The previous tenant of my new flat left a survival guide. It’s not funny anymore.

Last year I moved into a new flat. Me and my partner did a contract to contract thing. When that ended I moved into his house and stayed as his partner. It was a good time but it was only temporary. He had a house so he was always the one with the keys and I was just staying with him. He was planning to dump me eventually but I didn’t want to wait to get my own place. I wanted to be ready and not be reliant on him. It was a great experience, I got my own place, I got promoted, and I’m a lot happier. My partner, of course, dumped me because he is a narcissist. Anyway, I moved into this new building. I was the only tenant. There was a lift but it broke one day and the repairman said it was because of the water damage in the basement, so I was stuck carrying the stairs daily. I’ve never had my own place before, and I’ve never lived alone. It’s a really nice place, so I can afford to decorate it. It was time for my home to reflect my style, and not my ex-boyfriend’s. But the more I decorated, the more I started to feel uncomfortable. I noticed I was spending more and more time in the kitchen. It was the best part of the apartment, and I loved cooking there. But the more I cooked there the more I felt like I was being watched. I checked the mirrors but there were no people behind them. The other day I found a note. It was in my mailbox. Dear new tenant, I’m sorry to hear you’re moving into my flat. Don’t eat the apples from the fridge. Don’t eat the food in the cupboards. Don’t eat the fridge or the cupboards. If you see the door to the basement open, close it. If you see the door to the basement shut, open it. Don’t drink the tap water. Don’t drink the water from the filter. Don’t go up the stairs. If you have to go down, go down slowly. If the lift breaks don’t bother the repairman. He won’t fix it. Don’t bring any food up the stairs with you. Don’t bring any people up the stairs with you. If you lose a thing, you never find it. If you find a thing, it isn’t yours. If you think you’re alone, you’re not. If you think you’re safe, you’re not. If you have any questions, you’ll get your answer. Just ask. Sincerely, The Previous Tenant I read it over and over. It was a joke. It had to be. But if it wasn’t, it was a scary joke. I couldn’t concentrate on work. I kept thinking about it. I had to know who the previous tenant was, so I checked the agreement. It was anonymised, as was common practice. It was common practice for the company to keep all records for 6 years after a contract had ended. So it was probably still in their records somewhere. I called them up, and they said that the records would be in the corporate office in London. I was told I couldn’t access the records, and that I had no way to contact the tenant directly. They also said that the company had moved their headquarters to London 2 years ago, which meant that everyone had moved to London too. So if the tenant was still a employee, I could get in contact with them through HR. But I’d have to go to London to do it. I don’t like London, I’m not great with the train, and I hate being in a busy city. I was thinking about going to London when my boyfriend called me. I told him about the note. He didn’t think it was a joke either. He told me that the company was called “Skywards”. We did some research together and after some time, we found the page for the building. It said that it was called “Skywards North”. There was a map to find us, and some other information. We lived in a area that was zoned as residential a decade ago but was zoned as commercial 5 years ago. And 2 years after that, the old houses were demolished and replaced with high rise buildings like ours. The page said that it was a test building, and it said that the Skywards company had been in trouble financially. So I thought that was probably why the tenant wrote the note. They wanted to sell the place and they didn’t want me to know. But why would they leave me a note with all that information in it? Skywards North wasn’t even in business anymore. So I called the company up. The lady on the phone said that they weren’t in any trouble financially, but that they were doing some major changes. She told me that HR was in the basement of the building, and that if I wanted to contact the previous tenant through email, I could. She also told me that the Skywards North building was actually just a branch of the main company, and that all the tenants lived in the main building. I found the email address of the previous tenant in her records. I sent him a message. The next day I got a response. It was short. He said that he’d meet me in the lobby if I wanted. We set a time and place. I didn’t think he was actually going to show up, but he did. He was a man in his thirties. He was tall, skinny, with a messy beard. He had a hoodie on. When we were alone in the lobby, he spoke. I asked him why he wrote me the note, and about all the rules. He said that he was sorry. He hoped I would take heed of the note. He said that the basement was the worst part. Don’t eat the food in the fridge or the cupboards. Don’t drink the water. He said that the stairs were fine, and he recommended walking them daily. The lift was ok too, just don’t bother the repairman if it breaks. He said the thing about bringing things up the stairs because he saw me bringing bottles of wine up the stairs the other night. I asked him kindly to be more specific about the basement and the water. He said he couldn’t. He just couldn’t tell me. I asked him what the stairs meant. What should I be looking out for? I said the thing about not being alone never feeling true. I asked if I’d be seeing him again, and he said no. I asked him ever so politely what he thought I should do to stay safe. He said to ask the right person the right questions. Then he left. I thought the whole thing was weird. But he seemed genuine. I decided to test the lift, so I pressed all the buttons. Nothing happened. I went to the basement. There was nothing but boxes. I checked the cupboards and fridge, there was nothing there either. The rules seemed fake, but maybe if I did nothing, something would happen. I didn’t drink the tap water anymore. I didn’t bring anything with me up the stairs. But it all seemed fake. The rules didn’t make any sense. Why would the previous tenant care if I brought something up the stairs? And what did he mean when he said he saw me bringing wine up the stairs the other night? The next day I decided to go up the stairs. I took two steps, then I was hit with a feeling of extreme danger. My heart racing, my palms sweating. I ran back down the stairs and I didn’t move from the spot until I stopped sweating. The next day I did the same thing. The previous tenant must have been kidding me. I wasn’t going to take another risk. I thought about all the rules again, and the previous tenant. I thought the whole thing was a joke until the stairs thing happened. Maybe I wasn’t alone. Maybe I never was. But what did he mean by asking me questions? Who was I supposed to ask? And what did he mean by the thing about thinking I was safe? What was I supposed to be looking out for? I felt like the previous tenant knew more than he was letting on. A few days passed and I started to feel comfortable again. The previous tenant hadn’t ruined my life. Things were good. I was happy. But there was one thing that bothered me. The previous tenant had moved out a few months before me, so he knew all the other tenants had moved out too. But he said that all the other Skywards North tenants lived in the main building. What did that mean? I had never heard of the Skywards company having a building in our area. I thought it was a branch, but was it something more? I had so many questions. But the only person who could answer me was gone. I decided to go to London and find the answers. I took 2 trains. I got to Skytower’s address without problems. The building was huge, with 100 floors or more. I went in and asked the receptionist where HR was. She told me that they didn’t have an HR department, and that she didn’t know where Skywards North was in the building. I told her I lived in Skywards North. She told me to go up to the 23rd floor. I did, and I asked a coworker if they knew where HR was. They didn’t, but they told me that Skytower was going bankrupt. They said it was weird that they didn’t tell anyone and just continued working like normal. I checked all the rooms on the floor, but I couldn’t find anything. The people I asked all gave me the same answer as the receptionist and the coworker. I

The previous tenant of my new flat left a survival guide. It’s not funny anymore.

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