Tanta

By Sean Terhune

In April 1998, I moved into an apartment in the Playhouse District of Pasadena, California. The apartment was perfect for a single person and I really liked the 1960's flair that the apartment was remodeled in. Great neighborhood, great apartment, great neighbors... everything perfect? Just one little thing was wrong with the apartment. It came with its own resident ghost. The interesting things that Property Managers forget to tell you... maybe they didn't know, but when I finally moved eight years later, I did let them know.

My first few encounters with "Tanta" started about six to seven months after I first moved in and were relatively minor. Seeing movement out of the corner of my eye, shadows appearing where they shouldn't be appearing, and hearing movement around my apartment. I had lived in two other haunted places prior in my life, so I knew exactly what was going on right away when the happenings started.

Due to previously living in haunted places, I was never scared. Startled at times, but never scared. I was so accustomed to unusual sounds, movement, and the infamous footsteps by this time in my life, I scarcely paid any attention to it until Tanta decided to make her first appearance to me.

My first visual encounter with Tanta happened one night in late 1998 or early 1999. I was standing in the kitchen with my back to the sink, talking on the cordless phone to a friend of mine. That's the moment I first saw her. I glanced over to the dining room area and saw a silhouette of a person standing next to the dining table. There were no distinguishing features, but for some reason, I knew it was a woman. I watched her, or vice versa, for about five seconds. I watched her glide into the living room, then suddenly it registered what I was seeing. My friend, on the phone, thought someone had broken in. Knowing there was only one door into the apartment and I was no more than ten feet from it, I knew I would have heard and seen it open. But, I knew what I'd seen. So, I followed her into the living room and she was gone, however, the room was really cold... colder than it had been only minutes earlier. I knew she was still around.

Over the next seven years, I saw Tanta so many times that I can't recall all of them. However, I did see her as a blue orb (about the size of a beach ball), a silhouette of a woman and a silvery figure of a woman. In this last form, she always appeared to be made from waves of heat. Even though I was used to seeing her, she would still give me a start when I would wake up in the middle of the night and see her standing in my bedroom.

There was only one time I actually heard her speak. I was sound asleep and was awakened by a woman calling my name. Upon awakening, I smelled gas. The pilot light on my wall furnace had somehow gone out and the gas was slowly filling the apartment. Right then, I knew I had a ghost who was my "guardian angel".

For the first couple of years, Tanta would just make appearances around holidays and a few periodic cameo appearances, but over time, she was appearing daily, sometimes multiple times a day.

When she started becoming... for lack of better words... more a part of my home life, I decided to drag out my Ouija board and fine out who she was, if she knew she was deceased, etc. During the numerous séances I had, I discovered her name was Tanta. She had lived on the property sometime in the early 1900's and died on the property sometime in the 1920's. She knew she was dead, but for some reason, she was tied to the property and wasn't able to cross over. I was never sure why she was tied to the property as each time I would probe, the planchette would literally fly off the board. Needless to say, I didn't probe any further into her life.

During the time I was in that apartment, quite a few of my friends got to have their own experiences with Tanta. Once again, there are too many to mention all of them, but here are just a few...

One day, my neighbor, Michelle, was over. She and I were talking about Tanta and the experiences I'd had with her and she was telling me about some of the ones in her past. Apparently, at the time, Tanta didn't like being talked about and decided to get us to change the topic.

Michelle and I were deep into our conversation when suddenly a strong gust of cold wind shot through the living room. We both felt Tanta standing right in front of us. Granted, we never saw her, but we both received the vibe that she didn't want to be the topic of the day.

A friend of mine, Jeffrey, was out from New York to visit me and some of his West Coast family for a week. To save on travel costs, Jeffrey stayed with me in lieu of getting a hotel. I'd previously told Jeffrey that my apartment was haunted and he'd somewhat believed me, but his first night in my apartment, he became a definite believer.

I woke up at 3:00 a.m. to Jeffrey's screaming and hollering. Stumbling out of bed and going into the living room, I wanted to see if Jeffrey was alright even though I knew he'd just gotten a visit from Tanta. He told me that he'd seen a glowing blue orb come out of my bedroom,  float around the room while making a weird popping sound. Once I finally got him calmed down, I congratulated him on seeing his first ghost. I, then, told him that if he saw Tanta again, all he had to do was say hello to her, roll over, and go back to sleep. That little trick worked for me.

Ironically, the next night, Tanta made another appearance to Jeffrey. This time, Jeffrey followed my advice. He told me in the morning that he saw Tanta in the dining room, and had said "Hello, Tanta". The orb bounced a couple of times and flew back into the wall. Jeffrey and I decided that Tanta adored attention.

Finally, there was my housekeeper, Gregory, who had his fair share of run ins with Tanta too. The best one was one night that Gregory spent the night at my place due to his needing to do some personal business in Pasadena very early in the morning. I had already gone to bed and Gregory was surfing the net. Suddenly, I heard Gregory scream out, "That's enough, already!" I went out to see what Gregory was screaming about (can anybody guess who he saw?). Gregory said that he felt someone put their hands on his shoulders and, right at that moment, the monitor on my PC went dark. He then saw a face beginning to form on the screen. The next day, Gregory said that Tanta kept appearing all night long as a silvery woman, walking between the dining room and the living room where Gregory was sleeping.

Then came the day that I decided to relocate to another city for job related issues that really set Tanta into motion. I began seeing and hearing her numerous times and at all hours of the day and night. Gregory was seeing her too and, by this time, he was used to seeing her. Tanta was obviously not happy that I was leaving; there was a change in the air of the apartment. Gregory and I would hear drawers and cabinets open and slam shut, never in a violent way, but more of frustration than anything else. A couple of times, the cereal boxes that I kept on top of the refrigerator would literally fly across the kitchen as if someone swept their arm across the top.

Gregory said that it appeared that Tanta was really attached to me and didn't want me to leave. He also pointed out, and I hadn't realized until he did, that Tanta made larger than usual appearances anytime I was sick, depressed, or just having a rough time with something. He felt that not only was Tanta the resident ghost, but also my unofficial guardian angel. Gregory just might have had a point.

On my last day at the apartment, I said "goodbye" to Tanta. I did feel weird walking through an empty apartment talking to a ghost, but after all, she was my "roommate" for eight years.

Before I left Pasadena, I turned in my keys to my Property Manager and told her about Tanta, the séances, and the experiences that I'd had. I also told her about the experiences others had while being in my apartment. She believed everything I said for, she too, had felt that something was there when she would do property inspections.

Is Tanta still there? I don't know if she is making herself known to the new resident or not. All I know is she didn't follow me to my new residence even though there are times I wished she had. It's not everyday you have a ghost that watches over you.