Chillystories

Let me start off by telling you what a great place Boston University was for school. Since BU is in the middle of the city, much of its campus is indistinguishable from the rest of the city. Located in the Back Bay section of Boston, BU has bought numerous older buildings and converted them into student dormitories. These include Myles Standish Hall, Shelton Hall, Danielson Hall, etc. For those of you familiar with Boston, you'll know that its a very old city steeped in history.

Shelton Hall is a converted hotel. During the 1800's and early 1900's, this nine story building was the original Sheraton Hotel. After the Sheraton company sold the building, it became an apartment until it was bought by Boston University in the 1970's. The architecture remains the same and anyone who walks into the building can recognize it as an older luxurious hotel.

There are many ghost stories associated with Shelton Hall. I had the opportunity to live in the building for two years while I attended college (I thought the food was especially good there).

Everyone at Boston University has heard one or two ghost stories about Shelton Hall but I'm sure many of many of them are made-up just because the dorm "looks" as though it might be haunted. However, I'm sure the facts, at least, happened here. One of my favorite stories actually happened to two good friends of mine who also lived in the building.

The laundry room is located on the basement floor of Shelton Hall. Like all old hotels, the service areas of the building are in stark contrast to the luxurious decorated interior of the main floors. With drooping whitewashed brick walls and a low ceiling, the basement looks like an old wine cellar converted into a regular basement and laundry room.

A long corridor runs the length of the basement, with two smaller corridors running off the main one. These two shorter corridors are very dark. All along each corridor, there are small coves with doors which look like tiny horse stables but were probably used for coal storage.

The laundry room can be a creepy place when you're alone there. Even during the day, its very quiet because there are no windows down there. If you take the elevators, you have to walk down the long dark hall past all those creepy side-hallways. If you visit Shelton Hall, don't be surprised to see students from upstairs get off on the first floor and walk to the other stairway to avoid walking down the hallway!

I was playing pool one afternoon on the main floor one afternoon, when two of my friends ran out of the basement looking excited. They said that they heard something come from one of the small dark corridors downstairs. Both of these guys usually acted pretty cool, so I was surprised to see them looking scared.

"We were walking down that long hallway to get back to the elevator when we heard it. Down the second hallway, there was no lights, but we heard this really low growling coming from the end of the hall where it ends. I started running, but he stayed to see what it was!"

My other friend said. "Yeah, at first I thought it sounded human, but then I thought it sounded more like a dog!"

Soon my other friend ran back to where the other was standing, still staring down the dark hallway to try and figure out what that low growl was. But it didn't take too much persuading before both of them ran back up, scared like to kids.

As I recall, there is a room downstairs for the custodians and cleaning people, but we went back right afterwards but saw that no one was there. I also checked back in the hallway and there was no dog or anything back there at all. The hallways are dusty, dark, and covered in cobwebs. The side corridors, where they heard the growl ended in a low dark wall. I didn't like going back there, but then again didn't find anything to explain the sounds.

Both of my friends are very skeptical about ghosts and I was really surprised to see them say that it was something strange. Ever since then, both of them avoided the hallways and took the long way around to the laundry room. Usually, they'd do their laundry with a group of people. I'm still a little skeptical because I never experienced anything down there. Then again, both my friends' skepticism about ghosts really made me think that something may be lurking down there. Go check it out yourself...