I've always done my own laundry, and our washer and dryers are in the basement. One night, when I was 12, I went down to move the laundry over, and I turned on the light and suddenly a bat flew right by my face. I shrieked and charged back up the stairs, terrified that it was flying after me. Mom kept asking me if it wasn't really just a black bird, but I promise you, I'm positive it was a bat. I was so scared that I was laughing and crying at the same time! To this day, I'm tense while going into the basement, and I always leave myself in a position where I can run if I have to!

Scared batty

When I was about 7ish I believed that there were zombies in my basement

Thom

just a couple of years ago i thought that robbers with guns were in my basement and might shoot me if they see me coming down there, but if i turned all the lights on in my basement (7 lights) really quickly they would get scared and run away. So every single time i went downstairs i would turn on every single light even if i was just down their to get a juice box. this went on for about 2 or 3 months... i was a confused child...

dazed and confused

When I still had to go to bed in the early evening, my parents would occasionally do the household chores after they were free of me and my brother for the night. The washing machine was in the basement, directly under my room, so that I could hear it, especially when it was overloaded with towels and started clanking during the spin cycle. Whenever I would hear this rhythmic metallic sound in the basement, I would huddle under my covers, envisioning a parade of skeletons marching around the basement.

Ginevra

When I was young, there was a stairwell outside my grandparent's house that led to the basement. Since the door in the basement was behind a refridgerator, we never knew where it went. My cousin told me that it actually led to the kingdom of the rats, and if I went down too many steps, the rat people would kidnap me and take me to the rat king. To this day I will not go down that stairwell.

Anon

When I was 4 or 5, I didn't know what the little door in the wall of the basement was for (plumbing access for a wet bar). My older brothers told me there were scary rabid monkeys living in there. It kept me out of their room when they weren't there

Susie

When I was younger I thought that there was a huge civilization of spiders living in my basement. I thought that when you went down the stairs that they would run to their hiding spots. I Used to go down the stairs very slowly, making sure i didn't hit any creaks, so I could sneak up on them.

Izy

I remember when i was about 3 or 4, i used to lay my ear on my grandmother's kitchen floor to hear wht is going on in the basement. I used to imagine that there are tables where witches, ghosts and goblins sold all thier handcrafted items. Until about a year ago (when i was 12) i went down there and there was just boring old basement stuff; my grandpa's tools, washing machine, and my gradma's gardening tools.

Molly

There was a part of the furnace you could look into and see bluish flames. I think it might have been gas flames. Anyway, I thought that was hell.

Giselle

I'm not sure this should go here, but when I was little I didn't really have imaginary friends, (Mom insists I had one named "Dolphin Girl," but I don't remember that,) instead I had imaginary enemies...
They were some sort of purple gloop monsters, I think I saw one on T.V. once while I was at my aunt's house one night and it stuck. They lived in my basement and if I happened to be jumpy or nervous that day, they would be down there plotting to kill me or something. I would always be scared to go down there because I was sure that if I just turned around quick enough I'd spot one trying to get me!
There was one who came in later on, though, who wasn't exactly a goop monster. I don't really know what he was, but I'd imagine that he had a crush on me and would convince the others not to kill me. It was kind of fun, actually... Once I pretended that the Pokemon in my cousin's Pokemon Blue game would pop out and defend me, too! It didn't last very long though, because I had to give the game back to her...

I've long since learned that they don't exist, of course, but to this day I'm still a little scared of our cold, dark, HUGE basement with the light switches all over the place...

Basement-Fearer

I used to believe I could hide in the walls as there was this secretive passage coming from the basement and that would be a great hiding o seek place to hide but I would end up underneath the stairs, there used to be a storage room there as I couldn't find where that secretive path was, lol But then the next time we'd play, I'd still try to find it.

Nadine

I used to believe the furnace in our basement was really a (scary) robot that came to life at night.
Sometimes I would stand on the stairs and look at it trying to catch it moving.

Shannon

When my parents added a crawl space in our basement i had the idea that there was an old guy named Bob living in it

Anon

I had the unshakeable belief that at night there was a faceless monster who lived in the utility room in the basement. He waited for me to go bed in the evening and if I did not run fast enough up the stairs he would grab my ankles and drag me down into some dark abyss. To this day I have a small fear of walking up stairs in dim lighting.

Jackie Rae

When I was Younger im 24 now, My mom told me there was an old woman who was locked in the basement of our house by her son. One night she escaped and her son found her brought her back to the house and killed her

Anon

Once i believed in the boiler room of my basement were ghouls and goblins and witches with cauldrens cackling their horrid laugh. What made it worse was my aunt wanted me to take her clothes and put it in the washing machine. I was so scared, I would throw the clothes on the ground and run back up the stairs. I got over it at the age of 8 years old

Takeya

when I was little I was terrified of the dark, and our basement was the epitomy of dark.whenever I would have to go down there I would run as fast as could, grab whatever I needed and run back up the stairs three at a time because I thought there was a swarm of giant bees down there that after a certain amount of time would come and eat me.

Anonymous

My 7 year old sister has Danny Phantom living in our basement. I believe he's also her boyfriend.

Anon

When my sister and I were very young, our parents didn't want us to go into the fruit cellar in the basement so they told us that we had an older brother named Igor who was born deformed and ugly and that's where they kept him. I totally believed them until i snuck down there anyway and found only dirty old canning jars and wooden baskets.

beth