As if lifted from the pages of a classic horror story, a group of Ohio State University students were in for a creepy surprise when they discovered that the "ghost" they had thought was haunting their house was actually a stranger living in the basement, University newspaper The Lantern reports.
The roommates had been startled by frequent strange noises in the night and discoveries that their oven and cabinet doors were mysteriously left open. They had assumed that the locked door in their house led to a utility closet, but when maintanence workers knocked down the door, a secret basement bedroom belonging to a fourth-year engineering student, Jimmy Alderman, was discovered. The fourteen residents had their locks changed that night and left a note on his door, asking him to leave.
"We had been telling everybody the story about the ghost that lives in our house, coming and opening all our cupboards and our oven," Mark Harman, one of the 14 students living in the three-story building, told The Lantern. "Behind the locked door there were some weird noises like dings and knocks and stuff."
Another resident, Brett Mugglin, recognized Alderman from photographs he'd seen in the house earlier this summer, according to the Daily Mail.
"He was a nice enough guy," Mugglin told The Lantern. "He just wasn't supposed to be there."
The residents suspected that Alderman had used the sink in the basement bathroom to wash his clothes, though he apparently hadn't stolen any of their food. Alderman had gained access to the house through his cousin, a previous resident of the house, whom had given him a key. The residents are angry at the leasing company for their lack of oversight and are pursuing legal action.
"I feel bad for him," Mugglin said of his mystery roommate. "It's just, he wasn't supposed to be living there...It's funny now, but it potentially could have been extremely dangerous given that some random guy had a key to our house and was just living in our house without anyone knowing."
Click here to see photos of the two students who spoke to the newspaper about their mysterious house guest, as well as photos of his hidden room in their basement.
