Speaker 1: Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. A home inspector arrives at
a job site with zero expectations that leaves with much
more than he bargained for. My name is Edwin, and
here's a scary story. The alarm woke me up in
an instant after falling asleep. Thinking I had set it
up wrong, I turned it off and dozed off, only
to wake up to a call with a very specific
ring tone. It was my boss. I felt my arms
dropped like stones deeper into the mattress when I realized
what time it was. Less than thirty seconds later, I
was fired. The llergy pills had worked a little too well,
and I was still in a drowsy state when I
got a call from Ilda, a girl I liked and
had a crush on since high school. The dream girl.
I would often wonder what it would be like if
I had the guts to ask out. So far, I
had gone as far as taking care of her two cats,
hence the allergy pills pay sleep ahead. She started, how
are my babies we're doing? I started quickly catching what
I had just said. I mean, wait, she laughed on
the other end, and I felt that smile curve on
my face as I listened to her, I'll come pick
them up later. When are you getting off work? I
told her I would be at home the whole day,
which then turned into telling her that I had just
been fired. She was shocked at the news, saying that
my job was so cool and that she was wondering
how anybody could fire me, especially since I was so
good at it. She said she would try to come
by my house earlier than expected, but that if I
needed anything, to give her a call. But then everything
came rushing at me in a blur. Honestly, adding the
distraction of Ilda's voice made it harder to concentrate. I
did catch what she said at the end, though, we'll
find you another job. Forget those guys. That's what I meant.
It was hard not to fall in love with her.
She didn't even know what I did for a living.
She just knew that I had a bunch of gadgets
and carried around a lot of printed manuals with me.
I would sometimes tell her about the houses I visited
for work and the many things that construction companies and
builders tried to hide discoveries I made completely on my own.
To her, this was the coolest thing ever, and of
course I would be fit up a little making night
inspections seem like such a cool part of my job,
when in reality they were only for the cooler temperatures
of mainly buildings with the steel structure. I loved my job, obviously.
There were a lot of things to do, things to
learn and to stay up to date with. The coolest
part about it, though, was that I got to work
by myself. I was a home inspector for a small
agency that had been expanding recently with lots of other
inspectors as they started taking on bigger and big clients,
larger houses, mansions, and even new constructions out of the
newly developed areas by the woods and foothills. My job
was to go through checklists, to take video or photographs,
measure take temperatures, and meticulously review building codes and manuals
basically rules for how houses were supposed to be built.
If there were cracks on the wall, for example, I
would take a note of it. Anything from leaky pipes
to missing shingles on the roof, I would take a
note of it. And that was good at it too.
Ilda always told me that I should try to find
my own clients whenever I complained about work, mainly when
I told her about the managers who wanted work done
quickly instead of accurately. But that was far too awkward
to reach out to people on my own. It was
hard to stand up for myself in a lot of
these situations, but I try to make the most of it,
but something would come up, especially with Ilda on my side. Somehow,
her call was all I could think about that morning,
and I felt all right. I got got ready as
if I was going to go to work, and instead
started fixing things around the house. The lawnmower had gotten
rained on in the previous week and needed a part replacement.
The thermometer on my oven was off by a few degrees.
Projects I could finally work on. But I had just
gotten outside by the shed when I got a call.
It was Ilda. Hey, she said, I have a job
for you for tonight. It's one for my friends managers.
I told them that you're the best at it, and
that you also do night inspections. But they're in a
hurry and they need you to be there tonight. Can
you go? How could I say no? Yes, I said,
scrambling over my own words to find something else to say,
but I didn't have to. Great, I'll let them know
and then text you the address and everything gotta go
when she hung up, Maybe this wouldn't be so bad.
I would ask them to share around a business card,
maybe get more calls and go easy, two easy. I
caught myself thinking, suspicious of what was to come, considering
this was exactly what I would say whenever a major
issue started at a job site, I did my best
to let it go and continue onto the shed and
start one of these projects. Alda was at my house
a little after six in the evening, just as I
had started eating a sandwich by the front porch. I
never knew how to say hi to her, despite us
seeing each other a few times a week. A hug,
a handshake, a casual hello, but she sometimes surprised me
with a hug or a high five before coming into
my house as if it were her own, and this
time it was no different. The cats knew exactly when
she was around the corner and waited for her with me,
making the greeting part of the conversation a little less uncomfortable.
She started telling me about the job right away. The
plan was simple. Everyone would be home at ten p m.
She said, but they were willing to step out and
spend the night at a hotel for the night. The
address was written down and texted to me already. It
was on a road I hadn't heard of before, likely
one of the new constructions out by the edge of
the forest. A few of the other contractors had also
worked out there. I asked for more details about the
age of the house, reasons for the inspection, insurance, and
warranties on it. But as I saw her eyes widen
at the thought that I had needed so many details,
I stopped, smiled and thanked her for what she was
doing for me. She still apologized for not asking, but
I reminded her that it was all right that I
needed this and was going to figure it out on
the spot. There was something strange about the drive there.
The whole time I kept watching the bars of signal
on my cel phone dropping the farther I went into
the woods. I had looked at the signal data strength
in the area beforehand, and it seemed fine, But later
I would find out that it wouldn't be the only
unexpected event of the night. As I drove through the woods,
the trees zooming past me in odd patterns, similar to
what you would see in an old animated video with
the moonlight creeping through the trees at certain points. I
kept thinking about what I would say or what type
of inspection I would conduct. Thankfully, I had brought everything,
including strong reflectors, lights and stands to light up the
roof if needed. But when I pulled up, I realized
that this would be something completely different. There was no
one home. There was no specific protocol, no plan, no signal.
Was it a general inspection. Had never been in this
situation before. With a budget of eleven hundred dollars, it
was too much for a simple inspection, but it was
my best guess as to what they wanted me to do,
and so I made up a plan in my mind.
I pulled off, knocked on the door, and saw as
a case sparkled on the doorknob. I stepped inside, greeted
by a staircase right in front of the front door area,
a large chimney to the left, and a separate living
room on the right. This was not a new construction.
The bases of the walls were made of stone and
the stairs were made of old wood like a cabin,
I would say. Immediately, I thought about the piping layout
of such an old house, electricity, the rules that would
apply it to such a build, because some had exceptions
due to how old they were and were unable to
be renovated like modern houses were. And just as I
was looking for the light switches, I caught from the
corner of my eye how a young woman came out
from total darkness from the left area of the house
by the chimney, and she just stood there the darkness. Hello,
I said, awkward as always, I'm here for a home inspection.
Is this a good time? Man got in there a
little bit early, after all, But she just stood there
with a light white dress and no shoes, staring at
me blinkly. Her dark hair was tied up behind her,
with enough light from the window that was enough for
me to see the birthmark on her neck. I turned
back towards the wall and found the light switches, four
of them, and flicked them on all at once. When
I turned around again toward the woman, she was gone.
I smiled to myself, nervously, wondering if she would come
out again, laughing at the whole thing and explaining a
few things to me about the inspection, But as I
stepped toward the room, shouting hello and trying to make
a conversation with this person who wasn't there, I was
met with silence, the kind of silence you only feel
when the power goes out at home. Completely dead. I
walked back toward my truck to grab my camera and
light equipment to begin with the layout of the house.
Rolling the case through the carefully laid out stone walkway
up to the porch, I opened up a work table,
put my materials there, and grabbed the camera to head
back inside. I took pictures of the rooms on the
first floor, the staircase and windows, corners of everything, the flooring,
the exterior of the property, which if it hadn't been
for my reflectors, I would have never found out how
large it was. It took me about an hour to
find the property line in another twenty minutes to walk it.
Everything looked to be in order from the outside, no
signs of flooding, no erosion, or anything that would show
me that the house was built on bad grounds, But
I couldn't be too certain, especially after thinking of who
or what I had just seen inside the house. I
continued taking pictures until finally ending up back at the
front of the house, taking out my thermometer measuring tape
in the video camera. That's when I heard the sound
coming from the staircase. I quickly turned around and instinctively
snapped a picture of it for later. Every once in
a while I catched droplets or dust falling from a
certain area of the house, very valuable to show active
faults of buildings. These were not your typical sounds. As
I listened more closely, I heard the sounds turn to
footsteps and then rush up the stairs, sounds that didn't
match anything I could see. I could feel that smile
creeping into my face again. I was nervous now, especially
considering that I would have to be heading up to
that second floor to continue the inspection, and I didn't
want to be the subject of a joke. The best
I could do was pretend I never heard it and
just go up there. And so I grabbed the camera
and started recording as I walked up the stairs, and
with every creak, I grew more and more nervous scared.
I can be honest with you, the upstairs area was
as I was expecting. Four bedrooms lined up down a
dark hallway with a window at the end of it.
Floors were firm from what I could see with the
lights on the camera, but I stopped the recording for
a bit while I got ready to take some pictures,
and I was there in complete darkness for several seconds.
I had no idea where the light switch was, and
it took my eyes a little bit to a just
before I realized I was standing right in front of it,
and so I took pictures of the rooms, everything decorated
in a simple manner. I could tell one was a
children's room and the other was a teenager's one, with
posters on the wall and everything, while the remaining two
were similar, large rooms, both with enough space for a
couch and bookshelves as well as a bed. One had
a bathroom, while the second bathroom on the upstairs area
was a fifth door at the end of the hallway.
Everything from the floorboard to the paint on the ceiling
looked fine, no signs of humidity or termites from what
I could see, and so I stepped out into the hallway,
flicked off the light, and was getting ready to find
my footing to get downstairs when I saw a long
shadow and a beam of light stretch from the window
all the way to where I was, and then it
floated away from door to door until it reached the
window again, a frozen place, waiting for something else to happen.
I turned on the light and rushed toward the window
to see what it had been. And from up there
I could see a car pulling up to the property
and parking next to my truck. A small group of people,
maybe five of them, was stepping out of it, the owners,
I thought to myself. I walked through the hallway and
down the stairs when I spotted them, the family that
lived in the house. The inspector, the older man of
the group said, as he saw me walking up to
shake my hand, thinks a lot for making the time
to come out here, a worried look on his face.
No problem, I said, as the rest of his family
stepped into the house and shook my hand. One by one,
all four of them had miscounted the first time. This
included a little girl of a about five years old
or so. Everything looks good so far. I just have
to finish off with a basement, which should take me
a couple of hours. I looked down at my watch.
It was a little past midnight already. They all looked
at each other. The man, whose name I later found
out was John, asked if I needed him to go
there with me, but there was no reason to. I
told him that if you could just point me toward
the breakers and the water heating units, we would be
all right. He looked confused, but agreed, and then he
put his jacket away on the hangar by the front
door and ushered me toward the living room on the
right side of the house. This way, he said. I
looked at the old door for the second time that night,
already knowing where it would lead me to from my
earlier walkthrough of the place. I heard you needed this
done as soon as possible, I said, while he nodded.
I can get you the report by the end of
the day tomorrow if you need it by then, without
a problem, I explained, but he stayed silent. Is it
for a property sale? Again, no answer. I can climb
up on the roof tonight as well. I brought my
equipment for night time, I continued, but he interrupted, there's
nothing on the roof. Most of the activity happens at
the basement, although today's a special day, so it might
be all around the house. We wanted to stay somewhere else,
but my wife Sandra didn't want to miss it. I
hope that's all right for an instant there. I thought
that his wife wanted to see or learn about inspections
like Ilda did. But as he continued to tell me
about the things that happened around the house, the sounds,
the chair in the last room of the hallway, the
cries from the basement, and the apparition by the chimney,
I realized that he had been mistaken. Him and his
family had been looking for a paranormal investigator and had
hired a home inspector instead. Each step creaked even more
the deeper we got into the basement before he turned
on the light bulb that was hanging from the ceiling
at the base of the stairs. What did you need
again the breakers? I knew it wouldn't matter anymore, but
I said yes. It reminded him of the water heater.
He pointed to the corner of the basement, which had
another opening, a room without a door segmented as part
of it. The floor was raw concrete except for that area.
It appeared to be a hole in the ground. Even
more frightened now, I asked him about what happened in
the basement, and what he explained still sens shivers down
my spine. Screams, he said, cries and pain come from
down here almost every night since we moved in many
years ago. Not all of them are loud. If you're
listening carefully, they're there. He also explained that the family
quickly learned that the heavy door that led them into
the basement held noise inside pretty well, so all they
did was to keep it shut except for when they
needed to grab something from there. It was now a
place for cleaning supplies and storage for old toys. He
told me that the house had belonged to an old
friend of his, a man who died of old age
and had inherited the property from his grandparents who had
it before them, and so on. When his old friend
learned that John was about to have a child with
his young wife and that he had no one to
pass down the house to, he sold it to him
for the best price possible, without giving any suspicion to
the county, under the condition that he would take over
the house once he died, which would only be less
than two years later. He stayed quiet for a bit.
I don't think they want us here, he said, just
as the sudden growl emanated from the dark area of
the basement. We both looked at each other see I
smiled nervously as I wiped the sweat from my hand
against the camera I was holding. You won't stay here
by yourself, he said, to my relief, I'll hang out here,
and if you want to go record over there, you can.
I was in it now, I thought to myself, too
deep to say that I wasn't who he was looking for,
but dumb or brave enough to continue. I walked out
over the dark room in the basement, camera in hand
as I stepped inside, quietly trying to ask questions to
these spirits, just as I had seen long ago on
a DVD we got from Netflix back in the day
with Ilda. But all that would come out were whispers
from under my breath. Suddenly a growl turned into the
laughter of children that surrounded me. I ran out of
the room and followed John up the stairs, leaving the
light on until finally we made it out over the
first level of the house. John Sandra and their older
son were all looking at me. I reassured them that
I was all right, that I simply had never experienced
something like that before, that there was definitely something lurking
around that place. They all looked at each other, seemingly relieved.
Thank you. The wife, Sandra said, we have no idea
how much this means to us? Is it Amy? John's
expression changed and he looked upset, speaking low enough so
that their youngest wouldn't wake up from sleeping on the couch.
Do you think Amy would be down here growling and
scaring everyone? Give me a break? Sandra looked disappointed, so
I decided to intervene and ask her more about Amy.
Amy was her daughter. She had just started to learn
how to drive, so the lack of experience, the weather,
and the car's failure combined to end in her tragic
death in the dark woods by the property. After a
few minutes of silence, Sandra went upstairs, her footsteps running
down the hallway non stop until she came all the
way back to the staircase and walked down slowly. There
was a picture frame held tightly against her chest. She
flipped it over as I watched the same young woman
from before from the chimney in the photograph. She was
worrying her Sunday best, but I recognized her birthmark, the
one on her neck. It was her that was sure
of it. Sandra, I saw your daughter, I told her,
and then tears slowly started to fill her eyes. She
asked me about what she looked like, tricks, and if
she was all right about what she was wearing, and
if she had said anything. But everything I explained to
her seemed to match of what her daughter had been
like in life. I explained to them that I would
find them some help, that I had gotten everything I
needed that night, that I would be in touch. They agreed,
and I put my stuff away and went home. I
didn't know much about this the topics of paranormal investigations,
but lots of things have changed since then. Ilda helped
me find them someone who could provide some closure for them.
Life wasn't as simple as in many manuals and rule
books said. I discovered that night that there was much
more out there than we know, things that ban the
rules of what's possible. Ilda and I have been together
for almost twenty years now, and we still talk about
that first night that changed everything. My mistake, she says,
and she admits it every time to think that from
then on, I once lost just fired man with loads
of gadgets, as Ilda calls them. Somehow turn this into
services that find different types of answers for people. But
the name the inspector somehow stuck. And when we meet again,
perhaps I'll tell you about Amy and the basement and
the many secrets that were uncovered that night. Scary Story
Podcast is written and produced by me Edwin Kobarujas. I
want to thank you the new supporters on Scary Plus
and everyone for your messages. I'm just figuring out how
to use the behind the scenes channel on Instagram in
case you want to check it out, I'll link to
everything in the description of this episode. Remember that you
can find out more about me and of the channel
if you go to Scary Story podcast dot com. Thank
you very much for listening. Keep it scary everyone, See
you soon.