Maybe you’ve never heard of it, or maybe you have. Where ever ghosts stories are told, these tales are sure to exist in some form or another.

I’ve heard about them from rural, quiet towns in Europe, to the ‘hullabaloo-filled’ cities in urban America. I’m talking about phantom neighbors. The stories of people reporting odd noises coming from the house or apartment next door; a place they know is not occupied. At least not by someone living.

We’re all familiar with the noisy neighbor. Those people who decide that it’s a good idea to play their latest volume of “Ibiza Party: 09” at one in the morning. Or the grunts of the guy who is trying to advertise to the rest of his neighbors that he’s a stud, but doesn’t realize that most of us who heard him, thought it was a Sea lion gasping for air. I hated our old place.

Those neighbors can be annoying, but you can always just ask them politely to shut the hell up. What if when you went next door to interrupt the Sea lion and realized that the apartment was empty? That no one had been living there for at least a year. What then?

Crazy story. My younger brother works for a company that oversees the security of some residential buildings in Long Beach, CA. A few nights ago, while working his swing-shift, he calls me and says: “Yo, I gotta story for you. For GhostTheory.”

“Oh yea?  What’s up?” I said.

He goes on to tell me that some residents of the 18th floor in the building where he was working at came down to talk to him. The residents, a couple, said:

“This might sound a little strange, but can you go and check out the penthouse next door to ours? We keep hearing someone in there moving furniture around.”

My brother then tells me that this wasn’t the first time that this couple had complaint about the noise. They’ve been complaining to the manager and owner of the building that there is someone next door to them that is moving and banging furniture around at odd hours of the day.

So then I asked my brother if he was really going to go and investigate it.

“Uh…yea. I have to.” he said.

I told him to go up, do his thing and go back down. In my mind I’m thinking that if there is something paranormal there, I don’t want it attaching to my brother. Especially how he is currently staying with me and how I’ve been feeling something quite odd in my place lately.

Anyways, my skeptical-ass first thinks that there is some rational explanation to the noises of furniture being moved around in the empty penthouse. But just to be sure..I told him to not be a hero.

The next morning, I’m talking to my brother and ask him what happened. He goes on to tell me that he went up to the penthouse. Thought he heard a television on, jiggled the door handle and put his ear up to the door and listened. Nothing.

He then went back to his desk and reported the incident. This is were it gets spooky.

Turns out that on the 18th floor of this building, a guy had jumped to his death while visiting an open-house for the penthouses. It wasn’t the same penthouse, but it was on the same floor. This was not the couple’s first complaint about the phantom noise. The manager and building owner are well aware of the complaints and have gone as far as taking pictures of the unit and shown it to the couple to prove to them, that there is no furniture whatsoever in that unit.

LONG BEACH – A man who plunged from the penthouse of a downtown high-rise on Saturday was a parolee with multiple stalking convictions, according to state records.

William Blair Lamothe, 49, of Long Beach apparently jumped to his death from the 18th floor of the Aqua Condominiums East Tower, 488 Ocean Blvd., at about 12:45 p.m. Authorities Monday said his death is believed to be a suicide.Records from the California Department of Corrections show that Lamothe was a parolee who had served time in prison for stalking.

Lamothe was convicted of felony stalking and multiple violations of a court order in July 2006, according to Riverside County Superior Court records. In May 2007, less than a year later, he appeared in court again and was convicted on similar charges. He was released on parole most recently in August 2009.

Authorities and residents of the Aqua said Lamothe, who did not live in the building, had asked to tour the penthouse. While on the tour, he acted as if he was measuring the room, then opened the sliding glass door, walked onto the balcony and jumped. He shattered a sixth floor balcony on the way down and landed in a courtyard facing Ocean Boulevard.

source: Press Telegram

Most of us will probably never experience the phantom neighbor phenomena. Just in case, next time you are upset at your neighbor’s too-loud party, remember that at least you can always call the cops on these neighbors.