Story time. I’m having such a weird week staying at my mom’s house to avoid the Covid situation at home and commuting to work every day. My Mom’s neighborhood is haunted, I think.

The house is located deep on the outskirts of Portland, between Division to the North and Powell to the South. There’s also a high school to the East. Usually when I visit my mom’s house I come by car, either with my brother or sister or in a Lyft. There’s several ways to get into the neighborhood, but for some reason all drivers always end up approaching the house the same way. They turn onto the East end of the street and drive 3 blocks West until they reach the house. I never thought that was weird before, but…

This week I’ve traveled from work to the house 4 times, each time after dark. Twice I’ve taken the same route, getting off a bus on Powell and walking about a dozen blocks North. Once I got off a bus on division and walked 7 blocks South, and once I had to stop at the market nearby for groceries, and after walked about 15 blocks East. Each time I walked directly in a straight line toward the house and I SHOULD have approached the house from a different direction. However, no matter which direction I approached from, I always end up in the exact same spot, at the East end of my mom’s street, approaching the house from the East side.

This is very, very strange. People who live in the neighborhood describe it as a maze, and that’s kind of true. But its not so complicated that you’d get lost. Yet each time I end up in the same place, several blocks past where I’m trying to go. So far no matter what I do I haven’t been able to approach the house form the West, even though I leave from that direction every day.
The whole thing is very creepy. The official city map shows the neighborhood to be a rough grid with some curved interlocking roads, but that doesn’t match my experience at all. A few blocks in to the neighborhood and the map become useless. My mom hand drew me a map after the second trip, and it works just fine going from the house but doesn’t work returning to it.

Looking at the neighborhood from Google Street vView reveals that most of the roads aren’t straight but curved, and many loop back into each other. There’s also several dead ends, and many of the street names change in the neighborhood. Several streets that are shown in Street View just aren’t there in real life, and at least one street that is doesn’t appear in Street View.

The neighborhood has no street lights (or telephone poles). Some houses are lit and some aren’t. House lighting tends to vary between inviting and creepy. At night one house in the neighborhood emits a very loud sound of running water, with no visible source. The sound isn’t audible during the day.

Last night on the way home I saw a coyote.

I’ll be there at least two more nights.

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