Howdy! I went to the College of Saint Rose in Albany NY, back when they still offered creative majors, and to graduate with a graphic design degree, we needed a ridiculous 150+ credits. They changed that the year after I graduated, before getting rid of art, music, and education a few years later. You know. The only reasons to go to the overpriced private college, when there are more affordable options offering more majors in the same city. Anywho, when I picked dorms for my Sophomore and Senior years of college, I knew Charter Hall used to be a funeral home but didn't think much of it.
Sleep wasn’t a priority and life was a mess, so Sophomore year, I took up walking to the local, very old, graveyard at night. I was dealing with family problems when my roommate began dating my then very recent ex. I handled the sudden drama poorly, basically avoiding our room when she was awake. Getting in late, she’d be asleep.
To paint the picture, I had top bunk, she had the bottom, and our heads lay away from the desk/door area. On her desk sat a touch lamp. I'd come home in the early AM, walk by ~but not touch~ the lamp, then change into my night clothes at the opposite end of the room. Every night the lamp turned on. At first I assumed my roommate was tapping it, but when I commented, she was equally freaked out about the lamp. And, while I disagreed with her dating tendencies, she didn’t seem the sort to lie about that. Eventually, it occured to me that it might be something following me home from the graveyard.
I stopped wandering and the light stopped turning on at night. I'm not sure if I turned it off before climbing into bed every night. I don't like the dark so I probably left it on, and my roommate never complained.
Come senior year, I moved into a single room on the top floor of that same building. For the first half of the year, all was well. Then I returned to campus after winter break (spent at my family’s house, which was once blessed/exorcised but that’s another story) and my room started to scare me.
At first it was little things. There was no airflow, yet paintings I'd hung, would suddenly fall off the wall. Fine. Thumb tacks weren't the most secure option for hanging art. This happened so frequently that I stopped putting them back up. Then one night I awoke to the sound of shattering glass in my dorm room. I turned on the light and looked around. My room had a mirror over the sink, a small sealed window, and a box of shot glasses I was using for a design assignment. That's the extent of the glassware in my possession at that time. I scanned them all and none appeared broken. My shot glasses sat on top of the closet, the mirror, and window were intact and in place. I turned off the light and went back to sleep.
Come morning, I checked a second time before leaving for the day. The shot glasses remained on top of the closet. I went to class. Later I returned to my room to find the glasses placed in the center of the floor. The door had been locked all day.
I started sleeping with the lights on, calling my boyfriend every night before bed, because I was afraid of my room. By this point I was convinced the room was haunted, but so far, the ghost hadn't done much beyond annoying me out of sleep.
That changed when I awoke to a crash in the middle of the night. I slept on a lofted bed and I would put my hand-me-down laptop underneath it, at night. Instantly alert, I turned on the light. My laptop lay shut, in the center of the room, on the floor. A piece of plastic from inside the laptop lay beside it. My laptop was broken. I was pissed. Not scared anymore—Just very done with the whole situation. I couldn't afford another laptop and that one had the ultra expensive Adobe Suite on it.
The next day I taped a piece of paper to the top of my dresser and placed a small golf pencil beside it. Then I told the entity in my room that it was not to communicate with me anymore, unless it was by writing whatever its message was with that pencil, on that piece of paper, which I would be keeping in that one spot. If the entity attempted to contact me through any other means ever again, I would have it exorcised. I was very clear that I would call upon a priest, nun, actual exorcist, witch, whatever the heck, I DID NOT CARE, whoever I had to call, until it was gone from that place forever.
Nothing else weird happened during the next couple of months that I lived in that room. After graduating, I learned that our college President gives an annual lecture regarding the campus hauntings. Art students being separated from the general student body by physical proximity (our work space being a shuttle ride from the main campus and our schedules fuller than the average student back then, not counting the music majors), we weren't invited. Apparently Charter Hall’s known to be haunted by a little girl who died in a fire, so I assume that's who I was threatening after they broke my laptop.
Everybody knew Morris Hall was haunted. I believe the story was that a priest killed himself over a nun he was infatuated with…? The piano was said to play at night. While I never dormed there, I hung out in the lobby overnight a couple of times and never saw or heard anything weird. I did live in Lima Hall, Freshman year. It was a hospital at some point and is said to be haunted, but I witnessed nothing of interest.
Thanks for stopping by! I put out a new blog post every Monday. Toodles!
TL;DR: My ex funeral home dorm building was haunted. A touch lamp would turn on, paintings fell off the walls, a phantom glass shattered, my things were moved around, and it broke my laptop. I threatened it with an exorcism and never had another issue.