Tales From The Other Side pt. 2

This story is creepy in a different way.

One beautiful spring afternoon in mid May I was doing a trash run at the main apartment complex and was approached by a tenant. He asked me if I wanted to smoke, but I declined because I'm paranoid and the situation kind of freaked me out. He said if I ever wanted to take him up on his offer to just stop by his apartment because he's always there. The next day I did. It's was pretty late in the day and I had nothing else to do, so I thought I'd be able to get away with it. We both took geebs and shot the shit for a few minutes before my supervisor called me. There was some older lady wanting some spackled over holes covered with paint. Extremely nervous, high, and red-eyed I gathered my supplies and went to the lady's apartment.

I walked in and the first thing I noticed were the walls. Every wall in the place was almost completely covered with little porcelain trinkets. At first I thought it was extremely weird but soon convinced my balls high self that it wasn't that weird, "Ya know, some people just like worthless pieces of porcelain to cover their entire wall." But then I looked up and saw the people who lived there. They weren't overly disgusting looking or anything, but they were a strange looking group of people. There were three of them and they were all sitting on a couch watching some Queen Latifah movie. On the far left was the older white lady, I'd say mid 50s to 60s, who talked to me about painting the random spots in her place, on the far right was a very old lady, I'm assuming the other lady's mother, in the middle was a young very frail looking African American male, and on his lap was a tiny dog; some kind of dirty brown Maltese looking creature. Just as I don't believe in ghosts, I am no racist, but this grouping seemed strange to me.

Anyway, the entire time I'm painting the walls the dog would not stop growling and barking at me, followed by the African American fellow quietly in an almost southern and feminine voice telling the dog to "hush now." I look up at the dog and people and nervously chuckle because in my head I just fucking know that they know that I am high as balls. My eyes more red than the devil's dick, the faint smell of piny skunky weed smoke coming off me, I look again, and not one of them, excluding the dog, are paying the slightest bit of attention to me. They were too enthralled with that fabulous Queen Latifah and all of her zany but heartwarming antics. I hurried with the painting, painting a wall faster than any wall I had painted thus far, said "have a nice day", and got the fuck out of dodge. That was my last day.

Tales from the Other Side Pt. 1

Ma halo, you guys.

It has been a while since I've last updated. Not that I even really have anything interesting to say, just thought I should put something up before I loose all interest.

Over the past couple of months I've been working as a make-ready for an apartment complex. That is until I got tired of the grind and quit the fuck out of that job. For those of you don't know, a make-ready is someone who goes into an apartment right after it is vacated and fixes, very cheaply, I might add, all the damages before the next tenant moves into said apartment. It was easy enough work, but I got another higher paying, not as stressful job offer and decided to move on. Also, I hated it.

The property management company I was working for actually owned several apartment complexes and a few houses. One of the first "assignments" they had for me was a house located somewhat close to the country club area of town kind of secluded down it's own private drive. They had recently acquired it by way of an estate sale. Meaning someone probably fucking died in the house. Didn't know that for sure at first, but what I did know, is that the house had been vacant for about two years, and apparently some critters had found their way into the attic and made themselves at home. And you could tell as soon as you opened the front door. Immediately the thick smell of errant feces would hit you in the face and at first all you can do is gag. Eventually, though, you kind of get use to it, not in an enjoying "Yeah, this isn't so bad", but more of a "Fuck, I'm going to have smell this shit for the next eight hours" kind of way. The house itself was kind of cool. Built sometime in the early 70s, it had a lot of front and back yard space with a trail going down to a pond. I'd like to describe it better, but I'm not really sure how to, and... it's just a house. So, fuck it. The main thing I want to talk about is the creepy shit that went down while I was painting.

One of the first days I was working I had to paint some cabinets above a desk, where I found some paper trash. Old receipts, loose leaf paper, and envelope stuff. On one of the envelopes I saw a name of a man and decided to try and find out more about the previous owners by "Google"ing the name. The only thing I found was an obituary of the wife of the man. Turns out she died in the house.

I'm not generally someone who believes in ghosts and the like, but there were some weird things going on in there. Not intensely crazy things, but loud tapping on walls, doors opening and shutting, lights turning off and on. Just some weird shit. And like I said I don't believe in ghouls and shit, but that stuff creeped me out. Especially since I was alone the majority of the time and having just found out about the old lady dying in the house.

One moment, in particular, that was especially heinous was in the kitchen. I heard some really loud bangs coming from the ceiling. Being the crazily paranoid person I am, my first thought was "Holy shit a ghost!". But then slowly realized it was probably just the animal living in the attic because of the constant scurrying. All of the sudden it stopped right above the oven. After that there was just scratching noises over and over and over. I finished painting in the kitchen and ignored the noises. The next day, after telling my supervisor, Randy, about the noises I heard, he decided to bring out an exterminator. Well, he was more of a trapper. A real good ol' boy from the sticks. He had grown up catching little woodland creatures all the time for fun and thought he could turn that into a career, I guess. As I'm showing Randy where all the commotion was coming from we noticed blood dripping from the oven vent, and the smell in the house had increased ten fold. Seriously, it was goddamn disgusting. I thought it smelled like a zoo before, it now smelled like a zoo mixed with animal dukes mixed with rotting meat. In fact it was the worst thing I had ever smelled. I think. After a few seconds of exploring the oven vent, the trapper fellow found the little guy who had tried to make this house his own. He turned out to not be so little. And a possum. He had gotten himself stuck in the oven vent and tried to chew his way out. When the trapper made it to him he was long dead and missing an arm. Hence the blood.

Here's a sample of the work I was doing...