Please welcome author... Roberta Beach Jacobson!

Living with Ghosts
by Roberta Beach Jacobson


The Deadly Vixens have been kind enough to let me share my words in this blog, so here goes ...

Back in the 1980s, I was a happy renter in my fifth-floor apartment located about an hour away from Frankfurt, Germany. I felt lucky to have a balcony view of a wooded area and couldn't have created cheerier bird songs if I'd used a cassette. One day I noticed my couch had been scooted over a bit. It was nearer the wall. How could that be? I hadn't moved it and was pretty sure my cat Troy hadn't either.

Another afternoon, I came home after a long day at work and saw my houseplants on the windowsill had been watered. Not by me. Troy greeted me as if nothing unusual had happened during my absence. Did my little place have ghosts?

My landlord lived some 300 miles away and his new wife had forbidden him to go anywhere near my building, the place he'd lived with his ex-wife. So I was certain he hadn't stopped by my apartment.

The mysteries continued. Another day I found a dirty coffee mug in my kitchen sink, a cup I hated and never used. Once again, Troy appeared to be nothing but an innocent feline bystander.

Throughout the years I lived in that apartment, the haunting never let up. It became part of my routine, although I hadn't a clue as to what was going on.

I happened to locate a cheaper apartment right around the corner from my day job. I grabbed it, eager to do away with the long commute.

My landlord, whom I hadn't seen for years, stopped by to give me my security deposit back. He sheepishly admitted when he'd divided his former condo into one large and one small apartment, he'd never bothered to change the original locks. This meant my next-door neighbors had the identical front door lock as I had and could use their key to enter my place whenever the mood struck.

Mystery solved. The cat didn't do it.


Roberta Beach Jacobson is an American author and humorist who makes her home on a remote Greek island. She writes about the human-animal bond and is co-author of Almost Perfect: Disabled Pets and the People Who Love Them (Enspirio House, Word Forge Books, 2008). Her Website: http://www.RobertaBeachJacobson.com.