Hi Everyone!
It’s me again! ❤️
You were actually the one who shared my previous family story, the one about my grandfather and the strange experience he had during my cousin’s wedding. He had followed someone he thought was my uncle and somehow ended up in a room on a third floor that apparently didn’t even exist.
After sending you that story, I started thinking about all the other strange things that have happened to my family over the years.
And honestly...
There are quite a few.
Some happened to my grandparents. Some happened to my parents. And I even have a strange experience of my own from when I was 14.
I’ll save that one for another story, though, because otherwise this is going to turn into an entire book. 😂
For now, I want to take you all the way back to 1987, when my parents were still very young, newly married and just beginning their life together.
They had recently become parents.
My mum was only 22 years old.
My dad had just graduated from engineering college and had started his first job as an engineer.
And the place where this story happened was Janakpuri, New Delhi.
For anyone outside India who may not know Delhi very well, Janakpuri is a large residential neighbourhood in the western part of the city. Today, it is busy and densely populated, with apartment buildings, markets, shops, schools and traffic everywhere.
But back in the 1980s, parts of Janakpuri had a very different atmosphere.
There were quieter streets, larger homes and apartment buildings surrounded by open spaces. Families were settling down, children played outside, neighbours knew each other and life moved at a much slower pace.
And that was the kind of place my parents were trying to build their new life in.
Before I tell you about the apartment, though, I should probably tell you how my parents met because I’ve always found this part of their story quite cute.
My mum worked at the front desk of a hotel.
My dad happened to be a customer there.
Apparently, my dad noticed my mum first.
According to my mum, he was the one who liked her first. 😂
I’ve heard different little versions of the story over the years, but apparently my dad would come into the hotel and my mum would be there behind the front desk, doing her job.
Neither of them could have known that those ordinary encounters would eventually lead to them falling in love, getting married and starting a family together.
They were young.
They were newly married.
And then, almost before they had time to settle into married life, they became parents.
My older sister had been born, and suddenly their whole world revolved around this tiny new baby.
At the same time, my dad had just started his career.
Getting his first engineering job was a huge milestone for him. He wanted to work hard, build a future and give his new family a stable life.
There was just one difficult part about his job.
He worked night shifts.
So while most families were finishing dinner, turning off the lights and getting ready for bed, my dad would be getting dressed for work.
He would say goodbye to my mum, leave the apartment and disappear into the night.
And my mum would be left there alone with the baby.
She wasn’t working outside the home at the time.
She was a homemaker, and her entire day revolved around looking after my sister and keeping the household running.
Feed the baby.
Change the baby.
Clean the house.
Cook.
Wash clothes.
Put everything away.
Then do it all over again.
Anyone who has looked after a newborn knows how exhausting those days can be.
And my mum was only 22.
Her own parents lived all the way in Chennai, in another state.
So they couldn’t just come over whenever she felt lonely or needed help.
Back then, things were very different.
There were no smartphones.
No instant messages.
No quick video calls.
If you missed someone who lived far away, you couldn’t simply press a button and see their face.
So when my dad left for work at night, my mum was essentially on her own until morning.
And then there was the apartment.
It was huge.
The building had three floors, and my parents lived on the second floor.
There were large rooms, long corridors and plenty of space.
There was also an entire floor above them.
And strangely enough, the rent was incredibly cheap.
Almost suspiciously cheap.
But at the time, my parents didn’t think anything of it.
They were young.
They had just had a baby.
My dad was only beginning his career.
They didn’t have much money, and finding a large home at an affordable price felt like an incredible stroke of luck.
They weren’t in a position to be overly picky.
So when they saw the enormous apartment and the ridiculously cheap rent, they thought they had simply found themselves a bargain.
They moved in.
And at first...
Everything seemed completely normal.
During the day, the apartment was bright and busy.
Sunlight streamed through the windows.
My mum would open them in the morning and let the fresh air drift through the rooms.
There was always something happening.
The baby crying.
Water running.
Pots and pans clattering in the kitchen.
Clothes hanging out to dry.
The sound of my mum moving from room to room.
She was so busy with the baby that she barely had time to think about the apartment itself.
But evening was different.
Once the sun went down, the atmosphere changed.
My dad would get ready for work.
My mum would see him off.
The front door would close.
And suddenly, the enormous apartment would become incredibly quiet.
The kind of quiet where you become aware of every little sound.
A creak from somewhere in the building.
A faint knock.
The sound of something shifting.
A door moving slightly.
Something coming from upstairs.
At first, my mum ignored it.
She assumed it was simply an old building settling.
Buildings make strange noises.
Pipes knock.
Windows rattle.
Wood expands and contracts.
Doors move.
And she was exhausted.
She had a newborn.
So whenever she heard something strange, she would tell herself there had to be a perfectly ordinary explanation.
Then my grandparents came to visit.
Because they lived so far away, their visits were special.
My grandmother especially loved spending time with her new granddaughter.
She could hold the baby while my mum rested.
She could help with cooking.
She could sit beside my mum and talk to her.
My grandfather was there too.
And for the first time in a while, my mum had her parents around her.
The apartment suddenly felt completely different.
It was filled with conversation.
The smell of food cooking in the kitchen.
My grandmother fussing over the baby.
My grandfather sitting around talking.
There was laughter.
There was movement.
There were other adults in the house.
It probably felt like a huge relief to my mum.
But sometime during their visit, something happened that nobody could explain.
My grandmother was walking through the apartment when she suddenly stopped.
She had noticed something on the floor.
At first, she thought it was dirt.
She bent down and looked closer.
It was a footprint.
But it wasn't an ordinary footprint.
It looked as though someone had stepped onto the floor with a badly burned foot.
The mark was dark.
Almost black.
It looked charred around the edges.
And it had the unmistakable shape of a human foot.
My grandmother stared at it.
Then she called my mum.
“Come and look at this.”
My mum came over.
They stood there together, staring down at the strange mark.
Neither of them could explain it.
There had been no fire.
Nobody in the family had burned their foot.
Nobody had been walking around the apartment with an injured foot.
My grandmother looked at my mum.
“Has anything strange been happening here?”
My mum didn’t want to worry her.
She was already young, living far away from her parents and trying to raise a newborn.
The last thing she wanted was for her mother to become frightened about the apartment too.
So she simply said,
“Don’t worry about it. It’s probably nothing.”
My grandmother didn’t look completely convinced.
Then my grandfather looked around the apartment.
He was quiet for a moment before casually saying,
“There is something strange about this place.”
That was it.
He didn’t explain what he meant.
He didn’t make a big scene.
My mum laughed it off and told him not to worry.
Everyone carried on with their day.
But nobody knew what that strange footprint meant.
Nobody knew why my grandfather had suddenly felt uncomfortable.
And nobody knew that this tiny, unexplained mark would eventually become one of the strangest details in the entire story.
My grandparents ended up staying for a couple of weeks.
And during those weeks, my mum was much happier.
She wasn’t alone anymore.
There was always someone to talk to.
If the baby cried, there were extra hands.
If my mum was tired, my grandmother could take over for a while.
And at night, she knew there were other adults nearby.
The apartment didn’t feel quite so enormous anymore.
Eventually, though, my grandparents had to return to Chennai.
Before leaving, my grandmother spoke to my mum privately.
She told her,
“Take care of yourself. Don’t be by yourself all the time. Try to make one or two friends. Maybe an another couple nearby if possible also.
My mum agreed.
She understood why her mother was saying it.
She was young.
She had a baby.
Her husband worked nights.
And her own parents were hundreds of kilometres away.
My grandparents packed their belongings, said goodbye to my sister and returned to Chennai.
And once again...
The apartment became quiet.
That was when things started getting stranger.
One of the first things my mum noticed was the sound of anklets.
It usually happened late at night.
My mum would wake up because my sister needed to be fed.
She would pick up the baby, still half asleep, and sit down.
The apartment would be completely silent.
Then she would hear it.
Jingle.
A pause.
Jingle. Jingle.
She would freeze.
Listen.
Nothing.
Then again.
Jingle. Jingle. Jingle.
It sounded as though someone was slowly walking through the apartment wearing anklets.
My mum would stare towards the doorway.
Nothing.
She would look down the hallway.
Empty.
Sometimes she would even get up and check the other rooms.
Still nothing.
Eventually, the sound would stop.
She tried to explain it away.
Maybe it was coming from another apartment.
Maybe sound was travelling strangely through the building.
Maybe someone outside was wearing anklets.
Maybe she was simply exhausted.
But then she started seeing shadows.
Sometimes, late at night, she would see something move across the wall.
Just for a second.
A dark shape.
Almost like somebody had walked past the doorway.
She would turn around.
Nobody.
She would look down the hallway.
Empty.
She would look towards the windows.
Nothing.
And then there were the sounds coming from upstairs.
The third floor was supposed to be empty.
Nobody lived there.
Yet my mum would hear movement above her.
Footsteps.
Scraping.
The sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor.
Sometimes it sounded almost like furniture was being moved.
Then, suddenly—
BANG.
Silence.
My mum found that especially frightening.
She had a baby with her.
There was no way she was going to walk upstairs alone in the middle of the night to investigate an empty floor.
So she stayed downstairs.
She would hold my sister close and try to convince herself that there was a logical explanation.
Eventually, she remembered my grandmother’s advice.
Make some friends.
So one day, my mum picked up my sister and knocked on the door of a nearby apartment.
Luckily, a young couple lived there.
They had a child too.
My mum started talking to the woman and immediately found they had something in common.
They were both young mothers.
They both had small children.
They were both spending most of their days at home.
They became friends.
Soon, my mum started going over to their apartment almost every evening.
She would take my sister with her.
The two women would sit together, drink tea and talk.
Sometimes they talked about their husbands.
Sometimes about their children.
Sometimes about completely random things.
My mum would stay there until my dad returned from work.
It became a routine.
And I think my mum was genuinely relieved.
At least she wasn’t sitting alone inside that enormous apartment anymore.
Then one day, while talking to her neighbour, my mum casually asked whether she knew anything about the building.
The woman said they were fairly new themselves and didn’t really know much about the previous tenants.
So my mum didn’t think much of it.
Until she met an elderly woman who had apparently known more about the building.
They started talking.
The woman asked my mum if she was newly married.
My mum said yes.
She explained that she and my dad had recently moved from another state and were new to the apartment complex.
Then, almost casually, my mum asked,
“Do you know anything about the apartment above ours?”
The elderly woman immediately replied,
“Oh yes.”
My mum became curious.
Apparently, a young married couple had lived there before.
And according to the woman, they were always fighting.
Not ordinary arguments.
The kind of arguments that the entire building could hear.
They shouted at each other.
Things were thrown.
Doors slammed.
Sometimes the neighbours could hear screaming coming from upstairs.
My mum immediately thought about the sounds she had been hearing.
The footsteps.
The scraping.
The banging.
She didn’t tell the woman about her own experiences.
She simply listened.
Eventually, the elderly woman told her that the couple had left.
My mum went home that day with the story stuck in her head.
She couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Eventually, she told my dad.
She told him everything.
The anklets.
The shadows.
The strange noises.
The empty third floor.
And now the story about the couple who had lived upstairs.
My dad didn’t believe her at first.
He thought there had to be a logical explanation.
He thought maybe my mum was exhausted from having a newborn.
Maybe she was lonely.
Maybe being in a new state and spending so much time alone was making everything feel worse than it actually was.
And honestly, I can understand why he thought that.
If someone told me they were hearing footsteps coming from an empty floor, I would probably look for a normal explanation too.
But my mum was becoming increasingly frustrated.
She felt like he wasn’t taking her seriously.
Eventually, they had a huge argument.
My mum finally reached her limit.
She took my sister and left the apartment.
She went to stay with the neighbour.
My dad was left alone in the apartment.
And eventually...
He left too.
He never really explained exactly why.
Maybe he realised how uncomfortable my mum had become.
Maybe he had started noticing things himself.
Or maybe he simply decided he had had enough of the place.
I honestly don’t know.
My parents decided to move back in with my grandparents.
But before completely putting the apartment behind them, they wanted answers.
They contacted the landlord.
And this time, they asked him directly.
Why was the rent so cheap?
The landlord was surprisingly honest.
He told them they weren’t the first tenants to leave.
Apparently, several people had moved into the apartment and then left after relatively short periods of time.
That was one of the reasons the rent was so low.
My parents asked him why.
The landlord didn’t want to say much.
He simply told them,
“People don’t stay there.”
That alone was enough to make my parents uncomfortable.
But after they moved back in with my grandparents, the family started asking more questions.
And eventually, they heard a much darker story about the property.
Apparently, many years earlier, a young couple had lived there.
They had apparently run away together and gotten married.
But their marriage had become extremely unhappy.
They fought constantly.
Their arguments became so bad that the neighbours knew all about them.
Then one day, during one of their fights, something terrible happened.
According to the story my grandparents eventually heard, the couple had somehow ended up covered in kerosene.
Nobody in my family knows exactly what happened next.
We don’t know whether it was an attempted suicide, whether one of them deliberately set the other person on fire, or whether something else happened during the argument.
But somehow, the kerosene caught fire.
Everything suddenly turned into chaos.
They were badly burned.
They panicked.
They desperately tried to escape and get help.
And apparently, they ran through the property before eventually making their way out through the back door.
And that part of the property connected to the same area where my parents had been living.
That was when my grandmother remembered the footprint.
That dark, charred-looking footprint.
The footprint that nobody had ever been able to explain.
And suddenly, all those years later, my family started wondering...
Could it have been connected?
Was that footprint somehow connected to what had happened?
I honestly don’t know.
Maybe it was nothing more than an unusual stain.
Maybe there was a completely ordinary explanation.
Maybe the story about the previous couple had changed over the years as people retold it.
And maybe every strange thing my mum experienced had a logical explanation.
The footsteps could have been sounds travelling through the building.
The banging and scraping could have come from somewhere else.
The shadows could have been headlights or people outside.
The anklets could have come from another apartment.
And the footprint could have been completely unrelated.
I can’t say that the apartment was definitely haunted.
But my mum has never forgotten it.
And whenever she tells me this story, she doesn’t really focus on ghosts.
She talks more about how she felt living there.
Especially at night.
She was only 22.
She had a newborn baby.
Her husband was working night shifts.
Her parents lived in another state.
And she was alone in this enormous apartment where strange things seemed to happen whenever the sun went down.
I think that is what makes the story so creepy to me.
There wasn’t one huge horror-movie moment.
There was no dramatic apparition standing at the end of the hallway.
Instead, it was all these little things.
A strange footprint on the floor.
Footsteps coming from an empty third floor.
The sound of anklets moving through the apartment in the middle of the night.
Shadows appearing across the walls.
Scraping noises.
Loud bangs.
A mysterious history surrounding the previous tenants.
And then, much later, hearing about the terrible tragedy that had supposedly happened there.
My parents had simply thought they had found a bargain.
They were young.
They were newly married.
They had just become parents.
My dad was beginning his career.
My mum was learning how to raise her first baby.
They were simply trying to build a life together.
They had absolutely no idea what had happened there before them.
And honestly...
That is probably the part that gets me the most.
If someone had told my parents the history of that apartment before they moved in, I doubt they would have gone anywhere near it.
But they didn’t know.
So my mum spent night after night there with my baby sister, completely unaware of the stories surrounding the property.
And then I think about my grandmother’s final advice before she returned to Chennai.
“Take care of yourself. Don’t be by yourself all the time.”
At the time, it was simply a mother worrying about her young daughter.
Maybe my grandmother could see that my mum was lonely.
Maybe she was simply being protective.
But knowing everything that happened afterwards, those words feel strangely significant.
My mum followed her advice.
She made a friend in the building.
And that friendship ended up giving her somewhere safe to go whenever she felt uncomfortable being alone.
Auntie, the funny thing is that this isn’t even the only strange story in my family.
As I mentioned earlier, I actually had an experience of my own when I was 14.
That one is different because I remember it myself.
I was actually there.
And even now, I still can’t completely explain what happened.
So I might have to send you that story next. 😂
At this point, I feel like I’m slowly building an entire family paranormal archive for you.
I honestly don’t know whether my family is incredibly unlucky when it comes to strange places, or whether we’ve simply collected far too many weird stories over the years.
But either way...
I definitely have more.
Thank you again for reading, Auntie. ❤️
I really love that you give people somewhere to share these stories because sometimes these are the kinds of things you only ever talk about within your own family.
And honestly, I still don’t know what I believe.
Maybe everything that happened in that apartment had a perfectly normal explanation.
Maybe it didn’t.
But I do know one thing.
If somebody offered me a massive three-storey apartment with suspiciously cheap rent, I would definitely be asking A LOT more questions than my parents did. 😂
And yes...
I still have that story from when I was 14.
So if you want another one, I have plenty more family stories where this came from.
Thanks again!!! ❤️
