Oh, the joys of being home alone (except maybe for Kevin). We can be completely ourselves in the solace of our company, stuffing our faces with favorite snacks and cozying up to watch a brand new true crime show. As we grow older, though, such moments get increasingly rare, so when they happen, we (I mean I) do a little celebration dance, and everything feels swell again.
That is, until the lights suddenly flicker or a weird sound comes from outside in the darkness. Then the empty house starts to resemble the set of a horror movie, and your brain convinces you that you have slim chances of survival.
The people under this popular thread shared many similar stories of getting spooked being home alone, some funny, some serious, which you can find below by scrolling down!
#1
My girlfriend and I both travel a lot for work (pre-covid) so it’s not unusual for only one of us to be home on any given week.
Last fall she was in San Francisco and I was home alone for a few days. We live in an apartment on the top floor of a building. Above us is a roof with a deck available to everyone.
Middle of the night I get up to use the bathroom and on the walk back to bed I look over to the study. There’s a sliding door in the study leading to a balcony.
I immediately stop dead in my tracks. I see the outline of a person standing on my balcony — facing me.
I run over, hit the lights, grab a knife from the knife block and start dialing 911.
The person is a kid — no more than 16. He sees me hit the lights, grab a knife and my phone and he **immediately** grabs the railing on my balcony and flings himself over.
I run over — assuming I just watched someone k**l themselves — only to see him safe and sound on the balcony below me. He then hurdles off that balcony. He’s jumping from floor to floor. He hits the parking lot in the back of our building safely and then sprints off.
Cops finally come and break up a party on the roof. Turns out he was just a drunk friend of someone on the second floor and got dared to do it.
Also shout out to my dog for being asleep 15 feet from the balcony and not doing anything.
Image source: guiltyofnothing, Socorro Simonetti
#2
It was about 8:30 at night and I heard the front door open. I called out from my room asking why my mom and dad were home only a half hour after they left for dinner. I almost s**t my pants and straight up jumped out of my bedroom window when a random male voice replied, “What? There’s somebody in here?”. Turns out it was somebody who got hired to check on one of our neighbor’s dog when they were on vacation and he got the wrong house address, but the raw fear that gripped me when I heard his voice still gives me nightmares.
Image source: RanbeepTheDeep, Mikhail Nilov
#3
The lights turned off all at once while I was in the kitchen. It was pitch black. I heard the door open. For some reason instead of thinking power outage my brain went to “someone has cut the power and is coming to k**l me”.
I grabbed the landline, the knife and was crouched behind the kitchen counter hearing steps come through the house, trying to breath as quietly as possible.
Then I hear my mom go “Hello? Anyone home?”
The power went out by chance at the exact moment she came in the door. That would have been an awkward hospital trip.
Image source: sallyslingsthebooze, Rene Terp
#4
I heard gunshots when I was home alone for the first time as a twelve year old. Turns out my neighbor was a m******r. At least twelve cop cars and like two fire trucks showed up and I thought it was the end of the world.
Image source: latterdaysinner1, Rosemary Ketchum
#5
I was in my basement where the computer was playing some game, probably Runescape, and heard someone pull into the driveway, naturally assuming it was my mother who was coming home from work. I heard the screen door open but when no one opened the lock on the actual door I started to go upstairs and I saw a pair of legs go by the window (while the basement was underground, there was about a foot that popped up above ground level and had two windows). I go upstairs and see two dudes in my backyard looking at the windows and talking about the door was locked. It was an attempted home robbery, we had been broken into a few times at that point and had everything locked, but 10 year old me was terrified.
edit: because you guys keep asking, they just left, nothing happened. No Home Alone s**t, I did not get k**led, I am very much alive.
Image source: jlcreverso, David Duky
#6
It was spooky movie night at a friends and we were three movies deep, just finished watching dark skies. I was hungry so I was like alright getting my leftovers, so I went downstairs by myself. When I closed the fridge I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and when I turned to see what it was there was a ghostly white, skeletal.. thing just staring at me from outside the patio, with shimmering hazy lights pulsing behind it. I f*****g freaked, dropped my food and run up the stairs nearly in tears babbling about someone or thing in the back yard.
Turns out it was just my own reflection mixed with the lights and steam from the hot tub outside but I’ve never been so scared in my life.
Image source: CouchCreepin, Andrej Lišakov
#7
Not sure if this counts. Was working on a farm in northern ca. It was a start up and I was the only person (at nights) on an isolated 650 acres. After dinner, was walking from the lodge to my cabin (100 yards +-) it’s dark so all I can see is what my flash light illuminates plus a little on the periphery of the main beam.
Any way, walking back and in the periphery I see red f*****g eyes staring at me unblinkingly. I turn the light on it and all I see is a pale white mass behind the still red eyes. I freak, takes a little bit to get me jumpy but this sure as hell did. Picture a 6’5” 260lb man. Now picture him letting out an unbelievably high pitch scream and straight sprinting into his cabin, 50 yards or so. The next day I was talking to one of the guys that come up to help out during the day told him what happened and he about fell over laughing. I think the sincere terror in my voice as I described the pale monster really drove the funny nail home for him. Well, turns out there’s such a thing as albino deer and just so happens one frequents this property. Nobody thought to warn me before hand.
Image source: Reteperator, Vladimir Srajber
#8
I was watching some sort of ghost tv show about demons or something in my basement, home alone when I was probably 14 or 15…
A f*****g turkey walked up to the sliding door and started tapping on the glass. I noped the f**k out of that basement so fast. I don’t think I ever watched that show again either.
Image source: Evani33, Suzy Brooks
#9
My grandparents paid me to house sit for them and take care of their animals(2 dogs, 2 goats and like 3 or 4 horses) for two weeks. One of the dogs was really clingy so I closed the door on him when I went to bed one night. I woke up in the middle of the night but I was too tired to move but I saw a black figure with a white face standing right beside the bed. It was making this horrific growling noise and leaned into me and pressed down on my chest. It pressed harder and harder and then I was able to move my fingers and then I was eventually able to move my body but after that, I let the dog sleep in the room and I slept with the lights on. That was the first time I experienced sleep paralysis and thankfully the times after that one weren’t freaky.
Image source: anon, Kaboompics.com
#10
There had been a scratching in my ceiling for awhile, and my landlady was dragging her feet over having it looked into.
One night, around 2am, the scratching became so bad it woke me up from a dead sleep. I tried to reassure myself that whatever it was couldn’t really get through to me, and I would be fine until I could call my landlady the next day and really press the issue.
Then some debris fell from my ceiling- whatever was up there had managed to dig a small hole into my room. I screamed, and heard some scurrying away from my approximate location. Grabbed any stuff I needed for the next day, got the f**k out of there, shut the door tight behind me, and slept on the couch.
I called my landlady first thing in the morning, and she had someone come while I was at work that day to check it out. A mama raccoon had managed to get her way into the space between the roof and my ceiling and had given birth to a litter of kits. The guy speculated that the kits were getting old enough to start wrestling around, and that was likely what led to the hole in my ceiling. Luckily it was just small (the size of a quarter), so there weren’t any angry raccoons hanging out in my room when I got home.
They were able to safely trap and release the whole little family, but I still started hunting for new apartments ASAP. I move into my new place on May 1st!
Image source: TonyDanzer, Andrew Patrick Photo
#11
Well my house was sort of out farther away from town. We had neighbors, but they were few and far between. There was a hiking trail opening across the street from our driveway, which was VERY long, and cant be seen from the trail. My room had a large window facing out to the driveway.
Anyway, I was home alone, cleaning my room, and singing ‘We Are The Champions’ extremely loudly (as well as playing it on my tv). Looked up, and suddenly see a man power-walking up my driveway VERY quickly. It’s obvious no one is home but me since there aren’t any cars in the driveway. So I ran to the front door (which was open because it was hot af outside), and locked it, and closed and locked my window.
Turns out bro-friend did not like that. I called 911 because he was still approaching my house, and I was getting scared by his demeanor, and while on the phone with the 911 operator, he started banging on my front window by the door, and then the door itself. He tried kicking in the door, and tried breaking the window. I went and hid in my moms closet (because it locked from the inside only) with a knife until the cops showed up.
By the time they showed up he was gone, and there were hand and shoes prints all over the door and front window, and some hand prints on my bedroom window. They found him about an hour later walking up and down my street. He told them that he ‘heard my pretty singing voice and just wanted to say hi’. He was also drunk, but admitted to being sober at the time of the incident and started drinking ‘after I rejected him’. He also told them that he planned to come in and ‘have some fun’ with me after he found that I was home alone. And that he was waiting for nighttime to come back.
So yeah. Had a lot of nightmares about that one.
TLDR: Man tried to break in because he heard me singing, couldnt get in, gave up, then went and got drunk. Police found and arrested him an hour later. Then he admitted to them that he wanted to r**e me.
Image source: InvisibleBookend, RDNE Stock project
#12
I started choking on a clump of Mike/Ikes. Only survived because I tripped and fell on the couch in such a way that it dislodged the candy. I was nearly k**led then saved by being a klutz.
Image source: anon, cottonbro studio
#13
My siblings decided to play a prank on me when I was in like 3rd grade. They told me I’d be home alone and they left with my nanny. Then, after about a half hour, they started tapping on the windows. It started spaced out but as time went on they got more and more frequent and I was terrified. It ended with both of them just banging really loudly on random windows, then they banged on my door and finally came in and told me what they were doing. I was straight screaming and crying. Easy worst day of my life. I hate being home alone now and Im really jumpy and I hate saying it was traumatic because I feel like that’s going overboard
(Edit: My siblings are good people, they just didn’t know better at the time).
Image source: jack_ingof, Kateryna Hliznitsova
#14
Late at night when I was a teenager. Must’ve been around 1 am and I was watching YouTube and I my phones has an alert. My phone is connected to the security system and whenever something happens it gives an alert for a few seconds before ringing so that you can cancel if you want to. I’m home alone and I decide to cancel the alarm. I slowly get out of my room and creep down with a Renaissance fair knife I bought a couple weeks ago and I head a thud. It sounded like someone trying to quietly jump down from a higher place without making much noise. Then some footsteps and creaking, now coming from my kitchen. I slowly inch towards my kitchen, adrenaline pumping. Knife in one hand, I turn the light on with the other, prepared to fight for my life. Yeah turns out it was my cat that I forgot had existed because I was so scared.
Image source: Effect3692, cottonbro studio
#15
I have always had hallucinations, primarily audio and visual ones.
When I turned about 9 I started to be able to tell when it wasnt real.
Just imagine up until then, when I was home alone at night the walls would breath and people stomped around the house.
I would carefully search the house for other people.
But the walls breathing always scared me.
Still see it every now and then, still creeps me out.
Image source: decinaty, Getty Images
#16
Someone tried to break into my neighbors house while I was babysitting their kids. I was 15 and I used to baby sit for my neighbors down the block. They had a really nice house, 3 floors with a built-in garage under the house, that connected to the basement. It was the family’s most used entrance of the house and they rarely locked the basement door as long as the garage was closed. They also had the type of security system where anytime a door opens you heard “beep beep beep”.
After the parents left one night I was putting the kids to bed and I heard the “beep beep beep”. I yelled out, thinking it was the parents coming back for something but no one answered. The system on the wall kept reading “basement door open”. I was freaked out so I called my Dad and asked him to come by since he was only a few houses away. When he arrived, he told me to stay in the kitchen while he checked the house but before he could, we heard the “beep beep beep” again and then the garage door opened – when we ran to the window to see if the parents were pulling into the driveway, they weren’t. Instead someone in a hoodie was running out of the garage door and into the woods behind the house. My Dad ended up calling the cops. I’m still creeped out by it.
#17
I was actually at a friends house when her parents weren’t home. We were maybe 10. It was her, my sister, her sisters and me. We decided to go swimming. There had been a rash of burglaries lately but mostly garages being broke into. Anyway, we were in the pool when we noticed the kitchen light turn on (it was evening). We assumed her parents so looked in the window to do something stupid to get their attention when we realized we do not know the individual in the house. We hid behind the wall of the pool (above ground) terrified until her parents finally came home. It appeared as though he got spooked as he only ransacked the kitchen and left the garage door wide open when fleeing.
Image source: atjmoulder, Skyler Ewing
#18
It was a hot summer and my parents went to a wedding. I had a project to do and it was like 1am and silent until a random drunk dude crawled in through my window with a bottle and blush face. I was 20ft away at my desk from the window and we both just stared at each other. He was flustered and said “oh sorry there kid wrong house” and attempts to leave the way he came. He was drunk n dizzy so I helped him by pushing him out the window. I thoroughly shut it and stared at it for 2 hours until my parents came home.
Image source: Shardeel, cottonbro studio
#19
I was home alone at my dad’s while he was working nights, making my dinner and everything. I was probably about 14 or 15 at the time. I was watching tv while my potatoes were cooking when I head something slam into the front door. I grab my pocket knife and check it out, nothing. About 10 minutes later I hear another bang on the front door, repeat and still nothing. Really freaked me out cause we’d had a few houses get broken into on my street.
Turns out I didnt put enough holes into my baked potatoes and they exploded in the oven. :(.
Image source: theniemeyer95, Dani Bayuni
#20
Just me and my mom. She got drunk and fell down the stairs. She knocked herself out cold and i had to admininster CPR while the paramedics came. She has no recollection of this incident, denies it, and no one else in my family can relate to how scary it is seeing someone almost die and having their life in your hands. I don’t know how first responders do it.
Image source: anon, Daniel Martinez
#21
This just happened last week, I woke up to someone in my house. Walking up the stairs to my bedroom, it was about 1pm, and I work third shift, so I was sleeping. In my haste, I didn’t grab my bat. I whip open my door and it’s my ex bestfriend, whom I’ve blocked on every social media site… she starts yelling at me for not responding to her and how she misses me…. idk what scared me more, the split second I realized there was an intruder. Or that someone I knew would just take it upon themselves to force me to talk to them, by trespassing.
Image source: hanahmontana1, cottonbro studio
#22
Sitting in my parents’ farmhouse reasonably deep into the Scottish Highlands, on a farm around 5 miles from the nearest (small) town overlooking a valley but on a small road that wasn’t travelled on much.
Anyway, totally alone, just chilling in the living room and something SMASHED into the window right beside me. I f*****g shat myself. A huge crow, completely out of the blue, flew hard into the window. Double glazed so didn’t break but made a hell of a noise about 3 feet away from me. I was freaking out. How could a crow hit that window in the house, having not avoided the house altogether? I was on edge for hours afterwards. It survived and eventually kind of limped and eventually flew away.
Just a random occurence but it gave me a serious fright all alone up there on a windy hill.
Later on i could laugh as it left a perfect bird-shaped greasy mark on the window, like something out of a cartoon!
Image source: Goryokaku
#23
I was home alone during the “clown incident” in 2014, let’s just say one of them knocked on the front door of my house, I was ten at the time, I called 911 and they have a police come to my house and stay with me till my mom could get home.
Image source: Hi_Im_Creepy777, Lisa from Pexels
#24
One evening my dog (who sadly passed away this year) used to like standing on the stairs and looking out the window to watch the world go by. One evening my parents went out and my dog was on his usual spot when I hear a very low growl. I come out of my room to see to him and he growls again and shifts slightly but he’s focused on the window and he doesn’t budge. His heckles are up and his body language is stiff. I’m thinking it’s a fox or cat that’s triggered him but I’m concerned as it was the first time I had ever heard him growl. I take a look out of a different window and I can’t see anything. I knew enough not to try to move any dog on whilst in that state (a risk of dogs redirecting etc) so I left him to it and eventually he comes and settles outside my room after pacing along the hallway for a bit, but he won’t come into my room when I call him. He’s just fixed in my doorway. After an hour a police helicopter flies over and circles around the area but that’s normal for that part of town and I don’t make a connection, I just figure something has spooked my boy.
The next day at around the afternoon we get a knock on the door from the police. The evening before a young girl got followed off a bus and r***d on a nearby green and the dirty b*****d ran off and hid in peoples gardens after he was done & had tried a few people’s doors and windows to see if they were open & the police wanted to know if we’d seen anything unusual that evening. My dad answered in the negative as he was out with my mum, however I wasn’t in when the police knocked and only heard about it later when my dad told me about the police. The guy was eventually caught and charged as they traced the card he used to board the bus he followed the girl off from. It wasn’t his first offence either, it was all over the local news.
I suspect the guy was hiding in our garden and my dog had spotted him and knew the guy was dodgy so went into guard dog mode, which was unusual as he was a big soppy baby who loved everyone.
I miss him!
Image source: anon
#25
First time I was ever home alone an earthquake hit and being a 10 year old who had never experienced an earthquake I had no idea what was happening and lost my s**t.
Image source: garrett77, Ketut Subiyanto
#26
3 bullets went through my window.
Image source: anon, Jan Koetsier
#27
When I was around 8 or 9, my mum commuted to a major city about an hour/hour and a half away, so I would bring myself home from school (about 100m away), lock the door and watch cartoons or play neopets until she got home.
We lived in apartment blocks, and one day one of the older male people in the apartment lost his wallet, and he figured it must have been me. Keep in mind, I’ve never stolen anything in my life or had any trouble with the law, and I had no clue what he was talking about. He came and banged on the door so aggressively that I jumped out of my skin, and was belligerent demanding I open the door. I rang mum crying and she jumped on a train to come home but she was an hour and a half away. She called some friends and they came and got me, and at that stage he had taken a break and gone back to his apartment, but left his dry cleaning there.
When mum got back, she stormed straight to his door and pounded on it like he had done to our door. He came to the door, all shocked, and she demanded to know why he thought it was appropriate to bang on the door for AN HOUR to scare a little girl. He replied that he thought I stole his wallet. Mum asked him if he still thought I did, and he said no I found it in the carpark.??? She looked like she wanted to k**l him, and forced him to apologise.
Also, in that same apartment block, there was a hairline fracture on the sliding door that we didn’t know about. A strong wind blew and shattered the entire window inwards. I was home alone then too, that was scary as f**k.
Image source: androidis4lyf, Meruyert Gonullu
#28
My parents let me walk home from school alone when I was in 4th grade. In my now adult opinion, thats way too young.
So I walk home from school. House is empty til about 5 when my parents get home.
So Im doing my usual routine: mountain dew code red, Doritos 3D’s, and Toonami on cartoon network.
So im only home for about 3 minutes when I hear a knock at the door. 99% of the time I stay quiet and just wait for whoever to leave. But for whatever reason I actually go to the door and call out. “Who is it?”
Stranger dude voice on the other side “Hey! Its your buddy Mike!”
I dont have a grown a*s man buddy Mike, Im in 4th grade.
My s**t goes COLD. Heart in my throat. Goosebumps. Cannot move paralyzed terrified.
Dude says again “Hey!….open the door, we gotta go”.
And he jiggles the door handle really hard. Then he knocks again bam-bam-bam. Jiggles the door handle hard again.
Im still like 1 foot away from the door. I actually never moved since all of this started because I didnt want him to hear my footsteps.
After a minute of silence I heard a car door close and him drive away.
Im still freaked the f**k out for the next hour. And worse thing was I was now super paranoid about walking to/from school because obviously he followed me that day and I had no idea I was being tailed.
Image source: bodhasattva, FETHI BOUHAOUCHINE
#29
For me, I was 12 years old and my dad was at his girlfriend’s house. I went into my room to take a shower. I always put a chair under the door handle in my room because it didn’t have a lock. My Grandma loved giving me porcelain dolls and she decorated my room with shelves that had porcelain dolls on them. All of the dolls were on their shelves before I got into the shower. When I exited my bathroom, one of the porcelain dolls was 10 feet across the room, face down on the ground. This doll must have flown across the room to have landed where it did. Also, the doll was not broken. Needless to say, my Grandma was sad that all of the dolls were packed up and put in the attic for safe keeping.
Image source: Ibelieveindinosaurs2, Gabriel Ramos
#30
This happened many, many years ago when I was but a youngster. In my suburb there had recently been a spate of break and enters. Where I live, they tend to happen suburb by suburb (like, one suburb will get hit a bunch then there’ll be nothing for a while).
My family had gone away for the weekend, but I had stayed home because I had work. I was up at midnight watching a James Bond movie (*Live and Let Die* for those playing at home), with all the lights in the house turned off, and I heard a really sudden and strange thud from my kitchen/living area.
I instantly knew it was a weird noise – nothing in the house made any noises like that – so it was immediately suspicious. Just as I was about to get up to go and check it out, I heard it again. That’s when I realised it was actually the thudding of the thick glass sliding door from the kitchen to the outdoor patio.
As I mentioned, all the lights are off, so I’m making my way through the house turning lights on. When I reached the light switch to turn on the patio light, I hit all of the lights at once, including the light at my front door (which is visible from where I’m now standing). We had those glass panels next to the front door, which I could now also see out of since the light was on. There was nobody at the patio area at this time, but through the glass panels at the front door I saw someone sprint past and out of the yard. Even though I couldn’t see any detail, it was unmistakable to see that it was a person running past.
It later occurred to me that they were most likely kicking the glass patio door to try and smash it and break in, as I later learned that this is apparently one common method of entry during burglaries. I had initially assumed they were hitting it with something, but a boot would explain the deep hollow *thud* of the noise better than striking it with something.
Was pretty spooky at the time – just that sudden realisation of “that is not a normal noise”. Kind of crazy what your intuition knows in moments like that.
Image source: Prodigythe, pexels
#31
Probably pretty lame compared to most stories on here. Was working pretty late (re: 2am) on my computer when I get an alert from my security camera that detected motion. I checked it and there was a person staring into my apartment window in full view of where I was working.
I closed the computer, turned off the lights and went into the bathroom for a bit. Turns out being *extra paranoid* when someone is staring into your apartment at 2am isn’t a good combination. I checked the camera memory and the guy was there for 20minutes, just real casual. Called the cops and the kid ran away and came back an hour later. Haven’t seen him since.
Image source: UncomfortableLiking, MART PRODUCTION
#32
Once while I was home alone, I had been warned not to answer the door, for anyone, or I might get taken away. One sales guy had been banging on the door repeatedly for the last 6 minutes. I guess I hadn’t muted the tv fast enough. He screamed “I know you’re home alone in there!” I about died.
Edit: some of you were wondering. I just waited until the guy left. Told my parents what happened that night. They freaked.
Image source: HatGuyProductions, Pavel Danilyuk
#33
Wasn’t alone, but I was a teenager with my girlfriend and my parents werent home.
We were house sitting for my mom who was on vacation with her boyfriend. We’re sitting there in the living room, which is right next to the front porch. It’s about 12:30 AM or so, when we hear loud and heavy footsteps on the porch. Guy goes next to the windows and goes “S**T, F**K!” really loud. I’m assuming it’s because the curtains are closed. This really spooked us because the couch we were sitting on was near the windows, had those curtains not have been closed he could have seen us.
Freaked out, we shut off all the lights in the house as the footsteps go away. We look out the windows to see if theres anyone out there, and theres a big burly man with a kind of plastic bag. We live in a small town out in the middle of hillbilly country, so any stores or takeout restaurants are closed at this point in time so it’s a mystery where he got this bag and what was in it.
This guy walks down the street, turns around back towards my house and disappears into a parking lot next door to us.
Not 2 minutes later, we hear the doorknob to the side door (which was thankfully locked) jiggle. My dog starts going absolutely insane at the noise. He’s a small dog with a loud bark, so I think he scared him away but that was that.
We debated calling the cops but never did, and nothing else ever came of it
Edit: We were going to call the cops if he came back, but he never did. We figured he was either drunk or high or something else.
Image source: jates513
#34
Got a hot dog stuck in my throat. I chopped myself in the Adam’s Apple and it flew out.
Image source: deadheadjim
#35
We lived outside a rural town and my mother always told my father not to leave me home unsupervised because it was a 20 minute drive from town if some accident were to occur.
Anyway my dad was a completely irresponsible parent and so he ignored that advice and instead left me at home by myself at age 7. However, before he left to go back to a meeting he explained how to load and c**k his 12 gage shotgun under his bed with buck shot and told me if anyone comes to the door and tried to break in…shoot them.
Fast forward a couple hours…my mother calls him and asks how everything is going. He says I’m home alone. She loses her mind and rushes out of work to come home and get me. In her rush she forgets her house keys.
So she gets home, and starts banging on the front door. I didn’t hear her voice at all so being the obedient child I am I go into my parents room, load the gun and bring it towards the door. I c**k it and I don’t know if my mom heard it or what but she suddenly stopped banging and yelled my name instead.
It’s probably the only reason she’s alive today.
I was really scared before I knew it was her, but I assumed my dad was smart and told me the right thing to do.
Image source: babaeatlalaki
#36
I was laying in bed when the doorbell started ringing multiple times. I thought it was my cousins because they do that a lot, so I stayed in bed since I was lazy and they do have keys to get in. After a few more minutes of ringing, I started to get paranoid and texted my family group chat. The ringing stopped and I heard loud banging noises and the sound of wood being broken; I don’t know why, but I got up to check it. The burglar saw me through our frosted glass on the door, yelled “s**t!” And ran away in his car. Got scared of being alone in the house for a while after.
Image source: annathy1
#37
I slipped and fell and somehow lodged myself stuck crammed in the doorway. I was very stuck for a very long time, one leg bent in an odd position and my wrist had bent backwards. Could not move due to shock and pain at first, finally wriggled myself loose, but for a moment I was convinced someone was going to find me dead in this weird position.
Image source: iwtmmhlbsocn
#38
I was in bed upstairs crying (was severely depressed) when I heard the door bell ring and because of how depressed I was, was too lazy to answer it. Thank God because turns out it was a man with a knife wearing a mask we caught on our security cameras, he went to our backyard, drank a beer from our eski, waved at my dog and tapped the glass doors while looking inside.
Thank God I did not answer that door or go downstairs because he woudl’ve seen me.
Also turns out he broke into many other homes that night all through our neighbourhood.
Image source: anon
#39
It was in the middle of the night, I was going to the bathroom.
I turned on the light and heard glass shattering, as if someone shot through a window. I thought that someone had broken into my apartment and had a gun, but it was the light bulb that apparently tend to just f*****g blow up sometimes.
I still know everything because it scared me so f*****g much.
Image source: Pilct
#40
My sister and I where home alone, our parents were out with some friends. Suddenly there was the voice of a young child downstairs, repeatedly screaming “mommy”.
After a few minutes I was finally able to go downstairs and look. Turns out our PC was turned on and it played this sound. So I turned it off.
When our parents came home they didn’t believe us, until it startet again a few days later in the middle of the night. This time our parents were home and it turned out it was some strange virus on our computer.
Image source: MarcoKevin
#41
Oh man , one time when I was around 12-13 a drunk dude wondered into my backyard. I didn’t know it was a human at this time and just heard the loudest commotion coming near the garage. He was mumbling and groaning like a d**n zombie. Grabbed a bat to try to see what was up and this m**********r starts COMING FULL SPEED at me. I immediately ran inside and called the police. I thought I was going to be eaten by a f*****g zombie.
Image source: reddotword
#42
I was home alone and heard a noice downstairs, I go look and see the sillhuette of a person in my parents bedroom.
I sneak back to my space, get my rifle from my locker, load it and head back silently.
My heart was racing,
I peeked around the corner fast, getting a lock on that burglar s**t… Turns out it was a new jacket stand with a jacked and a hat on it that looked like an actual person from behind…
Image source: whitedan1
#43
Not super scary but one time when I was like 11 I was home alone at night and got a call from the local sheriff’s office who told me they just had a dropped 911 call from this number (my house landline) and asked if I was ok.
I didn’t call them.
Nobody else was home to call them.
Idk it just creeped me out a lot.
Image source: seedpig
#44
Early teen years. Power went out while I was taking a shower late at night. I got out of the shower already freaked out and looked outside through the window. My house was the only one without power.
Stupid teenage brain: this is clearly an attempt on my life
Reality: house had a weird problem where the power would cut out if the water heater and air conditioner happened to turn on the same time. It had never happened to me before that, but my dad assured me that was the problem once he finally came home.
Image source: OMG_STAAAHHP
#45
I was chillin in my bed with my dog watching tv and I hear a door shut downstairs. I look out the window of my sister’s room cause she had a view of the garage, but the garage was empty. I grabbed a pocket knife and crept downstairs I search the basement as well as everywhere on the ground floor and found nothing. Went back to my room on edge for the next couple of hours until my family got home. Still dont know what happened, and it couldn’t have been wind cause it was winter so we had all the windows closed. Not that scary but a door closing when you’re home alone and not even 12 is a lil spooky.
Image source: romanthecat3333
#46
When I was younger my mom left me and my little brother home alone while she ran to the store. I was in middle school, so old enough to be left home safely for an hour and my bro was only 2 years younger.
Mom leaves and me and my brother are watching TV in the living room and we see a bunch of smoke from the big bay window facing the front yard shortly after she leaves. We look, and a car has crashed into the ditch that is next to our driveway. I grab the phone and we go out on the porch. I call 911 and give them my address, then I call my grandma and tell her what happened. Cops and the whole emergency entourage gets there, I go talk to the cops.
Mind you, we lived on a state route. It’s a two lane road so the entire section of road in front of my house is closed off. My mom rounds the corner of the side road to pull onto the st rt and sees a ton of cop cars in out driveway and shutting down the road, 2 fire trucks, at least 2 ambulances, and, as any mom seeing this, freaks out. Note about the road and our house: the road is significantly higher than the ditch, so it is entirely possible to miss the wrecked car. Especially when you know you left your kids home alone. They allow her to park in the neighbor’s driveway since ours is currently occupied. And we see her sprinting across the yards. The cops intercept her, she sees that me and my brother are okay and is able to calm down enough to talk to the cops.
TL;DR car crashed in our front yard when I was left home alone. Gave mom a heart attack from all the emergency vehicles surrounding her house when she tried to drive down the road.
Image source: whatinyourwhat
#47
The scariest thing that happened to me I didnt know actually happened until the following day. I lived in an apartment in a not so good part of a dangerous city with my boyfriend who worked nights. One day our friend came over and called me to let him in our building in a hurry. Turns out this guy had been crouched by my car in the parking lot and had approached our friend and closed in on him. My friend pulled out a weapon and the guy ran off.
Upstairs I noticed that the guy had left a green bundle near my car and assumed he would be back for it. It made me uncomfortable so I suggested we call the cops. Not 5 minutes after a cop showed up to ask where the guy had gone swat, K9, and about 10 cars showed up and swarmed our area.
Turns out the guy had escaped from county the night before with two other guys. He was in jail for a*****t with a deadly weapon and repeated domestic violence offenses. He had climbed the fence in the yard behind our building where our landlord kept his camper, broken into the camper, and stayed there the night before. He had stolen all the electronics out of it as well as a butcher knife and was trying to break into my car before my friend showed up.
I had been alone the night before and had taken my dog down to the yard to go to the bathroom. I noticed that the barbed wire on the top of the fence had fallen down, and my dog was nervous. But I brushed it off. The guy had been in the camper watching me the whole time and I never knew it.
Image source: lunazeus
#48
Police were chasing a guy and he ran into into our backyard and over the fence to another house. It felt like the helicopter was going to land on the house.
Edit: I have a few more stories similar to this. Growing up in South LA was kinda wild.
Image source: JahLife68
#49
Was home alone one night and it was close to Halloween in 2015. Loud a*s knock on the front door. I was eatting dinner, so I slowly but cautiously go to the front door. Open it up and there is blood all over the front porch and no one there. Kind of freaked out a bit thought it was a prank. Called the cops because what the f**k ya know? They said they would send someone there. They called back and said someone was on a bike and fell and was bleeding bad and was going door to door asking for help. I missed the person, but one of my neighbours helped them out apparently. Crazy.
Image source: GeetarMan9
#50
Many years ago when I still lived in my s****y hometown, I worked in hospitality doing split shifts most days.
I was young and frequently hung over so on my 3 hour break I would often go home to nap and refresh.
During one of my breaks I woke up to a guy trying to break in through my bedroom window. I don’t think he saw me (I hope he didn’t because god knows what the plan was if he did). I jumped out of bed, completely confused and just stared at him kinda shocked. He also seemed shocked and ran away.
The thing I find crazy now is my home town was such a s**t hole that I didn’t even call the cops because this kind of thing was so common that I just normalised it and had a laugh with friends when I told them about it later that day.
I live in a much better place now and realise that this s**t is not normal.
Image source: ChinoMaynardHomme
#51
This was last week, actually, and I was going #2 with the door open (I live with my fiancé, no kids), I saw a hand around the edge of the doorframe, and got up to joke with my girlfriend and I came around the corner and there wasn’t anything. I called her, and she said she wasn’t home, that I knew she was at the gas station, she said she told me. In a serious manner, I cannot logically explain it, and I can’t help but believe ghosts are real. Is there something wrong with me?
Image source: Satanicherpes
#52
This happened when in was home with a friend in 7th or 8th grade. I was home first as i took the bus. My friend was over and we were doing homework in my room. We lived on a military base. All of a sudden, we heard the alert sirens. We went outside to check what it was. This what we heard. “Active shooter on base” we ran upstairs and hid. Still scary.
Image source: Dingus_Strong
#53
I was pretty young at the time probably 10-11 my parents went to get groceries and let me stay home to watch the tv. Then suddenly a bloody dude just runs up to my house and starts knocking on my door ( we live on a one way street ). Maybe a quarter of a minute later a cop car pulls up and they beat the s**t out of the guy, put him in the back of the car and drove away. I guess the criminal was trying to escape but did not think there would be no exit whatsoever except through someone’s house. Scared the living hell out of me.
Image source: OgarTheDead
#54
Decided to go downstairs in the middle of the night to get snacks. After I take my first step down the stairs I passed out.
Woke up on the landing unscathed. I must have falled backwards (idk how I fell) but if it was the other direction I would’ve plunged to death.
Image source: erikikoy
#55
This m**h head was trying to break into our house when I was a teen. I remember hearing the door k**b moving and I moved the curtain back on the window and saw an empty stare looking right at me.
His eyes were dilated and had the look of death in them. Thankfully my neighbor saw it and had him at gunpoint.
Image source: anon
#56
I was alone, about 15 years old, with my dog. As I let in my dog late in the evening prior to going to bed, a huge spider followed her inside. Not wanting to harm it, but certainly not wanting it inside, I shooed it with a magazine.
Next thing I saw were hundreds of babies disperse off of its back! Frantic, and nervous, I sent my dog back outside, and I ran to our shed and grabbed Raid and every known spider killer. Equipped myself like I was in Arachnophobia, and unloaded an entire can and a half of Raid inside the house. Waited about an hour for it to air out before re-entering.
Every night for d**n near the next year I felt like a spider was crawling on me. F**k the desert and its monstrous creatures.
Image source: Kyleparty
#57
Sitting in the back room during a thunderstorm. I felt a wierd sensation and then all of my senses went into overdrive as a lightning bolt hit a tree maybe 15 yards away. My ears were ringing for a few minutes afterwards, and the roughly 20 seconds after the strike when i couldn’t see or hear was absllutely terrifying, I thought I died. Never messed around with thunder storms after that.
Image source: Kyania
#58
Oh boy, this one is meant for me. I was settling in to go to bed, I hear my dog going crazy. Mom and dad were out buying things for a kitchen upgrade, my older sister was at a friend’s doing homework. Just me, alone in bed. I’ve lived in the same house my whole life and know how every door sounds from my room, and whose footsteps they are.
I hear my parent’s door opening, only the release sound, though. Then three of my dad’s footsteps. I could hear it cause my dog stopped barking. I call my parents asking if they’d come home? Had I not heard? Nope, my dad answers, they’re still on the freeway. My dog starts barking up a storm then.
Image source: emilyl1kesfood
#59
I once woke to 2 cops opening my bedroom door asking who I was.
They had apparently been called because some one noticed the house back door was open. This actually wasn’t scary in the moment because I was so g*****n tired, but I get nervous thinking back now. Always makes me do a door & lock check.
Image source: bees-on-wheat
#60
I used to love sitting on a swing in my backyard at night and listening to music. It was, and still is, very cathartic because I basically live right on the edge of a fairly large and densely wooded area. Anyways, one night, around maybe 10 p.m. or so, I decided to go sit on the swing. I gathered my jacket, headphones and a beer, and walked outside. Immediately upon stepping onto my driveway, I got this really weird feeling, like I was being watched. Thinking nothing of it, I started walking towards the swing set.
Every step that I took, that uneasy feeling got stronger and stronger, until it had almost reached panicky levels. I could feel it in my stomach, my body suddenly felt very cold and at this point, I accepted that I was subconsciously alarmed about something. I came to a complete stop about 10 feet away from the swings and began to look around and at the woods. Something was seriously wrong. It felt different being outside.
I tried to force the weirdness out of my mind, but as I settled down onto the swing, I was afraid. I got through maybe half of a song, and somehow this feeling had continued to get stronger. It felt urgent. I’ve never been worried like that before. But in that moment, it hit me like an epiphany — I felt like prey.
I turned my music off and just sat, beer forgotten, looking around and at the woods. Physically, I couldn’t take it. I could barely breathe, so I jumped off the swing and SPRINTED back inside, closed and locked the door, checked all the doors and windows, closed all the curtains, turned on all the lights and surrounded myself with an arsenal of weapons. I could still feel it, but it slowly faded.
The next morning, I saw my friend out by his car. So, I walked over and started telling him about my experience last night. Apparently, and he lives two houses down from me, he walked outside to stretch before his run that night and felt a weird vibe. As he walked to the end of his driveway, it got stronger and he started getting nervous. He started running and stopped after a few feet, turned his music off and scanned the woods. Then, he started running again, got to my driveway and was so scared, uncomfortable and freaked out that he just decided to call it quits for the night. He also said that he literally felt like prey being stalked by something evil. It was exactly, almost to the tee, how I’d felt.
I have absolutely no idea what it was and it hasn’t happened again since. But now I only swing facing the woods and I carry a bat down there with me, just in case.
Image source: Eltotsira
#61
I was nine years old, my sister was six. We had a babysitter who was 12, so we were alone in the sense that no adults were around. Jacka** that I was, I squirted bug spray on my sister and she chased me in retaliation. I ran through some French glass doors to get away from her. She went for the knob and missed. Her arm went through one of the glass panes.
She cut herself so deep, you could see muscle, tendons and bone. It looked like a s**tily cut piece of raw meat, since that’s basically what it was. The babysitter held a piece of cloth on my sister’s arm until my mum came home (called her right away) and took my sister to the ER. She didn’t hit an artery, so it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been, but it was scary as f**k at the time.
Image source: Overly_Cloverly
#62
My house came with an alarm that kept track of movement in every room. I set the alarm before bed, but I woke up in the middle of the night because it was alerting me that there was movement going back and forth between my guest bedroom, down the hall, and into my office. My alarm has a robotic speaking voice, so in the dark I’d hear it say, “movement guest bedroom, movement 2nd floor hallway, movement office, etc.” I assume it was a glitch, and nothing to worry about, but I ended up turning that function off.
I also heard human footsteps above me in my attic once, home alone while my wife was out of town. But I posted that one already months ago.
Clarification edit: My original phrasing is confusing, so I wanted to clarify. I got up immediately and searched through my entire house. Couldn’t find anything, figured it was a glitch, and turned the feature off the next day. I didn’t ignore the alarm that night.
Image source: hestianvirgin
#63
The carbon monoxide alarm went off.
Edit: Since someone asked me what happened. I was a little kid when this occurred. I was home alone, upstairs in my bedroom, and my dad was down the street at a neighbors house. I had never heard the carbon monoxide alarm go off before and no one told me about it so when it went off it scared the toenails out of me. It was located in our big empty basement so that only amplified the noise like the worlds worst kind of acoustics.
It took about a minute to figure out the house wasn’t on fire so I tried to investigate what the alarm could be. I wasn’t able to get down the basement steps because it was so loud and painful to my ears to be that close to the noise (not sure how normal that is but this m**********r was LOUD. Like loudest thing I’ve ever heard in my life kinda loud) After a few failed attempts at investigating I finally got worried enough to run out of the house and look for my dad. I found him talking to one of our neighbors outside in their yard down the street and told him some alarm is going off and I didn’t know what to do.
He got really annoyed at me like I did something wrong but he walked with me back home and he realized what it was so he opened a bunch of windows and went down to check the alarm. I don’t know if it was a false alarm or not but he just put new batteries in it and told me to leave the windows open for a while. He went back to the neighbors house and left me alone again.
About 5 minutes later the alarm went off again so I don’t think it was a bad battery. I went to get my dad for a second time and now he was super annoyed. He came home and just took the batteries out of the thing and left again. Father of the year. I didn’t die though so that’s cool but maybe I got brain damage from sneaky carbon monoxide and that’s why I’m so dumb.
Image source: LeluWater
#64
I was in the front of the house watching TV when one of the bedroom doors down the hallway slammed shut. That’s never happened before and it’s never happened since. Investigation turned up nothing but I still couldn’t explain it. I’m just glad it was during the daytime!
Image source: HAVOC34
#65
When I was about 12 years old, I was home alone for the weekend and I was cooking lunch while playing some loud music. Then I kept hearing that something was playing with my music so i I stopped it and heard the tune of “it’s a small world”. Just the tune, no lyrics. Kind of like coming from a toy. So of course, I had to investigate. I checked downstairs and found none so I went upstairs and halfway thru the stairs, it got louder so I wasn’t about to go there pls i know my way around horror movies. It eventually stopped but i could never hear it’s a small world in the same way ever again. It also didn’t help that my bedroom was upstairs so I did the fastest run that I could do when it was bedtime. To this day, I still don’t know what was responsible for that sound.
Image source: bluuroon
#66
I think I had an out of body experience one time. I was about to fall asleep on the sofa after a long day at work. I always check to make sure the door is locked before going to sleep. I reached over from the sofa to feel if the door was locked. It was, then looked down to see the cat watching me. I was kinda glowing in a strange light. Then I realized I couldn’t reach the door from the sofa and I saw my body asleep on the sofa. I panicked, the cat panicked, I got sucked back into my sleeping body and woke up. Didn’t sleep again for a long while.
Image source: michaelyup
#67
About 10 years ago, I walked out to my garage to have a cigarette. If you were to walk back into my house at the point I exited, you’d step up a small concrete stair, and from there you’d go right into the kitchen and the rest of the house, or push open the sliding wood door to the basement. The kitchen provides ambient light so you can still see inside. I watched as the door to the basement slid closed by itself, even popping the two halves of the door into its fully closed position, which would’ve taken a good push as it didn’t fit the best. A few seconds later, it flew open. No one else was in the house, including pets. I have no idea how it could’ve happened. No d***s/alcohol were involved. Scared the hell out of me.
I also walked out one night into the garage, opened the door to the backyard, and, looking left, saw something attached to our house fly away so fast it didn’t make sense. The weirdest thing is it didn’t look like it took flight; instead, it looked like something pulled off along a parabolic curve. I can’t make sense of that one either, and it still scares me to this day.
Image source: f14tomcat1986
#68
I was walking to the bathroom at 3am in the dark and heard my brother laughing in his room. Only thing was, my brother was 200km away.
Image source: Macky93
#69
I was like 8yrs old and decided to try and play music. I put the plug into the electric socket. It had an open end and I got a shock. The issue was that I didn’t know what a shock was. So I was under the assumption that someone was in the house who I couldn’t see. And I thought they startled me. It was scary.
Image source: kali883
#70
I know that people have their own opinion on ghosts/spirits, but my house is “haunted”. I’ve gotten used to some of these things over the years yet sometimes it still makes me uncomfortable to be alone even as a 20-year-old. When home alone, doors will slam, dark shadows pass behind you, whispering from the next room, you get the feeling of being watched, and occasionally you can feel someone “touch” your shoulder or knee.
Image source: too-far-gone-to-save
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