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“Slept In The Bathtub That Night”: 42 Real And False Alarms People Got Scared Of While Staying Home Alone
The Home Alone movies were comedies, but if you take away the slapstick and imagine yourself in a quiet house at night, even the smallest sound can feel like a scene from a horror story.
There’s a thread on the internet where people have been sharing their worst home-alone experiences, and it’s clear why they’re impossible to forget.
From unexpected guests to paranormal activity, these are the kinds of moments that make you question how alone you actually are.
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#1
A guy popped his head in my bedroom door, looked at me and quickly left when he saw me. It was dark so assumed it was one of my housemates and I was more concerned that they didn't knock before entering until I got up and realized the house was empty and nobody was home.
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#2
Once was watching arachnophobia as a 13 year old on Halloween. Went to go to bed, got a little nervous because of the movie, decided to just shake out my bedspread. Found a solid 3 inch wolf spider sitting like an Andes mint on my pillow. Slept in the bathtub that night. Idk why that felt safe but it did.
Nikki Sevven 8 minutes ago
There's a giant wolf spider living in the awning over my front door...and a rapidly growing pile of carpenter ant corpses on the stoop underneath.
After experiencing something like these people, you might be scared of being alone. But therapist David Richo, Ph.D., author of Triggers: How We Can Stop Reacting and Start Healing, says it can lead us to personal wholeness. The key is to pace yourself.
“To deal with loneliness, it is helpful to stay with yourself, not abandon yourself. Trust yourself. Stay one more minute in the abyss than you can stand, increasing the time each day,” he explained.
“That one more minute will increase your power and inner resources exponentially. Unconditional love of yourself is loving yourself when you feel the worst,” the therapist added. “This creates a sense of completeness. Carl Jung wrote, ‘There is no loneliness, only ever-increasing all-ness.’ You are all yourself when you let yourself feel all your feelings.”
#3
I was awoken in the middle of the night to something pulling on my comforter at the foot of my bed. I look down the foot of my bed and see this three or four foot shadow figure trying to climb on my bed. I panicked thinking I was about to get attacked. I flipped on the light to find my 15lbs dog trying to drag my 4 foot teddy bear onto my bed. It was terrifying in the moment, now I just find it hilarious.
#4
I was about 10 or 11 years old. We had woods behind our house. My parents were out one night, and I heard a shriek from the woods. My blood ran cold and I called my parents immediately. While on the phone, the terrifying scream happened again from the woods, and my mom could actually hear it from the phone.
Later we figured out it was a fox.
What does the fox say? Apparently foxes scream like someone getting cut open.
#5
As I'm laying on the couch watching TV late at night, I hear a tapping on glass. I brush it off, only to have it happen again about a minute or so later. I turn to look out our sliding glass back door, which had always given me the creeps with its no blinds or lighting in the back yard, to see of all things someone standing outside wearing a scream costume. My mind started racing as to who it might be, perhaps one of my sister's friends? I wasn't about to go outside and find out! They slinked away into darkness before I found my nerve. Turns out my 70 yo grandma decided to scare me lol.
Peeka_Mimi 3 minutes ago
I like to hang out with my grandkids and horseplay, I would never intentionally frighten them.
And we as a society need to prepare ourselves for it. In many parts of the world, the number of people living alone is growing.
The United States is no different. This trend is driven by various factors, including an aging population, as well as more people postponing marriage and an increasing number of empty nesters.
The number of people living alone or with non-related roommates has increased at a higher rate than that of traditional family households — a rise of 12% compared to just 7%.
Interestingly, the number of women living in a home without a spouse or partner is significantly higher than that of men, at 35 million compared to 24 million.
#6
One time, a guy stole my boyfriends keys to my house - let himself in while I was asleep - took off his clothes.
I literally woke up to the guy undressed in my bed. Yeah it was terrifying.
#7
A random man knocking on my parent’s front door repeatedly and asking me by name to open it. This was before Ring doorbells were really a thing so I actually had to go to the door to see who it was. I looked through the peephole and saw a man that I didn’t know standing right in front of the door, looking right into the peephole. I remember he had some gray hair but was balding and was wearing a brown flannel. He kept asking for me and banging on the door. Being a scared kid, I ran away from the door and called my mom crying. By the time my parents got home the guy was gone. It’s been more than a few years since it happened and my parents just recently told me that it was probably my great-uncle (that I’ve never met) looking for someone to borrow money from.
#8
A few years ago I went to sleep one Sunday evening and lost 2 full days. I woke up in a cold sweat, screaming for my fiancé, but he wasn’t there. I thought it was still Sunday night. It was actually late Tuesday evening or very early Wednesday morning. I called my fiancé on mobile frantic asking where he was and he said he had left for his work trip to Boston. He left around 5 am Monday morning. I must have gotten up to use the bathroom and take care of the animals because I hadn’t soiled myself and the dogs hadn’t used the bathroom in the house either. But I have zero recollection of those missed days. I was terrified to go back to sleep while I was home alone for that week and it’s never happened again.
#9
When I was about 11 or 12, I was home alone when a really creepy-sounding dude called my house and asked where my dad was. Like an idiot I told him he wasn’t home. The guy’s response was to started laughing and then tell someone else, “He says he’s not home…” the other dude in the background started creepily laughing as well and then the line went silent.
I ended up grabbing two hockey sticks and waiting by the front door until my parents returned a couple hours later. Terrifying and weird.
#10
So I lived in an apartment by myself. And every once in a while I'd be about to fall asleep and I'd feel a weight next to me as if someone else got into the bed (it was a queen size bed). So at the time I was dating a woman who would sleep over from time to time but I never mentioned this to her. So one night while she was over I had to leave due to a family emergency. I told her it's okay if she sleeps at mine alone if she would like and that I would be back the next day. I get home that morning and she tells me "the weirdest thing happened last night, as I was falling asleep I thought you had come home and gotten into bed with me bc I definitely felt someone get into bed on the other side, but when I opened my eyes you weren't here". Freaked me out.
#11
My brother and I were home from school because we were sick. We had a craftroom in the mostly unfinished basement and we were down there playing with miniatures. Around noon we heard, VERY CLEARLY, the front door unlock, open, close, and someone walk in shoes across the foyer tile to the kitchen and turn on the sink. They then turned off the sink and went up the stairs to the second floor. I figured it was my step dad and called my mum to let her know he came home for lunch.
She had just got off the phone with my step dad and he was in his office at work. She called him back and he came ripping home while we hid in the basement. Although we never heard the person come back down the stairs we didn't find anyone in the house.
#12
Someone started trying to force the door of my small garage apartment open, while I was laying in bed inches from the door, at around 2am.
#13
I was in bed when I heard a rustle. Looked around. Saw nothing. Lay back down.
Heard a louder rustle. Looked around. Looked under the bed. Lay back down with my heart in my throat.
Something large landed on my face and chest…it was the stupid poster over my bed.
To this day I’m proud I didn’t soil myself.
#14
I was a 21 year old female and staying alone at my family's mountain cabin. It was in the middle of the week and the other cabins in the area were empty. Around midnight I saw headlights from a car coming up the driveway. I wasn't expecting anyone, so I ran and hid. I went upstairs to look through a window very carefully from a dark room so I would be very difficult to spot. I saw three strange men standing outside. They were banging on the door. I was absolutely terrified! Luckily they didn't try to break in, but I did not feel safe and could not sleep that night.
It later turned out that they were Polish carpenters that were coming to work on the cabin as they had done several times before. My dad forgot to tell me that they would be coming and forgot to tell them that I was there. They had an agreement to stay in the cabin while working on it, but instead they had to spend the first night in their car.
#15
I was home alone and the rest of my family was on a trip somewhere. They were returning after I had to head back to campus, so I stayed back. One afternoon, I was in my room (behind a door I locked obsessively) in the basement when the stereo, also in the basement, came on deafeningly loud. For about an hour, David Bowie played at such a high volume that I couldn't hear anything else. After it stopped, I stayed in my room, petrified, for hours. This was in 2004, so there was no Bluetooth technology and the stereo was from the 80s--no remote. Either someone was in the basement, or it was the weirdest glitch ever. We checked with several family members with keys who might have stopped by, but everyone denied being there and there were no signs of any entry at all.
At least the music was really good?
#16
Middle of the night watching TV. A huge glass-breaking noise coming from the kitchen. As if a dozen of glass cups just fell off the table on the floor. Ran to the kitchen to checkout the noise but there was nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing at all. Everything was in place!
#17
This happened about two years ago.
I came home from work and walked into the kitchen. I noticed black dots in the dining room window and drapes.
I walked over to check it out and saw 30 or so flies on the window and drapes.
They weren't flying around or moving much at all. The window was open about an inch or so, but no tears in the screen or any other gap they could have gotten in through. The windows in the rest of the house were all closed too.
No flies in the other rooms of the house, just on the window. I had taken the trash out that morning, so they didn't come from there.
It reminded me of The Amityville Horror.
I blasted them all with bug spray and that was that. Hasn't happened since.
#18
This new years actually. I live on my own and it's just me and my dog. I was gaming on my pc and I got up to make dinner.
Few minutes in when I was making some brats I heard two quick loud cracks from my gaming room followed by a louder one after a couple more seconds. Thinking my dog got onto my desk I rushed to the room and saw that my window that I sit in front of at my desk now has three bullet holes through it.
My heart sank as I saw two bullets lodged in my wall and one stuck in my desk chair where I was just sitting.
If I didn't have a craving for bratwurst I would have had a stray happy new years party bullet through my heart.
#19
My kids were at school and my husband was at work so it was just the cat and me at home. I was sitting on the couch in the family room with my daughter's cat, Angel, who was sleeping on the cushion to my left while I was working on my laptop. Two story house, with a semi-open floor plan downstairs.
I'm facing the front door, the house is quiet, with no TV or music on. Angel suddenly sits up, looks over towards the door, jumps off the couch, and walks under the archway that separates the foyer, living and dining room area from the family room and kitchen.
She sits down in the middle of the foyer and looks up and over her shoulder to the left towards the top of the stairs. I can't see the stairs because I'm in the family room. Very slowly she starts to move her head like she's tracking someone walking down the stairs. She does this all the way down until she's looking directly at the front door.
I'm sitting on the couch, frozen, afraid to breathe. There is not a sound in the house. About ten seconds later, she starts moving her head again, like she's tracking someone walking back up the stairs. Quiet the whole time, doesn't meow, the only movement is her head following whatever it is that only she is seeing. Follows it all the way up, sits there a few more seconds, and then comes back over, jumps up on the couch next to me, and goes back to sleep.
I didn't move from that couch until it was time for me to leave to pick up my kids from school.
#20
I was in bed, almost asleep, when I heard someone knocking on my bedroom window. At the time my bedroom was on the second floor, and there was an overhang beneath the window.
I was now wide awake and terrified that someone was watching me. So, I did the most logical thing: I looked at the window.
And there was my cat, sitting on the window ledge, scratching herself. Her little paw kept hitting the window and made the knocking sound.
#21
Ghost sighting. Real or not it shook me.
I was maybe ten. Lived close enough to my school to be able to walk home for lunch. Sitting on the couch, deciding whether it was worth going back I look up at a mirror that's hanging on the wall behind the TV and I see standing behind me a woman in a lacy, white dress looking me in the eye. I whip my head around hard enough to hear my neck pop and there's nothing. And that room had nothing white in it. Brown carpet, yellowish walls, brown curtains, a glass table with some fake fruit in it and she was standing right in front of the table.
I stared into that room for the next two hours until my mom got home.
#22
I heard footsteps above me at 11:30 at night, I live on the top floor and it's a steep roof with no access.
#23
I was 14, maybe 110 pounds soaking wet, and home alone.
A car pulled in to my apartment complex at night with a covered licence plate. Some guys got out with a crowbar and started trying to break into one of the buildings. So what do I do? I stand in our open front door holding a massive kitchen knife trying to be all creepy. It actually worked. They saw me, freaked out, and flew out of there.
Stupidest thing I have ever done.
#24
It was like 2am and I had to take my dog out to go to the bathroom. As I’m standing out in the yard, I notice there’s this really big dude walking down the sidewalk towards my house.
The big dude looks over toward me and screams “Hey! Come over here, right now.” He sounded really pissed and I definitely did not go over to him. I locked myself in the house and watched him from inside.
He was pacing back and forth on the sidewalk just staring at my house and looked really mad. As I’m watching him, two cars pull up to the curb and a bunch of people get out and join him to stare angrily at my house.
I’m very confused at this point because I don’t have any enemies and I wasn’t sure what all these people wanted with me.
The guy who originally scream at me starts walking toward my house and screams “I said come over here! Right now!
At that moment, my motion activated light on my porch went on and I could see a giant goofy looking dog sitting on my porch. The dog sprinted away when the light went on and the big dude went chasing him up the street. The people got back in the cars and chased after the dog too.
As it turns out it the big goofy dog was their family pet and it had escaped from their house. It saw me in the yard with my dog and was running towards me to play (I never even saw it until the light came on). The big dude was just yelling at his dog, not me. The people in the cars were his family members trying to help catch the dog.
I actually saw them walking down the street a few days later and introduced myself. Both the dog and man were very friendly. It was a happy ending for an initially creepy situation.
#25
I had a giant Bernese Mountain Dog. Thing never barked his whole life. Was the least aggressive animal I've ever met. Unless he was pawing at you for pets. Point is - calm, quiet and gentle.
One night, I was home alone as a child, 9-10 ish I honestly don't remember exactly. I hear a dog - after all it couldn't be mine - barking up a storm. Didn't think much of it. Until he was at the sliding glass door, all hair on end, barking. I let him in and he physically shoved me back, then stood between me and the door for five of the scariest minutes of my life. He just growled and barked the whole time. Wouldn't let me ***anywhere*** near the door.
Then he just turned around, licked me and laid down. I have no earthly clue what was out there, but it wasn't getting to me.
#26
My parents were out and left us kids at home (13m, 11f, 9m and 6f) and some cabbie pulled into the driveway. We figured he was turning around bc people did it all the time but he got out and started trying all the doors, even went around back and tried the sliding glass door....
we hid in one of the bedrooms and called our parents and they called the cab company and they said no one had been dispatched there (freaky) but if they had it was normal to try and get in the house?????
The cab company ended up shutting down a few years later but that was pretty messed up 🤷🏽😓.
#27
My stereo turned itself on at 4am one morning. It was a talk show. But from my bedroom upstairs, the volume was too low to realize that.
So I thought people were talking in my living room while they were trying to rob me in my sleep, until about 10 minutes later, when a commercial I recognized played.
#29
I was 11 or 12 yrs old. Internet was not a thing on my country yet, but the first PCs with Windows 98 came in and we have one at home. I was playing with wordart (yeah, good times tho) at like 12pm, then suddenly a chair from the kitchen table start to shakking, like with violence. Of course nobody was there. I ran out to the frontyard and wait for my mom to come home, she was there by 1pm.
20 years later I still don't know how the chair was moving like that, because a lot of thing that happens to us when we were kids have a reasonable explanation. This on the other hand could be my mind playing with me but never happen again and i was a normal kid with normal parents and friends, no traumas or psychologic problems.
#31
A toy declared "I SEE YOU!" when I walked past it late at night. You need to press a button on its hand for it to say something.
#32
Woke up in the middle of the night to something patting my legs and like massaging them. Thought it was a cat but then realized we hadn’t had a cat for years. I sat up and looked down at my legs but nothing was there and it was STILL happening lol. I just said out loud “this isn’t happening” turned over in bed and pulled the covers over my head and fell right back to sleep.
#33
Context: I was maybe 12 or 13, my parents were visiting my sister at university and my brother was in town visiting his girlfriend. We lived on a ranch about 25 minutes from town, with my only neighbors being my grandparents, who are very old. Our house is built on a concrete platform, on a hill. So there are some wooden steps to get from the back porch to the ground, which is right outside my window.
I was sitting in my room watching youtube, chillin when I heard a *heavy* creak on one of the steps. I paused my video and stared at my window, closed by blinds, knowing that all I have to do is open them up and see what it is, but I ignore it and keep watching youtube. Maybe a minute passes, and I hear three more. HEAVY steps. Sounds like the bottom of boots on wood. I spring out of bed and into the hallway while calling my mom. I frantically explain the situation, quietly, and she asks me a simple question "Are the dogs even barking?". No. I have three white labs, all in the main room, that have a clear sight of the back porch. I let out a sigh of relief and hang up the phone.
The SECOND I end the call with my mom, my dogs absolutely explode. Barking, baring teeth, hair standing up and all. I want to get a gun, but all of them require me to run across the main room, which is all windows, and I don't want to see what's out there or they see me. I run to my room and grab a pocket knife and call my brother telling him to get home immediately. My dogs bark for maybe another few seconds and they stop. Never found out what was behind the blinds.
P.S. Sorry for the anti-climatic ending, was way too scared to see what or who it was.
#34
Last year. Was sick. Fell asleep on the couch. Woke around midnight. As I was laying there trying to motivate myself to walk the two flights of stairs to bed I heard a slight creak from the front porch. I didn't think much of it. We get opossums and raccoons on the porch from time to time. Just as I was sitting up I heard the doorknob to the front door turn. They turned it slow, probably just to see if it was locked. Since I was sick I questioned if what I heard was real or was I just feverish and hearing things. I checked the curtains to the window looking out on the porch. Blinds down, curtains fully closed. Black out curtains, so it probably appeared dark inside. Then another noise like light footsteps and the knob turned again. I thought about trying to peek through the curtains and blinds but decided I didn't want to tip my visitor off to my presence. Checked to make sure all other first floor windows had the blinds/curtains closed. Waited another ten minutes and went to bed. I figured any attempt at a break inn would be heard and I would deal with it then. Nothing happened again that night .
#35
I was hanging out in the guest bed of my home (facing the wall) and heard the door open, I thought it was my aunt so I asked if she could turn the light off but she didn’t respond. I asked again and still no response so I just brushed it off. Then I felt something lay next to me in bed and thought it was her so I turned around to ask her why she didn’t respond and there was no one laying next to me. I immediately got up and slept in my moms room.
#36
One time there was a guy who looked like Joe Pesci looking through the mailbox slot of my front door.
#37
My ordinarily docile and super friendly lab/golden retriever named Teddy ran down to the basement of a house my wife and I were renting, and he started barking at an empty corner. The walls were cinder block, floor was thick poured concrete, no discernible explanation. Teddy was growling ferociously and his back was hackled… I had to carry him upstairs and shut the door to keep him from running back to that spot. He’d never done anything like that before, or in the years since. Really weird occurrence, and I still wonder about it late at night sometimes.
#38
Woke up to a dude watching me sleep. (I came home tipsy and forgot to lock my front door.).
#39
Years ago I was living alone in an apartment that was one of three in an older house. There was a big front porch, and I had a dog, a Siberian Husky. She preferred to be outdoors and usually slept on the porch. One Saturday morning I opened the front door to check on her. I noticed something strange on the doormat. On closer inspection, it looked like the heart of a small animal. My dog was fine. There was no blood around as if she had caught something. I didn't know what to make of it. That evening, I drove to Philadelphia, about 40 minutes away, to hang out with some friends. I stayed overnight there and went back home the next day. When I got home, I found that I had been robbed. They broke in through the window that was right over my bed.
#40
Standing in the kitchen talking on the phone and there's a thumping on the floor under my feet. There's no way in to the area under my feet, there's a cinderblock wall between the basement and a hollow space beyond..like they meant to make a bigger space but left a dirt pocket. I only know it's there because the hole where the plumbing runs through was overly large and we patched it when we moved in. The thumping happens again. Like someone hitting the ceiling with their fists below me. The lights flicker, the picture on the television jumps up and down. I run to the living room and jump onto the couch, bury my head under the blanket. My parents pull into the driveway and everything stops. It never happened again. That was 33 yrs ago.
#41
Im maybe 9-11 years old and it's the night before easter and I go to bed. During the night I wake up see to a toddler sized silhouette of a bunny rabbit on its hind legs in my doorway. I immediately pull the blankets over my head because I'm freaking out. I peek out again after a while of convincing myself that I'm safe, to find that the silhouette has disappeared, and is now at the edge of my bed near my feet with a faint reflective light shining upon it from the nightlight outside the doorway. It's safe to say that I was convinced it was my last night that night. I immediately retreated back to my safe haven under the protective force field of my blankets.
I must've been under there for at least 30 minutes until I peeked out again, fearful that it would be next to my face this time staring at me eye to eye. But, to my surprise, it found itself in the doorway again, just standing there. I must've watched it all night, and refused to look away until I passed out because I only remember waking up the next morning, still fearful of opening my eyes and seeing what was standing there, or if I had been dreaming the whole time.
Turns out, my mom set up overnight while we slept, this gigantic inflatable bunny that can stay up on its feet, hopeful that it would surprise us in the morning so we'd be excited for easter and the following egg hunt. It had the exact opposite effect, and I had nightmares for months and years. To this day, she still has no explanation how it got to my bed, because she had only put it in the doorway and left it there. It still boggles my mind how that stupid inflatable bunny managed to move from the doorway, 3-4 meters to the edge of my bed, then back again without being caught.
Maybe the Easter bunny is real after all.
#42
For me, I was a younger (about 8) and I walked into the the dining room and saw what looked like a teenage boy sitting at the table with their head looking down. I freaked out and screamed and went to run outside to find my older sister and when I turned back to look again before running out of the door, the boy was gone. I was only a couple of steps away from the door. A lot of strange things happened in my childhood home.
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