when I was little, I used to believe... if you had to go to a dark and spooky place, like the basement at night, you should sing really loud, THAT would scare the ghosts away.

Joan

When I was around 13 or so my parents build a new (our first own) house. Before we lived in a kind of appartment. The house has a basement and there's an empty space under the stairs. Whenever I had to go down there at night to get something I would (after getting the item) run back up the stairs as fast as i could. I thought there would be monsters following me... Now I'm 17 and still a bit afraid of that basement...

suspicouskid

I used to believe that monsters lived in our basement (didn't everyone?); When my mom would send me downstairs to get something from the freezer or the pantry, I was convinced I could be protected from the creatures by singing church songs.

Weird Little Kid

When my sister was young she was afraid to go to the basement and get anything from there by herself. She was afraid of the ice lady Thing is the ice lady lived in the furnace.

francine

When I was younger my dad told me that there was a alligator in the basement and that if I didn't go to sleep he would come out and eat me. That really scared me since I slept in the basement. Now he says that to my children to keep them out of his basement.

Anon

When I was small we used to have a huge, damp basement beneath the house.
Our central heating system was in the basement and it used to snort and grumble.
Unfortunately our spare freezer was also downstairs. To reach the basement we had
to climb down 19 steps. There was a light switch at the top and bottom of the stairs.
Climbing down the stairs posed no problem as I could turn on the lights as I went.
The trip to the freezer to bring out bread or ice-cream was a nightmare. The freezer was
big enough for a child to fall into. I had to stand on a stool to reach the food inside.
Then I had to turn off the downstairs light ,leaving the dark empty basement at my back,
and the cetnral heating system glowing like a devil's eye in the corner. I had to sprint as fast
as I could up the stairs to the top to turn off the upstairs light. I was always convinced that if I looked back over my
shoulder while climbing the stairs I would see the devil in the boiler reaching out to catch my ankle as I ran.

Hilary

When I was a little kid, my Grandmother had this huge old furnace in the basement. It was probably 70 years old, having been used to burn wood, then coal and then converted to gas. Well, this furnace was very big and had several big and rusted pipes coming out of it. It had a grill on the front (for loading the wood and coal) and when it got hot, the grill would glow red. My brothers and I were sure that the furnace was a monster and the grill was it's mouth.
To this day, I am nervous about going in to the furnace room, even though the furnace was replaced in the '70's.

Diane

In my grandma's basement laundry room, there was a pipe that came out of the bottom of the wall at an angle, and went straight into the floor. It was white and looked exactly like a hoof. All my cousins and I would dare each other to go look at it, and get freaked out imagining it was a goat or monster in the wall!!

Missy Rae

my grandparents had a dark, unfinished part of their basement. their washer/dryer was there and a cupboard where they kept cleaning products. my brother thought mr. clean was a real man and that he lived in my grandparents' basement. it terrified him. he was three.

Anon

My older sister was convinced that a hairy old man lived in the basement where the freezer was, so when she was asked to go down to get something, she would make me walk down ahead of her so that the hairy old man would get me first and she would have a chance to get away!

Christina

When I was little my grandparents had this old, creepy unfinished basement where they had just wall to wall toys. Well, I've never liked creepy basements and my grandpa used to wait until I was down there by myself and make scary noises over this old intercom system they had from the kitchen. I truely believed there were monsters down there, and to this day I still have a hard time with basements.

kaytee

I used to believe the Devil himself lived in the heater in our basement. We had this huge Victorian rowhouse with a strange heater that was much, much larger than modern ones, and it had a little metal door on the side. When on, the door was occasionally shudder open and closed, and my mother reassured me it was only Satan trying to get out. Parents! I lived in fear until I realized the heater was completely empty of demons, but until the day we moved, that damn thing always kind of freaked me out.

Nisa

That there were ghosts in our basement, but that they could only come out if the lights were off.

I'd typically be the last one out of the basement, and one of my older siblings or parents would tell me to turn the lights off. I'd check around just to be sure I didn't see any lying in wait, then I'd turn off the lights and run as fast as I could through the room and up the stairs, thinking they were right on my heels. (I was way too scared to even think about turning around to check)

John E

My older brother's room was the basement.
He had me convinced that there were
monsters in it and that I should stay out!

I can't wait till he has kids.

Sebastien