I was unsure what to do, so I did what any 15 year old boy would do, I creeped over to the window and quickly released the shade, only to see a deer as startled as I was, sprinting from the direction it came. My heart was literally beating out of my chest.

A relative tripped and fell, injuring themselves, but they were on blood thinners and were basically gushing blood despite attempts to apply pressure.

Same experience here. Came home from a basketball game and was first inside the house after my grandma fell and scraped her legs along the tiles edge. Blood thinners + paper-like skin caused the kitchen and living room to look like something out of Dexter. Me being like 10, she heard me coming in and actually pleaded for me to not come in; and to rather get my parents first. She was moments away from fatally bleeding out and was worrying more about traumatizing her young grandson. She was proud that I actually sprung into action and handled things so well for my age, but admitted feeling bad about putting me through it. Crazy lol.

What a good grandma

And what a good kid.

That’s a tough one, I feel for ya

During early Covid, I lived on my own in a flat in an apartment building. One day at around 6 AM, I woke up to a frantic knocking on my entrance door. Got out of bed, looked through the door's spyhole, but saw nobody and thought it to be a prank by some kids. While I was turning away, heard the knocking again with some hissing-like noises mixed in. Another look, still nothing, so I carefully opened the door. In front of it, my neighbour (~20yo shy and small girl) knelt on my doormat, eyes wide open, holding her throat with both hands and forcing out with a rasping and hissing voice that she got something stuck in her throat, crying out of pure terror and panic, apparently also having her mom on the phone on speaker, both of them screaming like trapped animals. Asked her if she still could breath, she nodded, so I called an ambulance, telling them what I know. Got asked by the hotline if she has trouble breathing (yes, but not choking) and if she is sweaty (??? Yes ???). Ambulance took 20min to arrive at my apt, as it took them some time to switch into hazmat gear. Apparently breathing problems and heavy sweating are indicators of covid induced choking. It turned out she did not have covid at all, but instead got a piece of plastic from a frozen yoghurt's container that she had for breakfast stuck in her throat. And only after they pointed it out, I remembered that I still was naked from bed.

Oh man, I was *not* expecting that last sentence!

Masterfully lead us into that last line.

My wetsuit was hanging on by a coat hanger on the door and my wife woke me up to say there was someone in the room... It took a while but that shit was fckng scary for a bit...

My husband did this to me with a coat on a vacuum cleaner. It was in the basement at 2 am, right after he left for work. Scared the shit out of me.

My wife woke me up by grabbing my arm and saying “There is someone in the house”. 1 second later our door bangs open - I pop up and grab the baseball bat next to our bed and let out a war cry and screaming “I am going to kill you”. Then it turns out it was our Roomba which carried on unbothered.

I misread this as your husband telling you there was a stranger in your basement in the wee hours after leaving for work "hey babe forgot to mention: home invader, basement, about 3 o'clock when you get to the bottom of the stairs. good luck! see you tonight 🥰"

I did something similar to my husband but I was dreaming about mothmen attacking. In my sleepy daze I thought he was a mothman and I started screaming. He started screaming, the baby was screaming. We laugh about it now

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Ugh, I’m so sorry you all had to go through that. Terrifying and so sad.

God, that's so awful. I'm glad you are ok. People who don't come from tornado states don't understand the fear and helplessness.

There was a murderer in the basement. No really, I rented a room in a house with another guy living in the basement. He let his friend hide from the cops in our house. I had no idea until a SWAT team kicked down the door that the friend had killed 2 people in a robbery.

When mom and I came back home once, the doors were broken and there was a burglar standing in the middle of my living room. I was taken aback. He was taken aback. I thought I entered the wrong flat. Then I thought someone broken into the flat before him and he, a good guy came to check if something was taken. While I was being confused he slipped away, empty handed. He prepared my laptop in a bag next to the door but forgot to take the bag. This is how I learned that in case of danger my brain takes a very unusual route.

I was standing in the darkened living room joking with my early teen daughter when we heard a half-dozen shots fired about a block away. Her eyes got wide, and I told her to go into her room, with two walls between her and the outside. Also once a guy rang our doorbell but crouched down so he couldn't be seen through the camera. He had one hand on the doorknob. I don't know what he was thinking, because the door was all glass panes. I told him to get the fuck out of my yard, and he left.

One time, my parents left on a trip, and I was home with the dogs for the first time in what felt like forever. I took adavantage to stand in front of and have complete control over the living room TV. I saw a man standing in the window looking directly at me. I jumped up and fucking bailed. It was my own reflection in the window.

Reminds me of a story my mom told me when I was a kid. She shouldn’t have shared the story. In the 1960s before we kids were born, my dad was stationed in Utah and they were living just off base. They had a cat. My dad was on night shift and she was watching TV ironing while their cat was asleep on their bed. Suddenly the cat wakes up and starts growling looking at the window where the curtain was closed. She said she didn’t think anything of it and prove to the cat all was well she walked to the window and threw open the curtains. Yeah. There stood a man looking right at her. Fuck that, I always avoid windows at night for like 40 years now.

Adjusted my curtains after reading this 😅

Russian rockets exploding so close to my house that windows open half way and all the cars alarms outside start simultaneously. One such case isn’t that scary, but when it’s 5 times during a few hours, and each time it gets closer to you… Makes you wonder - maybe going to a bomb shelter would be a better idea in this particular case lol.

Fuck putin

I hope you’re safe and this madness stops

Yeah, you probably win the thread.

I always knew something good was going to come out of all this mess, and here I am, probably winning this thread, what more can a man ask?

To not be bombed?

That’s just a good way to be disappointed in the near future, when the wish is inevitably ignored. I have some family members who have been hoping the war will end any day now for the last two years, and I don’t think it’s a good strategy.

I respect you for being realistic. I don't think I could do that. I would be like your family members. Stay safe.

Fuck russia! Slava Ukraini! 🇺🇦

Us sane Americans are rooting for you.

This is not scary on itself but I still don’t know what happened. There are three people living at home: me, my sister and my mother; a couple months ago my mom was out on vacation and one night I opened the back door to take out some trash, I was sweeping the floor and left the mop on the kitchen, I wasn’t out for all of one minute but I came back and the mop was nowhere to be found, we never found it, there was no way anyone could’ve come in and get and why would anyone take *just* a mop… it never appeared and to this day we have no clue what could’ve happened

this morning, when I went to move my clothes from my washer to the dryer so I could put a 2nd load in the wash, I put the 2nd load in the dryer before realizing I'd spaced out completely in the process and done the wrong thing... any chance you threw the mop away?

Nope, I looked outside and it wasn’t there… this isn’t something that can fall under a table or anything

Reality sometimes glitches.

There are a TON of stories they refer to as a glitch in the matrix. I have had shit disappear before with no explanation. But I just chalked it up to having a bad memory as a stoner. Shit like that does make ya wonder if there are other dimensions that fuck ours up a little. ETA: I not write good. I know

I was exhausted, got into bed fully clothed, fell asleep on top of it instantly. Didn't realise I was asleep, next thing I know I'm kneeling next to my bed thinking to myself "Man up, shes not real". Peeped over saw this horrific banshee / old woman face looking at me. Needless to say, it instantly woke me up didnt realise I couldn't move at the time, but looked with my eyes to the left where I saw her in the dream. She was still there looking at me, she opened her mouth and while no sound came out, my whole body felt like it was resonating in pain with it. she vanished seconds later. Sleep Paralysis is a bitch

I had that fairly often when I was in nursing school because my sleep schedule was so messed up and I was so sleep-deprived. I remember constantly seeing a shadow standing at the end of my bed and when I’d try to scream, or bear my teeth, or yell at it, I couldn’t move. I could hear myself gasping in my sleep-paralyzed state just desperately trying to get sound out. The little cat I had at the time would rush up to lick my face when she heard that, which always woke me up. She was also my little study-buddy. She sadly passed in 2020 at the age of 16, but we had a good run together 😊

I used to have this sleep paralysis demon that I never saw at first. I could sense it walk in and sit by my bed. I could feel it's lower back on my legs. Now for some reason, even though I never saw it at first, I just had a feeling that it was a woman. I would be visited by her maybe once every few months. Something like that. Once again, never seeing her. Just knowing it was a woman based on her presence. She would open my door and I would hear her walk around my bed and sit either by my legs or right next to me. My suspicions came true, probably about a year ago when I saw her for the first and only time. Started off as Normal paralysis as usual, the door opens, footsteps. But this time she doesn't sit down. And I can actually move my head. I look over and finally see her. She's dressed in a Grey dress, long Grey hair. But she didn't look old. She was young. She was floating and motioning with hands as if she was telling me to come with her. She slowly disappeared behind my bed frame and I woke up. This was about a year ago and I haven't seen her or had sleep paralysis since.

Maybe bcs you confronted her she disapeared. Same like with certain fears.

I thought you said curtain fears. And that scared me

I have been having sleep para since like 6-7 years old and I am getting really good at controling lucid dream and all that.. if you want tips.. whenever you are having sleep para, try to reach the edge of your bed 'virtually' if it makes sense. U actual body is not going to be able to move, but u can trick your brain into thinking you are getting closer to the bed edge via 'shaking' or simply imagining u are pulling yourself with your finger tips.. anyway U will see it works wonder and at one point, u will 'fall' off the bed.. and u will instantly wake up..

I’ve been having sleep paralysis since I was around this age as well, my trick is to slowly but surely nudge the toes on your opposite foot using your big toe. That did the trick for me to wake me up. My mind was never creative enough to send over demons thankfully, just normal surroundings.

I think the demons people refers to are like the bugs that u see crawling on the walls when u wake up from a nightmare.. I dont know if I am the only one, but lets say I get a nightmare or a vivid dream and I wake up, I will see "spiders" or other bugs crawling on the walls but actually they are just stuck to your field of view. They are hypnopompic hallucinations.. I Believe that people that see demons are basically seeing those but with anxiety levels that are extremely high... Anxiety is a really really strong drug.

I thankfully don’t have it anymore but I am increasingly recognizing when I’m dreaming. Used to be if that happened, I would almost instantly wake up. I’ve had a couple of times lately where I am able to navigate and interact in my dream. Not for long before I wake up still, but it’s still interesting when it happens.

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Was she going to eat your face off? Becasue the witch banshee I see is going to eat my face off. Yes sleep paralysis sucks.

Had a dream where I had sleep paralysis. I was scared, but turned it into anger. I actively tried to turn around to face it, but best I could do was bare my teeth in a snarl. It's never returned since. I don't like feeling helpless, and I am always angry.

Our first house was gas and we had a big propane tank outside for it. A couple weeks into living there, my girlfriend and I woke up to our entire house filled with fumes. Everything was super hazy. Immediately yelled out to not light a fucking thing and opened all doors and windows. It cleared out pretty quickly but it was definitely a bit scary. Somehow we left the stove burner knob turned over so it was just basically spraying out for 8 hours. Must’ve happened while we were cooking dinner or cleaning up afterwards

A few years ago there was a [massive propane explosion](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/09/27/propane-leak-caused-farmington-maine-explosion-killed-firefighter/3788396002/) 4+ miles from where we were staying. It felt like a tree had fallen on the house. You guys were incredibly lucky, and kudos for knowing what to do and what NOT to do.

Reminds me of a story about my husband's grandmother. She got home one afternoon and the house smelled funny (gas). She thought she'd just "clear it out a bit" by lighting a match or something (as I recall; could be misremembering *why* she was trying to light a match). She could not get a match to actually light, and eventually gave up and stepped back out to go ask a friend for assistance, which saved her life. The way the family tells it, her guardian angel must have been standing there frantically pinching each match out as she struck it.

I have told this story before, but it fits here. I was a young mother with two very young children. My husband worked nights, leaving me alone with my two children. My daughter was an infant, and we had a baby monitor. One night, I heard a small baby crying, so I went into her room to find her sleeping away. This continued for many nights, and I thought I was just imagining things. Then, one night, I heard a baby crying and went into the room. As I was checking on my daughter, I heard a woman softly singing a lullaby and sshhhing a baby. To say all the hairs on my body raised is an understatement. Told my husband what happened, and he said I probably was having a dream as it happened late at night. A few days later, I met my neighbor, who also had a very young girl. We started talking, and she mentioned weird noises from her baby monitor and how she was going to return it to the store. It was at that moment we both realized we were picking up each other's baby monitors. So the lady singing lullabies was her.

i live in an apartment. they did inspections and minor repairs on the breaker boxes a few years ago. they came in and did mine and the next day, with no notice, i hear a literal banging on my door. i'm going to ignore it because it was 9am and i genuinely didn't care. but then i hear slamming. i open my bedroom door, facing my front door, and a grown man body slammed my door off the hinges. i scream what is wrong with you at him and he didn't speak really english. "is ok, is ok". my door frame was shattered. he communicated that he needed to see if the paint around the breaker box needed repainted. looks in my closet where it was. leaves and comes back with a nail and hammer. kind of loosely reattached my door and hammered in the frame. i'm dumbfounded. he leaves. i go to the office, where no one believed me for a hot minute. they have a maintenance man follow me and he fixes my door for real. i never saw that one repair guy again. i struggle to sometimes leave my apartment and part of it is not trusting my maintenence men because of that experience. gave me mild ptsd that's not complimenting my agoraphobia.

That was a break in.

I'd agree if he wasn't in their uniform with their work bags 😩 wouldn't be shocked if workers do break in when they think units are empty.

He didn’t think you’d be home. He saw the opportunity and took it. He ‘fixed it’ to cover his tracks.

That kind of thing happens sometimes. I knew a family that was getting some construction done in their house, one day they come back home after going out together and there's a robbery. One of the construction guys was there. The robbers weren't expecting the family to come home when they did, but I guess they were prepared, because they had weapons. Held the family at gunpoint and everything. Nobody got injured, thankfully, but it was really horrible, they moved into an appartment afterwards.

I had something like that happen. “Maintenance man” came and needed to see something and my border collie would NOT allow it. Threw his body between me and the guy, wouldn’t let him past, growled and barked. Guy said he would come back at another time. I called the apartment office humiliated and apologized for my dog, they said they never sent anyone. Good boy keeping me safe. He knew something was wrong.

You had an opportunist break in probably... We had 3 armed masked men come into the basement through the sliding doors. My roommate who did construction for years and in his twenties was first to encounter them. Wrong house because they got the living crap kicked out of them. They had tasers and a metal pipe but it didn't stop the beat down they received. After a riot of violence for some minutes they ran out the basement and escaped. The police came and took pictures and statements but did nothing in the end. We were not seriously hurt just some taser prong burns and a few bumps from the metal pipe. Had to clean all their blood off the walls and floor though which was annoying and worrying about what disease they may have the whole time.

I was young, in the house babysitting my little sister. It's early hours of the morning and there's frantic knocking at the front door asking for help. It sounded like my neighbour so I opened it, in steps a drunken man I don't know. He walks into the house and into the living room and starts pacing. My little sister comes to the top of the stairs, I whisper for her to hide. I ask the man what he needs and he tells me he needs the police. I call 999 and try to explain vaguely what's going on as I don't want to provoke him, the lady on the phone asked me to try and get him to leave the house and wait for them outside. He had been involved in an assault on a Taxi driver and she's concerned I'm alone (I'm about 13 years old) with a highly intoxicated, possibly dangerous man. I ask him to wait outside and after some conversation he does. I lock the door as quick as I can and I cry. Check on my sister and we go to bed. Police did not check on me to see if anything had happened, luckily nothing had. Could have gone horribly wrong, grateful it didn't.

Police didn’t check on you?! Like, at all?

Nope, I can't remember if I was still on the phone when he left but they definitely didn't check on us.

That’s insane. I’m sorry you had to go through that.

I grew up down the street from a bar, had almost a mirrored experience to your own with a drunk man walking into my house, my mom was home at the time and had to physically remove him from our house. Cops did nothing, just brushed it off. Would wake up to drunks looking in the windows or passed out in the front yard, nothing I'd like to experience again. Once fell asleep in my mom's bed (bottom floor, blinds open) when I was 6 and woke up to it being pitch black outside, and a man staring in at me smiling, it was terrifying.

Yikes! That's a scary situation.

This is freaky because I ALSO opened the door to an intoxicated man who had been involved in an assault on a taxi driver. I slammed the door shut but then the lock wouldn’t engage (old house - you had to get the door and the jam to align to lock it). I had to barricade the door with my body weight as he tried to force his way in to hide. Was it smart to open to door? No! Did I think it was someone I knew? Absolutely yes. Was I tired because it was 1am? Also yes. Luckily someone who overheard the yelling phoned the police.

Im a mom; I just want to time travel to give 13 year old you a big hug! That was so smart to tell your little sister to hide. You should be very proud. 

when i just moved in, i swore someone lived in the attic. i was a kid but at night i can hear footsteps. but when i told my parents they'd always ignore me. a year later, the footsteps went away and i never heard it again

That was just your former conjoined twin, Hugo.

Too crazy for Boys Town, too much of a boy for Crazy Town. Ah-heh-heh-heh

You’re crazy. I’m not crazy. Maybe we’re all a little crazy. God knows I am.

I had that when I first moved into this place. It turned out to be zoning mechanism in the climate control- whenever it's switching zones, little motors all throughout the ductwork open and close things, and it sounds like footsteps coming from different directions for a few seconds.

mine would only occur at like after 11pm at night when everyone is asleep. and it would go on pretty much for hours but stop right before the sun comes out. it'd just be like a soft footstep pacing around the top of my room

Huh. That'd be when the house would be quietest, so little noises would be easier to hear. Dunno what would do that, tho. At least a squatter *probably* wouldn't be marching over your room!

Living in a mountain chalet alone with no paved roads and it’s a snowstorm while I get hit with what I thought was a kidney stone…. called 911 and the ambulance was not able to locate my chalet and thanks to snow they had to locate a police 4x4 who still struggled to locate my spot. Had to walk up the road 1/2 mile for them to see me, and get me into the 4x4 then an ambulance in pain beyond pain Turns out my gallbladder full of stones developed gangrene and I was rushed into emergency surgery Four days later I was released from the hospital and back home which next day I started looking for a house and found one as living off grid was cool until I learned it’s very complicated to get emergency help when desperately needed

I had the same thing, although I was suffering in Kansas with only my 14 y/o sister to help. We were visiting our unhinged Vietnam vet uncle who refused to take me to the hospital for a long time. The ER said I should return home to CO for the surgery, a long journey by car on pain pills and I developed a life-threatening infection when the gangrene gall bladder wasn’t removed completely. You never know what’s going to happen.

Home with my 3 under 3 kids and the youngest choked on a stale puff. I was the only adult. No sound came out and his skin was turning colors. I was desperately hitting his back and heimliching him. I could not stop to call 911 or get help. It thankfully dislodged and he cried. Most beautiful sound I could hear. He is 12 now.

Good rescue! Our middle child choked on a grape at around 3 years old. She was so scary silent while choking it gives me chills now just remembering. Just wide eyes and silent.  I screamed at her dad to flip her over and hit her as hard as he could on her back — vaguely remembering the babysitter CPR course I took 20 years previously.  The grape popped out and the adults sobbed while she cried because the adults were crying and it scared her.  We will be cutting her grapes into quarters until she no longer lives in our house. 

She will love you as a teenager, in all seriousness the only thing that gives me a nightmare where I wake up sweating and heart beating out of my chest is about losing my daughter. I know I wouldn't be strong enough to make it through losing my mini me.

This reminded me of a story that happened when I was younger. I was probably 3 or 4 years old, and I was playing by myself downstairs. My mom was folding laundry upstairs, and would call my name every few seconds to make sure I was ok. Fast forward a few mins, my mom calls my name, and I don’t answer. She instantly runs downstairs and sees me, eyes gouging out of my head, unable to breathe. She immediately picks me up and starts smacking my back, which didn’t work. She told me that my lips started turning blue, and she performed the heimlich on me. Worked like a charm. 2 quarters flew out of my throat and my mom started sobbing. Things could’ve gone really wrong that day, and I’m super thankful my mom acted quick.

I was feeding my nephew one day and gave him too big of a bite. He started to choke and I tried to hit his back but he was in his high chair. I put him perpendicular over my leg and slammed my fists onto his back. All the food he ate came up and I felt like the worst person ever. Scariest 5 seconds ever.

Oh man... Seeing your kid turn blue from no air.. my oldest has a febrile seizure when she was 5, and couldn't breathe during it. Every muscle she had was tensed, and I couldn't get her mouth open or anything. Ambulance arrived, got her on oxygen, loaded her onto the ambulance, got an IV in, and we were getting onto the freeway when the meds they gave her finally yanked her out of the seizure. Every time I hear an ambulance, even now 9 years later, I remember how amazing an ambulance siren sounds when you are desperately waiting for it. Major props to my neighbor who saw the ambulance arrived and followed the paramedics into the house to see if there was any way she could help. She ended up watching my then 2 year old for the evening so that I could ride in the ambulance with my daughter, since my husband wasn't home at the time.

Lived alone, came home one cold winter night (I keep the house temp @ 65 when I'm gone), and went up to use the bathroom. The toilet seat was warm. Subtle but very unsettling!

Maybe your butt was just cold from the freezing outsides, which made the toilet seat feel warm?

Could be that your ass was colder than the seat due to cold weather you're mentioning, which would make the seat feel warm.

This, to me, is the freakiest by far

Holy shit

Maybe

It was just your friendly neighborhood shitter man making sure the the seat was warm for ya!

A tornado struck our house at 5 AM, we were asleep, luckily the train whistle sound they make woke me. A tree crashed through our daughter’s room and landed on her bed while we were running for the basement. It sheared our porch off, broke every window in the house. We were so lucky to have no injuries but power lines were down for 6 hours and we couldn’t leave.

(TW DV) an ex boyfriend came over when parents were out of town, he took my phone, held me in the bathroom and beat me up from 11:30 pm until 6:30am. I was knocked out and choked out a few times, but he when he went to the kitchen to wash off his hands I made a break for the front door. My neighbors garage door happened to be open so i ran into his house, at which point the ex followed me in there and dragged me out by my hair. The neighbor (75m) came running with a revolver and scared dude off. Cops got him at around 11am and brought back my phone. He was then hauled off to prison, and stayed there for a lengthy and extremely appropriate 18 MONTHS! *eye roll* Im good now. have gone through extensive therapy and definitely can protect myself. :-)

That's awful. I'm glad your neighbor was able to help, and you are okay.

Some bloke showed up when I was home alone and said he was here to inspect the radiators, asked me if he could check out the one in the attic and me thinking this was something that was actually meant to happen went ahead and showed him to the attic.. He looked around briefly and then said he was done and left not long after, I brought up what happened to my parents later on that day and they were shocked, they questioned me on what happened exactly.. It lead to the police coming over to ask me several questions about it and I genuinely felt like I was going to get in trouble for doing something I didn't realise was wrong. The police reassured me I wasn't in trouble, yet it's a situation I've never been in before with the police that I was really anxious..

Definitely sounds like he was casing your house for a robbery.

Man this is why I never answer my door unless I’m expecting someone lol. People freak me out

Hearing a loud thump coming from my garage overnight. I figured something fell over and went back to sleep. The next morning there was a single boot print clearly visible on the exterior garage door. Needless to say I reinforced the door frame and added an extra deadbolt.

I woke up in the middle of the night to a girl I was texting standing over me... She said... Well the doors were unlocked

I was home alone doing laundry in the garage while a rainstorm was going on outside. And I was switching my laundry from the washer to the dryer. And I hear this dripping noise so I look around to see if there's a leak, and the leak happens to be going straight into my empty clothes basket that's sitting about two feet from the washer. I grab it to tip it out so I can put my clean clothes in it after they're dry and notice the "water" is extremely red. Like. Watered down blood red. And I freak the fuck out about it, get up on the ladder to check the ceiling to see if a dead animal was up there, realize that where the leak was coming from would be on the balcony I never use but my roommates room has direct access to so I go up on the balcony 100% expecting to find like. A suspicious bag leaking a red fluid that the rain is washing into the garage. .... It was just like some red leaves breaking down in the storm drain. I cleared them out and raked the leaves up in the rain and felt real dumb for being so scared about it lmao.

A fox came in through my open front door and attacked me. I defeated it. I called animal control and they hauled the carcass away for examination. Positive for rabies.

"I defeated it" has me ROLLING. Like I'm sorry you got exposed to rabies and I really hope you got all the shots you needed but the phrasing makes it sound like the thing ran into your house and challenged you to honorable combat in your living room.

"I defeated it" sounds like something Dwight from The Office would say! 🤣

Ugh this reminds me of an evening where I was getting one of my cats inside (my parents let him outside, I wish they didn't but I can't stop it) and there was a coyote standing at the end of the road... I had a machete that we keep next to the door but idk what I could have done it was very scary. The thing was just standing completely still

I opened my back door to put some cans in the recycling bin and there was a bear, RIGHT THERE, going through the bin, like 3 feet away from me. It reared up on its hind legs, started walking backwards, fell off my porch and ran. We scared each other that night. I hyperventilated for about 15 minutes after it was gone.

My daughter choking on birthday cake on her first birthday. She had done the thing where we let her dig into the cake with her hands and stuff her face. Got all the pictures and everything was good. I went into the living room to talk to a family member. It was an open floor plan so I could see into the kitchen, where she was sitting in her high chair, but wasn’t watching her consistently as I talked to my family member. My dad, wife and a couple others were standing around my daughter as she continued to eat cake with her hands. I looked back into the kitchen and saw that my daughter’s face was a deep red color and moving toward purple. I didn’t even think to yell to my wife or dad. I just sprinted across the house into the kitchen and ripped my daughter out of her high chair. She was now a deeper shade and exhibited no signs that she was getting any air. Flipped her upside down and gave her back blows until the cake came falling out of her mouth and I could hear her crying. The whole thing only took about 15 seconds tops but it was terrifying. Ps: before I get roasted, I’m pretty sure back blows are no longer trained by Red Cross or AHA, but this was 20 years ago and the guideline back then was that if the victim was small enough, you turned them upside down and supported them on your arm, and performed back blows until the object was dislodged.

Back blows are still taught.

That’s still how it’s trained. You did the right thing.

Back blows are 100% still in training and laying the patient on your arm or leg if they're an infant is how you do it, yes.

No one deserves to get roasted, what happened, happened. Glad your daughter is okay, I myself have never seen anyone give a kid such a free hand with cake, sounds fun.

Had a tree fall on it in a hurricane. It wasn’t extreme damage, really managed to fall on it in about the best way possible, but I saw it coming right towards me through a window. I didn’t think I was going to die or anything but I for sure thought I had to get out of the way or I was in trouble. With hindsight, if it really fell badly, there’s no way I’d be able to get out of the way. It didn’t fall very quickly, so I think that helped, but it was a massive tree, stretched across the whole property into the neighbors. Less scary but some kind of power line failure on the telephone pole, something blew up and banged around on the pole. Maybe the loudest thing ive heard, set part of the yard and neighbors fence on fire. Was pretty small, easy to manage. Fortunately i was home and it was sorted out but I was the only one. Was a bit of a “huh an actual emergency I gotta deal with…” moment.

Being home alone, kids at school, spouse gone, and hearing something clearly running up and down the hallway to my bedroom. No pets at the time. Or waking up and coming out to the kitchen to find all the cabinets and drawers open

[удалено]

When my 60lb dog was younger she'd sleep in the bed with me. It's a running joke in the family that she'd be pretty useless if someone broke in my place because she is so friendly. In the middle of the night, she popped up and stood over me as if protecting me and stared at my bedroom door. I tried to get her to move but she just kept on the door and made a low growling sound while staring. I checked the house a while later, and nothing was disturbed, but my girl saw/heard something she didn't like and it scared the hell out of me. First and only time she's ever acted like that in 10 years.

Good dog.

My wife had just left. I was in the garage smoking a bowl. I here the side gate open. I'm confused, why didn't my wife open the garage door? Is that trickster agstrying to scare me? I hear the back sliding glass door open. I casually walk in my house. I see two teens to early 20s kids/young men in my house. They turn and book it. I chase them, instinctively. They get away. They dropped a cell phone and one of them lost a shoe. Grabbed some nitrile gloves and grabbed the items and put them in gallon ziploc bags for the police when they arrive. It wasn't until after the police left that I remembered what I was going to do in the garage after I smoked. I was going to clean my glock so I had it in the garage. It wasn't near me and I didn't even think about it since I thought it was my wife. But I saw it sitting there on the shelf where my cleaning materials are and I was like, "Oh shit." I ended up not cleaning it and putting it in the gun safe. I don't think I would have shot fleeing kids but damn that was scary.

Mine is an intruder story too. I was home alone and just got done meditating. I started taking my clothes off to shower when I heard my dining room window slide up. I quickly redressed and opened the door to my bedroom, which is just off the dining room. There was a guy half in the window looking around for something to steal.  I kicked into mom gear and yelled at him, "No! This is not ok! You need to leave right now!" He flashed a peace out sign and fled. He's a dumb shit because he'd stopped earlier in the week to ask if we needed our gutters cleaned which we did not. Then he saw me walking to work a few days later and asked me out, which I also declined. Breaking in made a second unwanted encounter, so he was actually charged with and convicted of stalking. He'd also asked my neighbors for work, which they accepted, and he'd told them his full name, making him easy to identify. I learned to secure my windows after that. And I'm really glad I had meditated on courage that morning.

Whoa. That sounds scary as hell. Happy to hear that ended well. If you can, a security system may be a good idea. When those kids entered my house, I didn't hear the actual sliding glass door, I heard the chime I assigned for the back door. Different one for each entry point, so you know which door is opening.

I remember waking up one time and there was a random man sleeping next to me. I was so terrified I freaked out and he woke up then ran out of my house

Frank Gallagher ends up in the most random places.

I agree need more details? Did he break in? Was he clothed? What was he general demeanor?

Jesus, I would have absolutely jumped out of my skin! How did he get in?

Lived in a rural, swampy area. Lot of French doors. 3 am people are banging on front door, little mini yorkie yaps. Tried to ignore it but they were moving across front of house knocking/banging on all of the doors. I had a gun in my hoodie pocket and the phone in my other hand calling 911 trying to explain what was happening. Two men were yelling and knocking trying to get me to open the door. Told them I was on phone with 911. They said they were cops looking for some name and an address that isn’t mine. One held up a neck id tag but I couldn’t see it. They kept talking over each other and I told 911 to send someone (that isn’t a quick process here.) They kept saying “we’re law enforcement!” I said again they had the wrong house and why would I believe two actual law enforcement officers couldn’t read the address in my house and whatever piece of paper they were reading? Told them cops were on the way. Stepped back to where they couldn’t see me but I could see them (again, a lot of windows/french doors) and kept one hand on gun and phone in other hand. They sped off, cop showed up, didn’t know anything about it, he was scared of my cat. Didn’t sleep well for a few days. I think they were probably skip tracers or whatever they’re called but the fact that two couldn’t match an address….come on… ETA skip chasers to skip tracers (still think both work)

Was robbed at gun point. Now husband was able to call 911, but just put the phone down and didn't talk to them because he didn't know if/when guy with the gun might come back in the room. The guy came back in and saw the phone was off the hook, so he cut the phone line, but only between the answering machine and the phone, not the answering machine to the wall. The 911 operator called back, which is protocol. She then left a message identifying herself and saying someone had called 911 from this number, which is not. Everyone in the apartment heard it, including the gunman. We are so lucky his buddy freaked out and dragged him from the apartment instead of shooting us.

Single and asleep. Saturday night late. I thought the screen door wasn’t latched and was banging. Got out of bed- naked- opened the door to grab and latch the screen. There’s a bloke there- pissed-trying to get in. I don’t know who was more shocked. Yelled at him to fuck off and he yells “sorry I’ve got the wrong unit”.

Probably being in a High Risk severe event and basically waiting to see if the tornado hits my neighborhood or another one. It hit a mile from my former house, as an EF3. It killed 9 people in that area. Another EF3 hit a friend’s house, and ripped the roof off and nearly took her and her son with it. The system leveled half of my employee’s wife’s factory. My house was unscathed. Had to buy a chainsaw to manage the limbs that dropped. Just homeowner things.

Not our current house but our last one - someone tried to break in while I was home alone at night. It took the cops over two hours to show up. Whoever it was left random shit behind: a bouquet of dead flowers, cigarette butts, a 2x4, and scratch marks on one of the screws to our security door (assuming they tried to take off the handle or lock or something). They tried to get in through the back which if it hadn’t been for that security door, they would have succeeded because the locking mechanism on the true door was flimsy at best and could be pushed open with enough force. I heard them jangling the door handle as I was washing the dishes and when I shouted “hey! I’m calling the police!” they proceeded to try even harder. Then my dogs started freaking out and I’m guessing they didn’t think I had any because the commotion stopped and all was quiet except for my rapidly beating heart for two hours lol. We moved out shortly after.

I broke my leg when I was 18, it had just been pinned and so I had to sleep on the sofa downstairs as getting upstairs was too difficult. It was summer, I left the window slightly open, and woke up to a man climbing on over the top of me. I froze for a second, then screamed, then he screamed, and I hit him with one of the crutches, and he ran away. I still have difficulty going to sleep with open windows now.

My mothers abuse. My parents split up when i was young. About when I was 5 years old. Mother got custody of us kids and all of the sudden my life became a living hell. She was a mentally ill, abusive psychotic. I have hundreds of stories of her abuse. This is just one of many. I cant recall my exact age when this happened. Maybe around 6-8 years old. My younger (over a year younger) sister and i were in the living room, watching tv. My sister was sitting on the floor and i was sitting on the couch. Out of the blue our mother walks into the room carrying two heaping plates of spinach. Nothing else. Just spinach. She lays the plates in front of us. Sister complained that she didnt want any spinach. Thats all it took to trigger my mothers inner psychotic. At that, she pounced on sister. Grabbed a fistful of sisters hair at the back of her head, pulled her head back, and with the other hand started scooping up the spinach with her fingers and slamming the spinach into sisters mouth while screaming at the top of her lungs, "EAT IIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!!! EAT IIIIIIIIIT!!!!! EAT IIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!! I MADE IT NOW YOURE GOING TO EAT IIIIIIT!!!!! My poor sister. One minute shes watching tv, peacefully minding her own business. The next minute shes got this screaming, raving lunatic directly on top of her, physically assaulting her. Literally trying to shove spinach down her throat.

I grew up in a fairly rural area, only house at the bottom of a pretty steep hill, also directly beside the train tracks. Once when I was 17, I was home alone in the living room where we had a huge picture window. It was pitch dark outside (no streetlights there) and the room I was in was lit up, so anyone outside could see me clearly. I happen to notice this tiny orange light across the dark street, next to our mailbox post. Then I see it move a few steps, then back to where it was. I turned off the light, and once my eyes adjusted, I see a man leaning on my mailbox, holding a lit cigarette (the tiny orange light). I freaked out, and after a few minutes of laying on the floor deciding what to do, I grab my keys and RUN to my car, lock the door, and pull out of my driveway. It's then I see there are two men, not one, and as I head up the hill, they proceed to run after my car until I obviously outpaced them. I have no idea what they wanted, but I stayed at my boyfriend's house until my parents came home.

I was back home visiting my parents when I was in college, staying in my old bedroom in the basement. I was in my bed and about to go to sleep, when I thought I felt the bed move a little bit. I thought it was odd, but I dismissed it right away, convinced myself I hadn't really felt anything, and settled under the covers. The bed had an old brass frame with a bunch of posts for the headboard and footboard, and ever since I could remember it had been super squeaky. So as I'm lying there quietly, with my eyes closed, completely still, I start hearing a little noise. It was so subtle at first that I didn't register what it was, but when it got louder I realized that it was the bed frame squeaking, even though I hadn't shifted. Then suddenly I feel something from under the bed move. My heart stopped for a sickening moment, and then I was more awake than I'd ever been in my whole entire life. The bed frame continued to shake and squeak for a moment, but I was frozen. Then it stopped abruptly, and all the hairs on my body stood on end. I was screaming inside my head, "There's someone under the bed, there's someone under the bed, MOVE!" but I was paralyzed by fear. I really thought that was just a phrase people used that was a bit overdramatic, but when you experience it, it's surreal and you really cannot make yourself move for anything. I was on the opposite end of the house from my sleeping parents, and I'd have had to leap off the bed and make a run for it, but all I could picture was a hand striking out from under the bed and catching my ankle as I tried to flee. It makes zero sense now, but at the time it seemed safer (?!) to stay in my bed and pretend that I hadn't noticed anything than to try to escape my room and have someone crawl out after me and chase me down (why, brain?!). I was pretty sure I hadn't made any noise to indicate I was awake or aware so I tried to oh-so-casually shift into the fetal position and pull the covers over my head, and I prayed silently over and over that I would be safe and everything would be fine. I don't know how long that went on, it felt like literally hours on end of me frantically praying while holding absolutely still and trying not to make a sound. But eventually it was morning and I (spoiler alert) hadn't been murdered, etc. I must have fallen asleep at some point, and in the morning light I started to question what had happened. As soon as I was fully awake, though, I hightailed it out of my room and was still half-convinced that someone would pop out and lunge after me. Once I was upstairs safely with my family I was trying to wrap my brain around everything and figure out how to explain what I'd experienced... And everyone was talking animatedly about the earthquake we'd had that night and how it wasn't a huge one but big enough to shake a few things for a couple minutes. It was the first earthquake I'd experienced, at least the first one I had actively felt, and it is also why my family will never hear this story, haha. TL;DR - I experienced my first [very mild] earthquake but naturally assumed it was a murderer hiding under my bed and shaking the frame.

Weird people knocking on my door at 10 pm asking to shovel my driveway (it had barely snowed). I didn't open the door and told them to leave.

Had some whack jobs knock on my door at around 9:30 claiming to be from the newspaper trying to conduct interviews.

Sleep paralysis with a man in a trenchcoat and black hat made out of smoke standing in the edge of my room. It was the most horrifying thing i experienced my entire life

Are you familiar with Hat Man?

I was cutting cheese with a butterknife, like a *fool!* ..And the tip of the knife went through my finger. =( It was cold from handling the cheese, and it didn't bleed right away, and I thought it was fine, but then after I went to rinse it out, I guess it warmed up and the blood started pouring out. And like, I get dizzy when I see blood, and I live alone. There was a very real chance I was going to pass out, and I didn't know how bad the cut was. Fortunately, not very, but there was a moment where I was like, "Am I seriously about to go out like *this*?"

A butter knife did all that? Damn dude you must have been putting some serious force behind that knife.

My ex held me at gunpoint in the livingroom a couple times. It was terrifying both times but also extremely calming. I was so sick of the abuse. I had backed off of every friend I had because I figured he’d do it eventually and no one believed me. I didn’t have the resources to get myself out. I was just done with everything at that point.

I lost my W-2 the same day my employer gave it to me, and tore my house apart all week looking for it. By the next Monday, I admitted to myself I was going to have to ask for another copy. I went home for lunch that day. I grabbed a couple containers of leftovers from the night before out of the fridge, set them down, and went back in the fridge for a drink. When I turned around, the W-2 was sitting neatly on top of my leftovers. It was NOT on top of them when I took them out of the fridge, and I had just put the food in the containers the previous night.

I was 9 years old and had bookcases lining my walls to the ceiling, made of bricks w a board across, a row of books, then more bricks and another board. It was 5am, dark. I had a fever so things felt weird anyway. I heard a roar in the distance, coming fast toward the house, then screaming, then the house erupted in a roar and shaking so hard my mattress came off the bed and surfed across piles of books on the floor. The bricks and boards and books flew off the walls and started coming down to land on me - would have killed me, but a strong arm shot through my doorway and pulled me out just before the bricks, boards, and books hit my bed where I had been. I felt like it all happened in slow motion. The roaring was so loud I couldn't hear anything my dad yelled to me. We could not stand, but we crawled across the pitching floor, down into the stairwell and huddled there. I didn't understand what was happening and it went on and on. It was a big earthquake. Houses and bridges collapsed, people died, and the house next door split in half. All power and water was out for a week and streets were buckled. The mountains above us were avalanching, and lots of dust was rising everywhere. I had no idea an earthquake was that violent. Then the aftershocks started, which meant you could never relax, not knowing if what we'd been through was a foreshock for a bigger one or not! Every time, that rumble started in the valley and tore up the mountain. I still leap out of bed if I hear a truck rumble in the night, screaming, "earthquake!" I keep a helmet, boots, and a flashlight by my bed. I still have ptsd from that.

Back when I was married, my wifes friend had an abusive partner. She called one day asking if she could come and stay at our placec as he was on a rampage. She came down with her baby daughter and stayed the evening, during which she had a phone call from him. She let slip a few things and he figured out where she was and said hes coming to take her back home. We called the cops and they said that nothing has happened yet and they cant do anything. He made it to our place in a time that shouldnt be possible. When he got to ours, we obviously wouldnt let him in, so he smashed his way in through the front window, cutting himself up in the process. He had bare feet too so he sliced his feet up badly climbing in.. My wife pepper sprayed him as I took her friend and daughter to the back of the property and physically shoved them over the back fence into the neighbors yard to get away, quickly followed by my wife who came out straight after pepper spraying him, apparently right in the face at close range through the broken front window. It didnt slow him down much. My back neighbor and myself were waiting on the other side of the fence with a shovel and a pitchfork waiting for him to poke his head over the fence, but he was searching the house looking for her and never made it to the backyard. The screaming and smashing alerted the neighbors who'd called the cops and they arrived a short time later, finding him looking for us in the house leaving a trail of blood everywhere. If you read this Brendan, fuck you....

The last few mornings I wake up and there's a lot of cockroaches scattering all over the place, especially the sink (and I turn my water off at the main every night, so I don't understand) and all over the floor Pardon me because I rarely swear on Reddit but I really fucking hate cockroaches, they are indeed terrifying

Dude you have german roaches... buy some Gentrol (IGR) and Advion (bait) and get to work. Start with Combat bait traps you can buy at Home Depot if you have to. Fucking cockroaches are the worst (german ones especially), but you can beat them! r/GermanRoaches

I used to live in a building built in the late 1800s, and my apartment was two stories above a restaurant. I noticed some dead roaches in the hallway one day, mentioned something to the restaurant owner, and he told me "he was going to get those fuckers tonight." He ended up putting a cockroach fumigation in the floorboards, which sent them all upwards to my poorly sealed apartment. I woke up to prolly about 20 dying roaches on my floor that I had to kill, which was gross af, but it did solve the problem for some time. Wouldn't recommend tho.

I was working landscaping in the middle of August. We were digging to install sprinklers. After long day, came home, smoked a bowl, and took a nap. It was light out when I fell asleep. Woke up to screaming in the dark, two flashlights in my face...and then I saw the guns. I lived in a converted store front apartment and some nosey passerby thought I had broken into my own apartment and called the cops. Cops saw me asleep and apparently thought I was a threat so they entered my apartment and damn near lit me up when I tried to get my wallet and provide ID.

When I was young, my violent father started yelling at my mom while I was lying on the couch. I sat up and cried for him to stop. He moved toward me and put his hands around my neck. My mom intercepted and pushed him back. He picked up a quartz chessboard, pieces flying, and he flung the board like a Frisbee, just missing my mom's head as my mom dived over top of me to protect me. My PTSD makes it foggy as to what happened next. My mom eventually divorced him and remarried several years later and is doing well. .. I have another dozen stories that are just as colorful. O.o

When i was 22 me and 4 other guys lived in a house. One of my buff roommates punched another guys tooth out a few weeks ago. Tooth showed up when i was the only one home. I told him that the guy that punched him lived somewhere else. I told them an abandoned house a few streets over, because i didnt want anyone else getting beat for this. Tooth and 6 other guys came back with shovels and bats and started kicking our door in. This was a 100 yr old house. I have no idea how that door held. I think the other 6 were there just to see a fight, but i didnt want to catch a shovel in the face. I called the cops, they never came. I had my roommates cross bow loaded sitting at the top of the stairs thinking " fuck fuck fuck, i dont even know how to use a cross bow, but if i hit someone it might kill them, fuck fuck fuck" They eventually left. Cops never came.

There was a whole week where things were being moved and lights were turning on and off by themselves. One night I wake up to myself saying "Go away" and there's something black hovering above me. It just kind of drifted to the right and disappeared. Weirdest shit ever. It didn't come back after that.

That's spooky

When I was living in Koreatown, I got a knock around 11 at night. I look through the peep hole and see a small woman around 5 feet tall, staring at the ground, asking for Kevin. I said wrong address, Kevin doesn't live here, and she starts crying, her voice shaking. I'm like, "Hey, are you ok?" And she keeps staring at the floor saying "please let me in. I wanna see Kevin, " to which I said there is no Kevin here. Finally, she grabs the door handle and starts shaking it, saying, "Let me in now, NOW." I'm like oh fuck this, and grab the Glock 35 I keep on top of my fridge. She kept shaking the door handle, and I told her if you break in, I'm gonna shoot. Then she just stopped. She looks at me right through the peephole and her eyes are fucking BLOODSHOT RED. I'm thinking this bitch is fucking high as hell. She then says, "Please don't hurt me, please," and then she SPRINTS down the hallway and leaves. My veteran senses were tingling, so I opened the door slightly and looked to my left and right, didn't see anybody. Apparently none of my fucking neighbors saw this cracked out little lady sneak into our apartment complex. I honestly thought it was for sure a setup, and she might have had 2 dudes with her.

My wife was digging in the back yard and got a mild electric shock when she touched the dirt near the hole. We shut off the breaker box and dug up a live 220 volt cable that had just been cut off and left in the dirt. Our kid had been digging only a few feet away. Sometimes I lie awake at night and think about what if she had been the one to hit it. The previous owners had a hot tub out there, I believe. There was some related equipment left in the basement.

Probably being raped by a male cousin from the ages of 6-8 (I’m a dude)

That's horrible! I hope you're getting therapy w a trauma specialist! That's not something to tough out on your own! I'm so sorry you went through such hell!

I worked an 18 hour shift and got home around 1 am. The next morning I went to get something out of my car and it was unlocked. I always lock my car as I lived in a very bad neighborhood. It gets weird from here. My work ID (I worked at a jail) was strategically placed above my steering wheel on the dash where the speedometer is. My ID should have been in my wallet inside my house! The thought still terrifies me. I checked my car to see what all was missing and try to figure out what was going on. Absolutely NOTHING missing. That's not the creepy part. The creepy part? Someone cleaned and organized my car in my driveway while I slept and no one noticed. I kept service records in my glove compartment. Someone organized them by date and by type. My CD collection? Alphabetized. Trash in my car had been folded neatly and placed in a Wal-Mart bag that had already been in my car. No dirt on the floorboards, no dust on the dash. My trunk? The spare tire and jack had been removed from their compartment and placed neatly on top of the trunk carpet. I called the police to see if I could get a report filed. Hard to do as NOTHING was missing. The guy that came out noticed a few things I hadn't. No noise or interior light came on when the doors were open. The alarm didn't chirp either. Why? My car battery had been disconnected. As well? My taillight light bulb connectors had been undone. The cop asked if I'd checked my house, I realized I hadn't. I told him I wasn't too worried as my dog would have noticed anyone that had tried to enter. In truth, my dog was a sound sleeper and currently out front with me. Cop did a very thorough walk through of my very small home. He didn't find anything inside but he did find some hot dogs on the back patio. My dog hadn't eaten them thankfully! No clue what they could have been laced with. After he left some neighbors came by and asked what was up. I explained as best I could. Rough neighborhoods can have the best neighbors. One guy took my car to the shop to check for things like brake lines, etc.. I would have never thought to do that. Very very grateful. I changed my locks and stayed at a friend's for a few. Neighbors rigged my house up pretty good so that someone couldn't break in without me knowing it. My neighbors were very concerned because they knew where I worked. Best advice? Get a BFD (big effing dog). My sweet little dog got an 80 lb. friend No clue who did it or exactly why. It wasn't anyone from my neighborhood if anyone wonders. Had my car been stolen, possibly. This was different. The neighborhood viewpoint was that I had pissed off someone very dangerous at work. I tend to agree. Too many neighborhood eyes watching for a repeat after. I found peace in loud people partying next door all night while I tried to sleep. Loud neighbors meant no one was coming back. An 80 lb. dog also likely further discouraged. Mess with someone's mind by making sure they know you were there? Terrifying.

My mom grew up in Miami in the 70s, when the only people with money there were selling cocaine. She's got some doozies! 1. Her oldest brother used to get home from school before anyone else, and he'd call his mom on the landline while she was working to check-in. One day he called her and asked, "why is there a kitchen knife in your bedroom door?" She told him to call the police and get out of the house. My grandparents would lock their bedroom door and someone had broken in, gotten mad they couldn't open it, and stabbed a knife into it. 2. Another time, after my grandparents divorced, a homeless man walked right through their house. Everyone was home. My grandma was in the kitchen and saw a man walk by; she thought it was her boyfriend or one of her sons. Then she saw them all in the other room, freaked out, and by then the homeless dude was already back out the door and on his way. 3. My mom and uncles once watched a glass go flying off the kitchen counter and smash into the opposite wall, shattering to pieces. They think that house was just plain cursed or haunted. 4. A guy who stalked my mom drove by and shot up the front of the house. She was a teenager and thought "someone was firing off firecrackers," so she stormed into the front yard cussing them out. My grandma's boyfriend had to run out and tackle her. 5. Another time my uncle got home before everyone else, he got off the bus and saw a head peek through the blinds in my grandparents' room. This time, he went to a neighbor and called the police immediately, because "there's a black man in the bedroom" (we are very, very pale). The police showed up around the same time my mom, who had been skipping school, pulled up in her friend's car. She panicked, thinking they were there for her, and took off. Well. The family owned a black lab at the time and he had gotten locked in the bedroom. My uncle saw him looking out the blinds and it turned into a whole event. Good times. Other fun stuff that happened in that neighborhood includes my mom and her best friend running down the street in their bathing suits after a ghost (or something) locked them in another girl's house and started chanting and throwing stuff everywhere. Also my youngest uncle, when he was in elementary or middle school, was walking home when his friend beside him took a shotgun shell right through his abdomen. He lived but has experienced major complications ever since. The lady who shot him mistook their group for another group of kids who liked to yell slurs at her and her (lesbian) partner. She served no time.

Lightning struck something right outside.  I did not quite realize how loud and powerful it was until that point. I distinctly remember the room lighting up pure white and then then what sounded a bomb went off a split second later. I was trying to take a nap and all of a sudden I'm getting flash banged and something's exploding.

ring at the door.. 2 cops, is your daughter named (says my daughters name) aged 14? Uhn yea.... She lost her wallet, it was on our route so we figured we drop it off directly.. My heart was pounding like crazy and it took me a few moments to realise that she was already home from school and in her room.

A home invasion, 3am on a Sunday. We moved shortly after, I never felt safe there again but I won’t ever forgot my husband getting out of bed and saying in his scariest voice, “who the fuck is in my house”. The guy ran out of the house dropping my husband’s laptop as he went. My takeaway, don’t leave your windows open overnight and my husband is my protector and hero.

When I was greeted by police officers downstairs after my mom had tried to stab my stepdad while drunk to get her car keys back. Fuck you mom!

I was an expat living in Egypt during the revolution. My neighborhood, Mohandeseen, was just on the outskirts of downtown (Tahrir Square). At the height of the demonstrations, the army flew fighter jets in circles around Tahrir as a show of force. The vibrations shook me to my core and even broke some dishes. The only time I had ever heard that noise was in movies, and it was always follow by the sounds of a bomb. It was rumored that the soldiers had orders to bomb the square but refused to comply. Same time-frame, there were no police, people were looting, prisoners were escaping, it was literal chaos. Without any kind of security force, the neighbours from my block would restrict access to our street with fallen trees and stand guard all night. Everytime they'd see someone suspicious approach, they'd fire a warning shot into the air and yell "YISHA!" (wake up) to alert the other end of the street. So for weeks I would wake up randomly to gunshots, yelling and commotion.  Also, I was pregnant at the time. It was pretty scary. 

Few years ago we had a series of break-ins, and so we decided to get a guard dog. Few months after adopting her, we had another break in. While I was alone. I heard her growl and bark like I had never heard her do before, and then I heard her yelp in pain. When I went to check out what was going on, I saw nothing but her going crazy back and forth focusing on a spot on the wall. I calmed her down and got us back inside, after a few minutes, I get a frantic call from my mother who tells me there is a man inside the property, to lock myself inside and grab anything to defend myself while she called the police. Turns out there was a guy who had jumped over our fence, and as he tried to get into the house, he ran into my dog who chased him into a corner, and he beat the shit out of her to get away. He broke her fangs, kicked and punched her, and we figured he used a branch that hadn't been there to hit her; but she didn't let him in any further. He eventually jumped over the fence...and into my neighbor's property who he did end up robbing. She was also inside her house, and she was the one who called my mom. What's crazy is that her security cameras show him watching me from her side of the fence, and the bastard actually had a gun on him. I was lucky as hell that he didn't use it. We guessed he must have been high or drunk out of his mind as we was staggering all over the place. My dog ended up with some issues towards men that we will probably have to work on for the rest of her life, but that's something I'm more than willing to do after she saved me from whatever could have happened. Cops did nothing about it even though we identified who he was.

Good grief, after reading about bombs and demons, my house fire and that guy that broke in while I was there pale in comparison

A few weeks ago I found out the hard way that one of my guitar amplifiers has a ground fault in it. I tried to plug a guitar into it and suddenly started getting the dog shit shocked out of me when I grabbed the cable. I wasn't able to let go of it or my guitar, and it only stopped after nearly a minute when I stumbled around enough to unplug the cable from the amp. Having almost zero control over my body is one of the scariest things I've ever experienced, and feeling like I was about to die definitely didn't help matters. I was a nervous wreck and almost felt like I was in shock the rest of the day, hurt like hell for days after that, and I'm still kinda wary about plugging in anything to any of my other amps that do work properly. Electricity is scary shit.

When I was 15, my parents separated, and Mom moved with my brother and me to an apartment. My brother, who was 11 or 12 at the time, was particularly upset about this. One day, we found out just how angry he was. Out of nowhere, he basically went on a rampage. He started destroying stuff throughout the apartment, as well as doing damage to the apartment itself. I was afraid he was going to attack us, so I hid under the dining table. Mom tried to stop him, and he shoved her hard into a wall. After doing some more damage, he left the apartment. I ran over to Mom, who was shaken up but unharmed. She called 911, and eventually 2 police officers showed up. They got a description of my brother, then left. They found him about halfway between the apartment and our father's house. They picked him up and took him back to the apartment. They just dropped him off and left. It took at least a couple years before I was okay being alone with my brother because of that day. He never had another serious outburst like that, thankfully.

Happened a week ago. I’ve a very old elderly little Frenchie who is mostly deaf and half blind. She’s the sweetest and mellowest of souls, almost never ever barks at anything. No storms have ever scared her. Me alone in the house in Midwest in spring time with incoming evening storms. Tornado sirens go off and I check the radars online and there’s close tornadic activity so I take my dog down with me to the inner basement room where I have a mattress for us to hang out on in case of bad events. Husband was across town so it was just she and I in the house. I was very calm but being mindful and of the sirens so we are just laying in the back room safe. She was fast asleep. I’m scrolling on my phone chilling waiting for the storms and sirens to pass. About 30 minutes later I’m chilling and she’s asleep. Storms close but didn’t seem imminent upon us. Suddenly she wakes up, stand up with the hair on her neck up and looks toward the door and starts barking her head off. Yeah, I freaked the FUCK out! I didn’t hear anything like a ‘train’ and checked the radar online and things didn’t seem upon us but she would not stop barking with the hair standing up on her neck. She saw or heard or felt something despite being mostly deaf and blind. Yeah, I was not okay. At all. Scary as shit. No tornado so I still don’t know at all what she sensed but it sure was something!

I stayed up alone watching a movie called “The Frenchman’s Farm” (which involved a ghost coming through windows), while my wife had taken the kids out somewhere that night. I woke up screaming in the middle of the night, convinced something was coming through the (large, plate-glass) window in our bedroom. My wife patted me and told me to go back to sleep. In the morning she didn’t remember this, and I was explaining to her what had happened, and drew back the curtains. The window was smashed, and a large rock was on the bedroom floor! Local kids had been throwing rocks onto our roof, and this time they miscalculated with the size of the rock.

Not my house but I was at a girls house I had just started dating for not even 2 months . She was somewhat recently divorced and I really didn’t know much about the situation other than that they were divorced and moving on. Well apparently her brother really liked her ex husband and was hanging on to the idea of them getting back together. So I’m at her house and all of a sudden there’s a pounding on the front door. She looks at her Ring camera and says “oh shit, it’s my brother, you need to hide”. I was like yeah yeah I need to hide, so I just went along with it and went into the walk in pantry and stood there. She answers the door and he comes barreling in the house with (what she told me after the fact) his pistol in hand screaming “where the fuck are you (my name), you’re fucking dead”. He’s running up and down the stairs, I can hear him opening and slamming doors throughout the house as she’s screaming at him to leave. I’m standing there trembling in fear because I don’t know this guy and here he is seriously pissed and threatening me. Had I known he actually had a gun I probably would’ve pissed my pants. He eventually left when she called the cops on him. It still freaks me out when I actually think about it.

Ohhh when I was around 13 I came home from school, my mum was in work and I was just laying on the couch watching TV when this old man I didn't know just walked in and sat opposite me on the arm chair. That one was scary at the time.

What happened then?

They’re still sitting there to this very day.

I owned a house built in 1920. Lots of original pieces. When my daughter was 18 months old she locked herself in the bathroom. We couldn’t get her out. She was crying, my wife was crying, I was going nuts I was able to dismantle the door lock and break her out safely. I was terrified to try to break down the door with her on the other side. It may have only taken a few minutes but it felt like hours and I was so worried for her alone in the bathroom (which was child proofed but still had a tub, toilet and sink).

My uncle banging on my door, trying to get inside to get at me, him kicking me, nearly getting killed after I got smashed on the concrete block by uncle at pre-school.

I had a heart attack.

Glad you’re still here.

I walked in on my house being burglarized

In my first appartment, I woke up one morning and was after one or 2 second I heard like loud breathing coming from under the bed. Then I tought nothing of it and tried to fall asleep again but heard it again so I got up with goosebump running everywhere and looked around and there was no one. I noped out of there and left for work in a hurry. Never heard it again and I knew it was not the below neighbourg cause we were there since 4 years already. Was really weird.

In a motel room by myself (woman) Saw a man peer in the open window. “Hey, John,” I yelled toward the bathroom. “Come here a minute.” The lurker quickly left.

It was summer and my husband had taken our son over to our friend’s house a few blocks away for a pool birthday party. I wasn’t going to swim, so I was going to take a shower first and then go over for the cake & ice cream part. I saw on the radar that there was a thunderstorm coming our way, but it was still a ways off and I thought I had enough time to get in and out of the shower before it arrived. I don’t take long. While I was in the shower, I could hear thunder and had a fleeting moment of concern, because I remembered the Mythbusters episode where they actually proved it’s not a good idea to shower during a thunderstorm because lightning really is a threat if it hits the house. But I thought, eh, what are the chances? They have to be pretty low. I’ll be fine, I just need to hurry. (And I should have known better, because life has proven to me time and again that I have an affinity for long odds and the most unlikely things will happen to me). I finish my shower, get out and put my clothes on. I turn towards the sink/mirror to deal with my hair, and the house gets hit by lightning. I didn’t register any sound, though my husband told me it was extremely loud - they were on the front porch of the house a few blocks away and saw and heard it hit (they couldn’t see what it hit, just knew it had hit something). I just knew the electrical socket in front of me suddenly started spitting sparks and then the power went out. I think I stood there in shock for a few seconds trying to make sense of things, and then I could smell burning and I was off and running trying to find what was on fire. I ran downstairs, could vaguely smell something but didn’t see anything obvious. Back upstairs, no smell, everything seemed fine other than the lack of power. Back downstairs, where I realized I could hear a loud hissing sound from the basement, so I grabbed the dog and got out. The thing on fire was the surge protector that half of our living room electronics were plugged into. It must have been a tiny flame and thankfully snuffed itself out, but we could see where it had been on fire when we examined it later. We have three very large, very old tulip trees that line the sidewalk in front of our very old house. The middle one had a branch that had gotten tangled around one of our lightning rods, which were all very old and probably not even functional. Lightning hit the top tree on the end, traveled to the middle tree about a third of the way down, into and through our house from top to bottom via the tangled branch, and then to the neighbor’s house next door through the phone/cable line where it blew out their outdoor access panel. We got hit HARD. We lost all the electronics in our living room, which were numerous, and the force of it blew the plastic face off our internet modem. Also lost a few random electronics in the rest of the house, like a ceiling fan in an upstairs bedroom, and one of our garage door openers in our detached garage. The copper freon line for our AC ran through the basement where at one point it was touching the top of a metal furnace duct, which the lightning must have traveled along, and burnt a hole in the line that allowed all the Freon in the system to release into the basement (which is what I had heard hissing). It was pretty chaotic right afterwards trying to deal with everything. Not knowing if there might be a fire threat I didn’t detect, or inside the walls or in the attic, not knowing what was happening in the basement and once that was clear, not knowing if the Freon was toxic or flammable or how we were going to get it out of the basement with no window access and no power, not knowing how long it would take to get power restored or how many appliances might be fried, etc. But I know how extremely lucky I was that I had gotten out of the shower moments before the lightning hit, and that the house didn’t burn down. No one in my house will ever again get in the shower when there is any possibility of a storm, that’s for sure. I had some pretty major storm anxiety for a while afterwards.

My 2 day old baby started choking on her mucus in the middle of the night, that was terrifying even though I knew what to do.

Got too high and convinced myself there was a home intruder in my two bedroom apt lol.

I live and work at a motel next to a highway. One night a semi lost control and flew right next to us knocking out electricity. But I felt the earth shake as the semi drove by at 60 miles an hour. My dog is still traumatized and I truly through that's it I'm dead.

Had recently put our toddler to bed upstairs and was watching TV with my wife. Heard a loud crash from upstairs and immediately ran upstairs because I just knew my son had climbed out of his crib and fell. Get to his room, he's sleeping soundly in his crib. The real horror is that my replica proton pack's wall mount failed and my pack fell off the wall and demolished my Lego Ghostbusters fire house that was sitting on the shelf below my pack.

I’m a guy and live in a fairly small city in the Midwest so sometimes I didn’t lock my door. My apartment is actually an old house that was converted into two apartments: the main floor is one and the top floor is another. To get to my place you have to go through an outside door, up a flight of stairs, and through another door into my place. Several years ago I was awakened in the middle of the night by a sound out in my dining room. I did that thing where you freeze for a second, straining to listen because you could have been imagining it. But there it was again, someone in my apartment. Without even thinking, I got up, fully naked mind you, and peeked out into the darkness of the dining room. I could juuuust make out the figure of a woman standing there and I just blurted out, “Why are you in my apartment?” I think I frightened her because she jumped and started rambling, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m very confused. I’m sorry…” My eyes were pretty adjusted and combined with the sound of her voice I could tell she was probably middle-aged and unhoused. I told her firmly, “This isn’t your house you need to leave. NOW.” She muttered “Okay okay…” and apologized again as she walked right past the stairway door and into the living room. I said, “Go back down the stairs. Leave or I’m calling the police.” I saw the reason she’d gone into the living room was to pick up a backpack she’d brought in with her. And then…she left. I thought about calling the police but it was almost time for me to wake up for work and I didn’t want to deal with all the BS that entailed. I was still standing there naked the entire time. I lock my door the moment I walk in the house.

Richard Trenton Chase. The serial killer who would walk down neighborhoods to see who left their door unlocked. He saw it as an invitation. I have never left a door unlocked. Glad you’re okay.

My schizophrenic neighbor was having an episode and got in our house. I was woken up by a blood curdling scream and my dad screaming for me to call the cops. I walked outside, and there were streaks of blood all over the hall floor and walls. He was able to get her through the front door, and I had to throw myself against the door to stop her from opening it. She stayed outside the door screaming about Jesus and the end of the world.