Haunted Retirement Community

Living in a retirement community basically means that no one leaves unless they pass away or move into a nursing home.

The house I live in is no exception. The prior resident, Joe, had passed away.

The first nights here, I slept in the living room on the sofa as I hadn't ordered a bed yet.

The open concept had me looking right into the galley kitchen where a dark figure about my height and slender would walk toward the garage door. Sometimes it would open and close cabinets and drawers. No problem, there was room enough for both of us.

When I moved into my bedroom, I set up my belongings including a tiny figureine of an alien grey holding a piece of amethyst. Often, I would find it turned around or on the ground. This was getting frustrating, so I moved it to a different location where it promptly kept turning around or falling on the floor.

Sandy, the lady across the street, wanted to talk to me about something of a paranormal nature a friend of hers was experiencing. I came to visit the woman's neatly appointed home. It felt as still as a tomb with just one lady rambling around in the furnishings of her mid century youth.

She proceeded to talk to me about the friend and I advised on the issues she was experiencing.

Then, I sat back in my chair and asked, "did you know Joe?"

"Oh yes. Very nice man. Loved his motorcycle. He was always in the garage checking on it, fiddling with it."

This explained the figure always headed to the garage through the kitchen.

"He wasted away with cancer."

This explained his slight figure.

"Sandy, I've been noticing some odd lights on the mountain. Do you ever see these?"

Sandy turned white. "No, no. Don't go outside at night. Don't look at the lights."

I remained silent, awaiting her explanation.

"I'm going to tell you something about Joe and I don't want you to think badly of him. He was the most sane man I know. Very practical. Engineer type."

I waited breathlessly.

"Joe saw the lights on the mountain. He decided to go and chase them. He said that when he got closer, a spaceship appeared and he was beamed up, abducted. I know, I know, it sounds crazy, but he was never the same after that. He studied crystals and metaphysical and Buddhist stuff and tried to make sense of it. Promise me you won't chase the lights."

I nodded.

So, that explained the figurine that kept being turned around or dropped on the ground.

But, one day a year into Joe's random activity, I noticed Sandy across the street hadn't come out for her trash can or her mail in a few days. The last time I saw her out there, she was walking with great difficulty. I grew concerned. She wasn't answering her door and I knew she never took her car out. The old Mercedes had been parked in the garage as long as I knew her.

The police were called. They knocked. Nothing. A few days later, I had to call again. They arrived and I told them to please check her mailbox. It was completely stuffed. The fire department came and broke down the door. Sandy had been dead about 10 days.

I pondered the lonely house with no one claiming it. I recalled conversations with her and she didn't seem to be close to family.

Then, one day a knock on the door. A man was outside and he said, "thank Joe for calling us about my Aunt Sandy."

I was like, "Joe?"

He backed up, looked at the address and the paper in his hand. "Yes, Joe from this address called to tell us that my aunt died."

Several days later I was in the grocery store checking out, ready to push my cart away from the conveyer belt when a woman with a cart behind me, unloading her items, called out - "Sharon? Sharon?"

I turned and saw the tiny-framed Sandy. She sure looked like Sandy.

She smiled and said, "It's me, Sandy."

The woman's smile melted as if she realized I wasn't the person she thought I was, but she knew my name.... The younger woman beside her held her arm. "She forgets." The caregiver told me.

Then, the little lady named Sandy said, "I don't know why I said that. I don't know any Sharons and my name isn't Sandy."

It's not uncommon to hear the fire truck and ambulance heading down my street. Someone at the far end keeps having issues. I wonder why they aren't in a nursing facility.

Since I've lived here 4 years, the woman across the street, the woman next door to her, two people down the street, the man that had lived here before me, all had passed. With the neighborhood here since 1979, I have to extrapolate how many deaths likely occurred and a good deal of them at home as the people were stubborn about not going to the hospital.

This tract housing is at the base of a large granite mountain and ironically atop of land that was once the cremation and burial area "Muertes" village of an ancient tribe that went missing. It is riddled with canal systems, some very ancient from that tribe. The mountain itself is infamous for the "Phoenix Lights" UFO incident. Often, I see odd lights flashing on the mountain, changing colors, hovering, moving fast, going off and on.

People who are infirm can create all kinds of chemical and electrical changes that lay the groundwork for a future haunting. It's rather like what is found at TB sanitoriums and hospitals. If you add to that a land with a history and a geology that is uniquely powerful, and perhaps this area would have a higher incidence of oddities.

I continue to be intrigued by this community and the energies that abound. It wouldn't be a bad place to visit in the afterlife as the view is amazing and the golf courses and greenbelts make it quite pleasant. I'm sure I will have better places to go once I shed my human form, but it might be kind of fun to open and close some cabinets and remind future residents that others tread here and maybe still do....