A childhood belief about basements

My neighbor has flurescent (excuse my bad spelling) lighting in her basement, so there was a space between the lights and the actual wood ceiling. I guess one of the light covers fell down at a point in time, and people stepped on it, becuase one day when I was little I came over and there were foot prints all over this cover (the cover was back on the ceiling, so imagine how weird that was). My neighbor claimed these albino midgets lived in that ceiling space. I believed her because there were footprints. She also claimed they'd kill you if you turned off the lights, because you're leaving them in the dark and that angered them. Luckily, she told me the truth a month later.