Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Good evening, I'm Ben, and welcome to the show where you and I gather around this virtual campfire to share our scariest experiences. So whether you're a new or returning camper, I'm happy to have you.
[00:00:20] Ghosts are often attributed to the long deceased, to the point to where it's become almost a supernatural stereotype that ghosts are always from the victorian period. But tonight, we're headed to sunny Southern California to hear Elizabeth's encounter with a recently deceased man who was no nicer in the afterlife than he was when he was alive. So, without further ado, do you want to hear a ghost story?
[00:00:48] To say I didn't believe in ghosts before this experience would be untrue, even though I had never seen one. I grew up hearing about ghosts and other unusual happenings from my family.
[00:01:00] My family even lived in a haunted house when I was first born, and according to my mother, I played with the ghosts. However, its hard for me to remember anything from when I was three months old, but none of these stories prepared me for what I would encounter. In the summer of 2006, I was attending a junior college in Riverside, California, trying to save a little cash before transferring to university.
[00:01:24] I had the summer off, so taking a part time job was a great opportunity to make some extra money.
[00:01:30] It so happened that a real estate management company was looking for someone to answer phones and assist with paperwork.
[00:01:37] The management company was located in a large brownstone near downtown Riverside, which, if you're not from there, is known for its historic homes.
[00:01:46] This home had been converted into four spacious offices, two on the bottom floor and two on the top. The management company I went to work for encompassed the two offices upstairs. The front side, closest to the street, is where I typically worked. The back office across the hall was sublet by another realtor who was not around much and kept that office door locked most of the time. During the first few weeks, I experienced your typical training painst. For example, one day I answered the phone and gave the wrong company name, and most embarrassingly, I locked my keys in the bathroom. On most days, it was just me and my supervisor, Joan. Now, Joan was also a realtor, and one day she decided it was time for me to fly solo so that she could go show a home.
[00:02:31] I was a little nervous about handling all the work myself, but I knew her help was just one phone call away.
[00:02:39] After she left, I noticed the air in the office began to cool.
[00:02:43] I discounted it, believing the air conditioning had just switched on. It was midsummer, and temperatures often reached over 100 degrees by the afternoon, but the office continued to grow colder and colder. I was shocked. I couldnt see my breath.
[00:02:59] I stepped outside into the hallway hoping to warm up. When I returned a few minutes later, I checked the thermostat, but it was set to 77. Even stranger, the temperature seemingly returned to normal.
[00:03:11] The phone rang. I ran back to my desk to answer it, but it was just Joan checking in.
[00:03:19] After the call, I decided it was time to buckle down and get my work done. So I sat and began highlighting contracts. Real riveting work.
[00:03:29] I quickly found my mind wandering in the silence of the office.
[00:03:33] After all, Joan usually played music from her combo cd radio player.
[00:03:38] I went to her desk to turn it on but felt awkward because I didn't want to assume I could use it without her there. But I found a station to listen to anyways.
[00:04:00] While listening, I noticed it would randomly scan across the channels before returning to the channel. I set it to something that I remember noticing when Joan was here, but I always just assumed it was her doing it.
[00:04:21] I put down my highlighter and looked over at Joan's desk. When the radio did it again, I again assumed that maybe it was just an old radio and it didn't really bother me much. I went back to my highlighting, but I swear whenever it scanned, I could hear whispers. A voice in the static between channels.
[00:04:46] At first I didn't think anything of it, but those whispers grew louder suddenly, as clear as day. A voice called through the speaker, I see you. I just sat there, my jaw gaping as my eyes scanned around the office looking for a camera.
[00:05:06] I turned the radio off and was just convinced someone was playing a prank on me, but I was pretty upset.
[00:05:13] After a moment, I went out into the hallway and into the restroom. While splashing water around my face, I heard heavy footsteps across the old wooden floors of the hallway.
[00:05:24] Believing someone had returned, I quickly dried my face and rushed out only to find no one there.
[00:05:31] A booming noise like someone just took a sledgehammer to the wall shook the back private office. I turned to see the door vibrating, which was followed by weird groaning noises from behind the door. The realtor who rented that office was pretty outgoing and always announced his presence when he was in the office, so I knew he wasnt inside.
[00:05:51] I ran to the phone to call Joan, but when I picked it up, the phone was dead.
[00:05:57] I put the phone down and just as I did that, all the noises, all the shaking stopped and then the radio clicked back on.
[00:06:10] I decided it was close enough to 05:00 to finish for the day. I turned the radio off on my way out, and I ran quickly past that back door to the office in the back.
[00:06:21] The next morning, Joan asked how everything went the previous day, almost as if she had suspected something.
[00:06:30] My constantly darting eyes and twitchy hands might have been the giveaway. I got no sleep the previous night, staying up, trying to convince myself that everything I witnessed, everything I heard, had a reasonable explanation, a rational explanation, yet I couldnt make any sense of it.
[00:06:50] I was worried Joan would have me committed or fire me. But I balled up all of my courage and I told her what happened. To my shock, she didnt seem surprised at all.
[00:07:02] Oh, thats Steve, she said calmly.
[00:07:06] Then she continued to tell me the history of the old building.
[00:07:10] Before the house was turned into an office building, it had been, well, for lack of a better term, a crack house. As the story goes, Steve was a dealer selling bad product.
[00:07:21] One day in the early eighties, he made a stop at this very house to sell, only to have the clientele string him up in the back upper room where they beat him like a pinata until all of his candy spilled. It took a few weeks for anyone to find his rotting corpse, until finally the neighbors reported a foul stench coming from the house.
[00:07:43] According to the legend, while Steves body was taken from the home, his spirit never left. After that conversation, I continued to work for the management company for several months, and Steve just became a part of my work routine.
[00:07:58] If there was an emergency, I could expect the phones to go out. If something went missing, I could expect the realtor from the back office to say he found it on his desk. If the radio was on, I could expect it to randomly scan as steve let me know he could see me. Steve apparently was a real jerk when he was alive, and it seemed he continued to be so after his death.
[00:08:21] While he could no longer sell his bad products, it seemed he now made his kicks off scaring anyone who worked in that building.
[00:08:30] Looking back on it, besides Steve, it was a great job. The people were fantastic. But I dont miss Steve.
[00:08:37] A few years ago, I ran into Joan, and it so happened that I was looking for a realtor at the time. When I asked her if I could stop by the office, she said yes, but gave me a new address.
[00:08:47] Apparently, one night that brownstone burned down. The fire marshals conducted a full investigation, but could find no cause.
[00:08:56] Maybe Steve took one of his pranks too far, or perhaps he found a way to escape. Who knows for sure?
[00:09:04] I, for one, have no plans to find out.
[00:09:08] Thank you, Elizabeth, for sharing your story that sounds truly horrifying and your story highlights an interesting point to me. I briefly touched on this at the beginning of the episode. The ghost you encountered is rumored to have died not that long ago. Relatively speaking. Anyways, 50 years might not seem recent, but in 2006 that was only 30 years before.
[00:09:34] I find this to be a particularly cool point because so often we're fed stories of this long dead victorian child or a demon.
[00:09:43] And while I understand that from a storytelling or entertainment perspective, I mean hell after all, this show is called do you want to hear a ghost story? And I present you stories dramatically trying to scare you. But I think its important to share those stories that might not fit the Hollywood entertainment stereotypes.
[00:10:04] You never know who else out there might have a similar experience to you and maybe, well its my hope that through this show you might discover that you arent alone in your encounter.
[00:10:15] I wont keep you too much longer.
[00:10:17] So lastly, please keep sharing the show with anyone you think might like these stories or someone youre just trying to scare. Ill. Give it my best shot.
[00:10:27] I really appreciate all the new listeners who have found the show and I have you to thank for that.
[00:10:32] Also, I would love to get to know who you are. Currently, I'm sitting alone in my bedroom talking to a microphone and it would be nice to know who's listening.
[00:10:44] So if you'd like to follow the show on TikTok or Instagram, you can go ahead and follow the links in the episode description.
[00:10:51] I just think it would be nice to get to know you and maybe if you're interested you can get to know me.
[00:10:57] And if you have a story, my email is also in the episode description.
[00:11:01] I'll leave you with that. So thank you for listening to this episode of do you want to hear a ghost story? Until next time, stay spooky.
