Sleeping with the Light On

 

                                                      Colfax Avenue in South Minneapolis

One of the first stories I collected was from two musicians that had rented the first floor of a large converted house on Colfax Avenue in Minneapolis's Wedge neighborhood. Frank had a year's lease on the apartment, and he shared it with his friend David--who stayed there for only five months. 

One night David, who worked nights, came home to find the light on in Frank's room. Frank told him that he was awakened in the middle of the night by a "presence" at the foot of his bed. This presence awakened Frank a number of times during his tenancy at the house.

From the front door to the kitchen stretched a long hallway. David said that when he walked down the hall, he sometimes experienced a "creepy, tingly feeling in the spine" when he passed by the doorway to Frank's room. After he moved out, David wondered if he was hallucinating this feeling because he knew about Frank's experiences. But when he told his wife and another friend about this sensation two years later, they both said that they also had had a creepy feeling in this hallway--although none of them mentioned it to the others.

Both roommates felt that there was a lot of unusual house noise, including a loud unexplained bang in the middle of the night. One night while Frank was in his room with the light on, David tried to lure out the ghost by playing his drum set, but nothing happened.

David asked a neighbor, Jerry Trigg, who lived down the block, about the former occupants of their apartment. Jerry told him that the owners, an elderly couple, used to live in the downstairs unit. Their bedroom had been the room that Frank was staying in, and the wife had died in that room.

Neither roommate saw anything; they only felt a ghostly presence and heard unexplained noises. When he moved out, Frank commented that "there are too many ghosts in this house."

 

The house has undergone an impressive restoration since Frank and David lived there. These incidents occurred many years ago, and it's likely that the haunting has faded or completely disappeared. Nevertheless, whenever I pass by the house, I can't help wondering if the former owner is still hanging out in the first floor apartment. I hope not.