Apartment #5
Saturday March 15, 2003
Investigators present: Jay, Jacquie, Jon
Length of visit: 2hours 30minutes
The former resident of this apartment (former CAPI member Jon) first contacted CAPI because he had some strange feelings while living in this apartment. No, there was nothing floating around and no disembodied voices and no Indian burial ground (not that we could tell anyway). There was just a constant uncomfortable feeling that was strong enough to make Jon move to the apartment above. He told us that his strongest feelings of discomfort came from the bedroom and the bathroom at night when the lights are off.
This classic and beautiful 70+ year old apartment building is nestled in a older part of the inner city (much too close to its immediate neighbour to the west and a pizza place to the east for Jay). Standing in front, you can imagine how it must have once looked, with a dress shop (or a confectionary before) where apartment #5 is now. You can see how the area grew and evolved. Apartment #5 must have seen her fair share of people come and go. One of the things that attracts us to old, modified buildings is trying to visualize how things must have looked. Where was the cashier, how were the shelves set up, are there any candy bars left somewhere (mmm ... candy). We always hope, when on this type of investigation, that we will find some piece of history (like a newspaper or magazine or some forgotten treasure) that will connect us with the former life of the location.
We toured the small, character oozing apartment in a matter of minutes. We noticed the bedroom closet had significant temperature variations in the areas between the shelves. There appeared to be no logical reason why this should be, as these 'shelves' consisted of little more than thin particle boards strewn about in a pattern that would make M. C. Escher proud. In the center of the closet the temperature was 19°C and on the bottom 14.5°C. We snapped some pictures, then set up one of the audio tape recorders before making our way upstairs to Jon's apartment to enjoy some home-made humus.
A little while later (and after too much humus) the team returned to apartment #5 for one final go. We discussed the strange feelings emanating in the bathroom, although no one could pinpoint exactly what was 'off', then ventured into Jon's former bedroom. We sat on the floor in preparation to speak to whatever may be in this apartment, with the first audio tape running to record our results. Jay put a new blank tape into the second audio recorder and placed it in the centre of the team and began asking questions. When Jay asked "Do you need any help?", the second recorder shut itself off. Luckily, the first recorder kept going and was able to document this. Jay checked the machine and found no apparent reason for this to happen. The other team members also checked the recorder and came to the same conclusion. We began again and the same phenomenon happened. We finished asking questions without further incident then snapped our last pictures before saying goodbye to apartment #5.
We ventured back up to Jon's apartment and listened to the tapes we had just recorded. We were all shocked to hear, just as the second tape recorder shut off, what seemed to be someone breathing into the microphone quite loudly. We listened to this a couple of times and were convinced of what we had heard. Jacquie played the tape from the first recorder to see if it was affected in any way. We found that it recorded the events with no problem, but it seemed like the time that the second tape recorder was out of action was considerably less than the time of the recording.
We always write these stories after all of the pictures are developed and reviewed and the audio tapes listened to and the video tapes watched. Because of this diligent process, we can present to you the accurate results of our investigations. In the case of apartment #5 there are some weird things going on, but we caught nothing on film to help substantiate the bizarre feelings. However, we have the odd thing on tape and if that's all the apartment gives us, then we are happy with that. We will be delving deeper into the history of this building and the surrounding area for our own records and if something odd turns up you will be the seventh to know (after all the team comes first). Sometimes there is just nothing more to be done or said and it is our opinion that this is one of those sometimes.
