Ghosts in the Bathroom

A friend of mine tells a story about a man who took a room in a large casino hotel in Las Vegas.   In the bathroom of his hotel room, he turned on the shower.  The steam coming off the hot water fogged up the mirror.  Before he stepped into his shower, he wrote a funny question on the mirror.  When he stepped out of the shower, he found an unexpected reply to his question.  He asked, “Is this room haunted?”  The reply was “Yes!” Thank you for joining us for three-member stories of ghosts in the bathroom.  I think you will enjoy it!  




 The lady in the bathroom from community member Kim W.

In 2012, my three-year-old son and I moved into a very old rental house.  We were just happy to have an affordable place to live after being homeless for all of his life.  The landlord was allowing us to live in the house without a lease because it needed a lot of upgrades.  Also, the house was difficult to rent.  The inside of the house was clean but very dark.  It needed more windows.  Also, it was always cold inside.  I had to wear a long sleeve light jacket and long pants and it was summer.  We had been settled in for a day when my sister came for a visit.  I could tell that she was not happy with our new house.  We were talking.  Then she looked down the hallway and her eyes got big.  She clearly saw something that frightens her.  She said I think that I just saw an old woman go into your bathroom.  We both checked but it was empty.  She said never mind I must be seeing things.  She never came back for another visit.

A few days later, I was bathing my son.  He said that he didn’t like the house because of that old lady frighten him.   I wondered if this was his way of telling me that I had offended him.  I ask him do you mean mommy?  No, the old lady he said.  I thought about what my sister had said about an old lady going into the bathroom.  Still, I didn’t know what to make of it. After that, I noticed strange things happening.  Things went missing and would later be found in the tub.  The water in the bathroom would turn on by itself.  Sometimes, the bathroom door would be locked from the other side.  More disturbing, my son would not use the bathroom without me standing watch.   We stayed in that house for three long months.  Then my sister and I got a place together.  I never saw the old woman but I have no doubt that my son and sister did. The landlord is still a friend of mine.  Years later, he told me that an older woman had committed suicide in that house, in the tub, in 2010


The Door Was Locked from community member Wendy H.

Last month, I visited my lifelong friend Jamie at her rented vacation house in Maine.  The house is a two-hundred-year-old salt box that was remodeled a few months ago.  It looks old on the outside but it’s very modern inside. She was hosting several other people that I didn’t know well.   We all came to her vacation house to workshop a new textbook.  We were each contributing chapters to the book.

On the morning of the second day, I woke up at six a.m.    I went down the hall to use the bathroom.  There were only two in the house.  The other one was in the master bedroom.    I knocked on the door.  There was no answer.   So, I turned the handle to enter but the door was locked.

 Listening at the door, I heard water running.  It seemed that one of the other guests was using the facilities.  So, I waited a few minutes hoping that whoever was in there would come out soon.  After five minutes, I knocked on the bathroom door to make, whoever was in there, aware that I was waiting.  After five more minutes, I knocked louder on the door and asked them to hurry up.  I needed to pee badly.

I had just stepped back from knocking on the door, when it, aggressively, opened and slammed into the wall.  It barely missed hitting me in the face.  I thought that I was going to have a fight with whoever was coming out.   However, the opened door revealed that no one was inside the bathroom.   Still, the water, running in the sink, turned itself off.  The bathroom lights shut themselves off and the toilet flushed itself.  The bathroom door closed on its own.

Then I heard footsteps walk past me and go down the stairs.  I didn’t use that bathroom.  I went to the master bedroom and I woke up Jamie and her girlfriend.  I used their bathroom.  I was still shaking when I explained to them what just happened.  They humored me; but, I could tell that they didn’t believe it.  I departed a few hours later.

In a few days, I learned from Jamie that something paranormal happened to another guest.  This time two other people witnessed it.  Jamie had rented that house for seven days.  Everybody departed after three days.  For a month, I have been puzzled.  If ghosts exist, and they are dead, why do they need to use the bathroom?


Aoi Manto

In Japan, there is an urban legend about a bathroom ghost named Aoi Manto?  He is a male ghost who waits in the last stall in the girls’ bathroom.  Anyone entering the bathroom alone hears a voice asking, “Which do you prefer, the red paper or the blue paper?”


If they pick the red paper, he kills them by slashing their back repeatedly with a blade in order to make the victim appear to be wearing a red cape.  If the victim chooses the blue paper, then they’re killed by hanging.  


Sleep Over in a Haunted B&B by community member Angie T.

I spent my vacation, last summer driving the old highway 66 (better known as route 66).  I love to stay at Bed and Breakfast homes when I travel.  I feel that they add to the adventure.  On a stretch of the old highway in New Mexico, I stayed in a haunted B&B all alone.

The innkeeper assured me that the house was not really haunted.  We just advertise it as haunted because it brings in the guest.  Her husband rolled his eyes and said “No it’s haunted.  She just refuses to acknowledge the ghosts.  If you are afraid of ghosts don’t stay here tonight.”  His wife said well, I've never seen anything. Her husband said but you have heard plenty. Now, that’s quite a trick I thought.  No matter what happens, they have told the truth.  It’s haunted or it’s not haunted.  I received my electronic key and the husband showed me to a room on the first floor.

The room was very nice.  It was modern with its own bathroom and a large screen TV.  The Wi-Fi had a strong signal.  The husband told me.  Tonight you will be in the house by yourself. We are closing in a few minutes and, so far, there is no other guest.  If you need us, just pick up your room phone and dial three zeros.  We live out back in the old carriage house.

Before he departed, I asked him to fill me in on why he believed that the house was haunted.  He told me, in the 1950s the house was a boarding house for old age pensioners.  The pensioners would turn over their checks to the owner and in return, they got a clean and safe place to stay. Also, they got a room for themselves and three meals every day.  The place functions more like an extended family than the old folks home.

As older folks do, people died of natural causes in the house.  If they had no family, instead of reporting the pensioner’s death.  The manager buried the body on the grounds and kept collecting the Social Security check and other pension checks.  At first, they used the money to improve the quality of life for the residents.  Then at some point, it became about getting rich. At that point, they no longer waited for the pensioners to die.  They begin killing them quietly.  Not all of them, just the ones with no family.

In time, they only took in pensioners who had no family.  They eventually made a mistake and they got caught.  The state police exhumed more than thirty bodies from the grounds surrounding the house.  Most were believed to have been murdered in the house then buried.  I asked him was anyone killed in this room?  More than likely he said.  He gave me a chance to check out.  I passed on it.  Then he reminded me how to contact them, if I needed help, and departed my room.

After hearing that story, I was a little on edge. So, I dug out my laptop and phone and got online to talk to my friends on Facebook.  It didn’t take long to turn up the story online. It was much worse than the husband indicated.  Some of my friends on Facebook thought I should leave.  Other friends thought that nothing would happen since ghosts don’t exist.  After a few hours, nothing had happened.  So, I showered and got ready for bed.  In the shower, I had the feeling of being watched.  I attributed it to my nerves and knowledge of the house history.

I hopped into bed and got back online with my friends.  It was around eleven-thirty when I heard someone walking in the bathroom.  I had closed the door and turned off the light after I finished showering.  Now the light was back on.  I observed that a shadow had fallen across the gap between the bottom of the door and the floor.  Someone was in the bathroom.  I was thinking more about a rapist than a ghost.  The bathroom had no outside window.  Yet someone was in there.  When I travel, I take my 9mm Beretta Pistol with me.  I grabbed it from my purse and aimed it toward the door.  I had my finger on the trigger and the safety off.  I was going to shoot whoever came out of that bathroom.

I also called the owners.  The wife answered.  I told her someone was in my bathroom.  About five minutes later.  She and her husband were knocking on my room door.  We checked the bathroom but no one was inside.  The husband again asked me if I wanted to check out.  I decided to stay.  He told me to expect more noises.  I got back in bed and back on Facebook.  I told my friends about the bathroom incident and uploaded pictures of the bathroom and the rest of the room.

Later, I was awoken by a loud, noise made by something heavy dropping on the upstairs floor above my head. Apparently, I had drifted into sleep. Then it happens again and again.  I checked my phone for the time.  It was a few minutes after one a.m.  I stayed in bed.  I had the gun next to me.  I posted a message on Facebook about the noise.  My friends had signed off by that time.
Then minutes later, I heard someone running down the wooden stairs and stop outside my room door.  I held my breath and aimed the pistol at the door.  I waited just like that for what seemed like a half hour.  Then I heard the steps running back up the stairs.  I was relieved.  Then from upstairs, I heard doors slamming and more running.

 The entire time, I was hyper aware and kept my finger on the trigger ready to shoot.  I had to pee badly but I was to frighten to get out of bed.  It was a good two hours before things settled down. Then, I used the restroom and got back into bed.   For hours I just listened.  It was quiet.  However,   I was expecting that at any moment the activity would start again.  Around ten a.m., I was awakened by a knock on my room door.  It was the innkeeper (the wife).  She reminded me of the eleven a.m. check out.

At the front desk, I recounted my night to the innkeepers.  They had a book in which other guess had recounted their adventures.  I added my experience.  Then I got back on the road.  Since that time people have suggested to me that it was the innkeepers making the noise to ensure I had the full ghostly experience.  Some of it could have been them.  Still, there was something in that bathroom.  Unless there was a secret passage I don’t think it was them.