My downstairs neighbor has a newborn infant that I can hear faintly crying, and I congratulated them on the new arrival...but they don’t have a baby. So each of us talked to our next door neighbors and they don’t have babies either and now the entire building is TERRIFIED.

This isn’t a joke or a bit or creepypasta. There is a baby crying somewhere far off and everyone in my building can hear it but none of know where it’s coming from.

I CAN HEAR IT RIGHT NOW. Just got this text from my neighbor:

UUUGH we all just discovered the crying is coming from all of our shower drains and I think I’m gonna have to go sleep at the office.

So last night my neighbor and I walked around the building listening for a baby crying. Even though we’ve been hearing it for days now, we just wanted to rest assured there wasn’t an abandoned infant crying in a box.

There wasn’t, of course

Then this morning we went over to the HOA office to ask about it. The receptionist’s response: “Oh, you too?”

If you’ve ever wanted to see two professional adults in their 40s experience pants-wetting terror at 9:30 AM, you missed your chance.

Apparently another building in our neighborhood is also hearing a phantom baby but it’s two over from ours.

However, all three units are connected on the same plumbing drain line. The current theory is that the baby is in the middle building, and the sound is carrying both ways.

Now residents of both buildings are on the lookout to to see if we can spot someone coming in with a baby or at least any baby-adjacent accessories.

I know that everyone on Twitter loves to act like misanthropic shut-ins, but stuff like this just highlights how isolated people can be. I live 25 feet away from folks I wouldn’t even recognize by sight, much less know if they had a newborn. That’s messed up.

So I think the mystery is mostly solved, though I still want to confirm. Not because I actually think it’s a ghost baby, but I just want to meet the infant that’s so loud that it sounds like it’s next door when next door.

Ugh, obviously I meant “sounds like it’s next door when it’s in another building.”

Sorry, please chalk up all typos to ghost baby-related insomnia.

IMPORTANT UPDATE

There isn’t one baby in the middle building.

There are two babies in the middle building! One in the downstairs left unit, one in the downstairs right.

They were born within 3 days of each other. One is named Dakota and one is named Tyrique and I them both.

(I have held both the babies.)

Apparently one will start crying and the sound will travel to the other’s nursery and they’ll start crying too. Then the sound travels via plumbing throughout to our showers.

I am 100% sure that they will grow up and fall in love and I already ship them.

Since this 2019 thread is getting attention again, here’s a 2021 update:

I see Dakota or Tyrique, now toddlers, every couple weeks. My home office faces the parking lot and when it's sunny I leave my blinds open so I can wave to them when they go on walks with their parents.

Every now and then, on really quiet nights, I think I can hear two little voices giggling with each other through the drain pipes. But I’m probably just imagining it.