We asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about their mysterious neighbors. Here are some of the spookiest stories.
1. The Boy Who Vanished
"When I was young, about 13 years old, me and my brothers didn’t spend a lot of time inside and would just go around the neighborhood playing football and so on. One day, we saw a family moving into a house up the street — they had a son that was about our age and we asked him if he wanted to hang out. He spent the next three days hanging out around town with us, going everywhere we went and always retiring to this house at the end of the night. We couldn’t hang out on the fourth day, so we agreed that we would just see each other the next day.
Me and my brother went to the house and knocked on the door to retrieve our new friend; the only thing was that nobody was living in this house. One of the neighbors saw us and said no one had been in that house, but we saw this kid go into this house. To this day, we really don’t know what that was all about."
2. The Case of the Golden Apples
"So right after first moving into my house, I would start hearing a drilling noise around 2 a.m. This went on for weeks, we had a two-story and you could look into both of my neighbors' yards from the back window, so I went up to check and I saw four people all crowded in a circle, drilling holes into the ground of the backyard. This happened at least once a week...they would also mow their “lawn” in the middle of the night. ... There was no grass in their yard, all dirt.
They moved out and we got new neighbors who we met at a neighborhood cookout, and they told us when they moved in there were camera wires set up all over the house, even in the bathrooms, and then...these little golden plastic apples that were buried all around the property, hidden in the walls, the attic, the vents, pipes...everything. Hundreds of them. That must have been what they were burying in the yard too.
I really wish I knew why and what was so important about these gold apples..."
— elizgibb
3. The Cul-de-sac Crime
"My family has lived in our cul-de-sac ever since I was 10. This little private street has five houses and we've all known each other for over a decade. The house next to us was a family we've interacted with for years. We grew up along with those kids but we attended different schools.
One night, our entire family was woken up by sirens and a police officer ordering the whole house to be evacuated. We thought it was for us because lights were shining into our house. But my dad realized it was for the family next door. One by one, they all came out with their hands above their heads and the officers raided their house. We just watched our neighbors lay on the grass, handcuffed.
To this day, we never knew why and the parents stopped talking to all of us. We just noticed that one of their boys has been missing. We haven't seen him since that night and it's been five years."
— ankataye
4. The Man Who Spoke to the Sky
"In college, I had a neighbor who was an older man. Anytime I would walk to my car at night, he would be outside. Most times, he was either looking/staring up at the sky or was holding some type of walkie talkie/speaker thing. I always wondered what he was looking for and listening for!"
— Alliejo
5. Plastic Confusion
"We had next door neighbors that were always on the odd side. One night, in the pouring rain, he had a plastic sheet hung up, was wearing a raincoat, and was using a chainsaw to cut something up. Never figured out what it was, but scared the hell out of everyone in our house."
6. Lunchtime Mystery
"I came back home for lunch one day and I heard my neighbor yelling at what I assumed was his wife. Being nosy, I started to listen and it started getting very heated with him calling her degrading names and screaming. I was getting freaked out and was wondering what I should do when I heard a loud THUMP and then silence.
I immediately called the cops extremely worried for his wife. I spied when the cops got there, saw him answer the door, and tell the cops he’d been alone all day. I knew I heard two voices, so I called our property manager and asked if they could reach the wife.
Turns out, she was at work and that is how she found out her husband was cheating on her. She kicked him out immediately. Also, the mistress was completely fine, the thump must have been him hitting a wall or something and then storming out, which ended the fight."
7. Digging for Answers
"One afternoon, I came home to my neighbor digging a massive hole in his backyard (our unattached garage was right next to his backyard, where only a chain link fence separated us) and I jokingly said "what are you doing, hiding a dead body?"
He responded with "why would you say that?" with the most serious face. I don't know what he ended up using this dug-up hole for, but I definitely did not ask him anything about what he was doing after that."
8. Watching Out
"My neighbor two houses down likes to watch my siblings and me any time we go outside. We will be getting in the car to leave, grabbing mail from the mailbox, playing basketball in the driveway, and every single time (with no exceptions), he will stand at the end of his driveway and stare at us.
Usually once we make eye contact with him, he will head inside or pretend he was getting his mail (apparently he gets his mail six times a day), but it's honestly scary how he is aware of every time we step outside and he always wants to watch us."
9. Close Encounters of the Neighbor Kind
"Soo one night my mother, aunt, brother, sister, and myself were having a movie night in my mom's room, which resulted in us falling asleep. Around 2:50ish, my mom, aunt, and I woke up to the sound of our pots and pans rattling, footsteps walking around the house, all that good jazz.
It stopped a couple of minutes after that, but then we had started to hear whispering coming from outside the window. Mom and I had looked out the window and saw no one there, so we went back to the bed freaked out, when all of a sudden we heard HEAVY footsteps coming up the stairs. By that time, we’re all huddled together, when the the footsteps got closer to the room and stops at the door. Couple seconds go by and the door OPENED and I sh*t you not, an arm was attached to the door and then it shut real quick.
What’s weird is that we didn’t hear the footsteps again, but when we called the cops and they searched the house and surroundings, they caught my neighbor outside walking around our houses."
Feeling the thrill chills yet? Don't miss the ultimate mystery-thriller Fear of Rain, available now everywhere you rent and buy movies!
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.