Looking for reddits advice on dealing with an issue thats come up with a couple friends of mine. Anonymizing the names for obvious reasons :p

Basically my college friend C (34m) and his wife B (32f) are putting their house on the market for extremely cheap. Like, hella cheap. Asking price is $150k in an area where the homes usually go for mid six figures (!), even in the current market.

Being a close friend, and having some experience buying homes (yeah I know, my parents are rich, pls don’t hate me), I decided to talk some sense into C about how he and B should raise the price to something sane, if for no other reason than for their kid E’s college fund (he’s 8 and brainy as hell).

When C refused to discuss it, I asked about buying the property myself. I flipped a house last year for some decent money and this one seemed like a steal. At first C told me flat out “no,” which I thought was strange since we’ve been like brothers since college, but I guess “never do business with family” is a decent rule to live by so no harm no foul.

After that, the house just kind of stayed on the market. So like a moron I kept bringing it up when we’d see each other. And one day I guess I struck a nerve. That’s when he sent me this.

Apologies for the wall of text but I think it’s all relevant.

–

Ryan,

This is going to be a long letter because I could not write a short one. Please destroy it once you read it. Don’t share it with anyone. And don’t tell my wife I sent it to you.

We won’t be selling our house to you and I thought you deserved to know why.

Two years ago when we bought the house, do you remember when I gave you the tour? You mentioned how there weren’t any mirrors in the bathrooms, no mirrors in the hallways, not even glossy countertops or anything like that.

We noticed that too during the open house but figured mirrors were cheap to replace.

Well it was two days after closing when we get a call from the previous owner at 4 in the morning.

Not a text. A call.

I pick up the phone and the previous owner starts talking. I don’t know what she’s been drinking but she’s been drinking something. She isn’t making any sense. The call wakes up B too, so she puts on her glasses and I put the call on speakerphone.

The two of us listen to the last owner rambling, sobbing, carrying on and on about how sorry she is, and about reflections. She’s slurring her speech and repeating the same stuff over and over. Thankfully B is used to dealing with me when I’m drunk, so she’s somehow able to get this woman to slow down and explain herself.

And the woman says there is a man who lives inside the mirror.

I say “What?” There’s no answer so B repeats my question with appropriate urgency.

After a while the previous owner says “He lives inside the mirror. He watches what you do. He says things.”

Okay. So already I am trying to remember the phone number for the local mental health center. But B is treating this more seriously than I am, because she is a good person and an eternal optimist and she takes people at their word. “What do you mean he lives in the mirror? Who lives in the mirror?” she asks.

And there’s a pause on the other end of the line.

“He is not dead, because he has never been alive,” the woman says. “Do not acknowledge him. Do not talk about him. Don’t refer to him. Don’t look him in the eyes. Don’t make the mistakes I did.”

There’s a long pause and over the phone we can hear her taking another swig of something.

“That’s all?” I ask, only half serious.

“I hope so,” the woman responds. And then the call is disconnected.

We do not hear from her ever again. I try to contact her the next day but she must be screening our calls because we can never get through. B tries to write a letter to the real estate agent to get in touch with her. Nothing.

Now, for a while afterward B and I don’t mention this call to each other. It doesn’t come up. We are both thinking about it all the time of course, but we can’t talk about it out loud to each other without seeming crazy ourselves. Not shockingly we manage to put off buying mirrors for the house for about two months, in denial about why. But fixing your hair in the car’s rearview is not as luxurious as it sounds so eventually we bite the bullet. And we get a contractor to come out and install mirrors.

And it’s fine. Everything is fine.

Except there is a man.

And this is the part where I’m sure you think your old college roomie has completely lost it Ryan but I need you to listen to me because even if I lost it I am telling you the truth.

There is a man who lives inside the mirror.

Not just one mirror in one room, but in every mirror in every room in the house. Every mirror you look into, he is there. Usually standing near the back of the room, usually buried in shadow if there are any shadows. But it is unmistakable. There is a man.

The man is middle aged. He is wearing a dark gray button up shirt, a black belt, gray pleated pants, and dull black shoes. And he doesn’t move. He stands there, expressionless. His skin looks like it hasn’t seen the sun. He has a crewcut, thin lips, and straw-colored hair. He looks like the kind of person you wouldn’t notice in a group photo. And the thing about his eyes is, they are wide open. At first I thought he didn’t blink, but B says she watched him for half an hour once and caught a total of two blinks. So it turns out he does blink. Just not much. Not enough.

So. There is a man who lives inside the mirror.

As you might expect, B and I nope the hell out of there. We take E who has not seen the man yet. We go to a motel about a mile from the house. Thankfully this motel is a man-living-in-mirror-free motel, which is a solid step up from our prior living situation.

But after a month, E is not taking motel life very well. Neither am I, and neither is B. E’s grades are slipping even though he is the smartest kid in class. We talk about the financial loss of putting the house back on the market. It would be significant given the downturn, and even more significant given the man. At the moment we are paying a mortgage on top of motel costs. B eventually tells me she wants to at least try living in the house.

“But it’s haunted,” I say.

“It can’t be haunted if he isn’t dead,” she says. And she has a point.

So eventually I say okay. Let’s give it a shot. Let’s be brave. Let’s soldier on.

After all, the man seems polite. And it is a beautiful house. And if you cover the mirrors in the living room and the bedroom you really only see the man in the bathrooms. And sometimes in the reflection of your laptop screen. And sometimes in the reflection in the windows. And like I said he seems polite.

B and I sit down with E and we tell him about the man. E seems confused because he’s old enough to know that it is not normal for men to live inside of mirrors. We tell him the man is a secret. We tell him that we cannot mention the man to each other. That he shouldn’t tell his friends about the man. That under no circumstances should he try to talk to the man.

For a few weeks everything is almost normal. We learn to ignore him. We get back into a routine. E is obviously afraid of the bathroom at first but eventually he gets used to it. Eventually we all get used to it. I’m starting to think this could be sustainable. Maybe not long term, but long enough.

I’m sure you remember when I was laid off Ryan. It was sudden. They cut 20% of staff. Well the timing couldn’t have been worse because a few days after that in the middle of the night while I am lying awake worried about finances and when the house is dead silent I think I hear the sound of someone talking.

Now, the voice is not loud. In fact it is the opposite of loud. It is quiet. But it is a voice.

B is fast asleep so I get up. I go to E’s room to check on him. He has the covers over his head but he seems okay. I assume he’s asleep because the voice is not coming from his room anyway. It’s coming from the bathroom.

I open the bathroom door.

The man who lives inside the mirror is standing by the bathroom closet and he is staring at me.

This is his usual spot. What’s unusual is that he is talking. Very quietly.

I can’t make out what he is saying, but he’s saying something. He is saying the same thing over and over and over again. I move closer to the mirror and point my ear toward it. I still can’t make out what he’s saying. So I pick up a cup by the sink and I put the open side against the mirror and I take a deep breath and I put my ear to the cup. And I hear what he is saying. And he is saying:

“Can you see me? Can you see me? Can you see me? Can you see me? Can you see me? Can you see me? Can you see me? Can you see me? Can you see me? Can you see me? Can you see me? Can you see me? Can you see me? Can you see me? Can you s–”

I have heard enough.

I take my ear off the cup and set the cup down. I leave the bathroom and shut the door behind me, making sure it clicks closed. I go back to the bedroom and I close the bedroom door and slide under the covers and shut my eyes. But the voice is still there. It’s faint, but it’s there. So I turn on a fan to cover up the voice. But it doesn’t help because in the white noise of the fan I am now imagining the voice. I lie back down. For the rest of the night I make attempt after hopeless attempt to get back to sleep.

In the morning B and I talk about what’s happening, because the man is still giving his monologue. B is blaming me and I am blaming her. She says she is worried about me. She says she is worried that I am losing it. But I am not losing it. Then we see that E is crying. “I just wanted to know his name,” he says. “He wouldn’t tell me his name,” he says.

Neither of us blame E. We too would love to know the man’s name. But it turns out this mistake is a permanent one, because now that the man is talking, he will not stop talking.

For an entire week he has been saying “Can you see me?” But at least he is still in the back of the room. At least he is still far enough away. At least he is still buried in shadow. Until he isn’t. Until one day he is closer. Not all the way up to the mirror mind you, but closer.

And all this time I am looking for work, but these companies, they hire friends, or friends of friends, or family members. And as it turns out I have fewer friends than I used to and I don’t have the right family members. I am the wrong person entirely.

I am starting to use the rearview mirror to fix my hair again. B uses it for makeup too, when she wears it. But for the most part neither of us want to look at ourselves. There’s a bucket in the laundry room. You pour it down the sink and wash it out when you’re done, but at least we don’t have to see him. At least we don’t have to hear him.

But it turns out there are some things that require a bathroom. And one night I can’t take it anymore and I go in there and when I turn on the light he is all the way up to the mirror this time and he is not saying “Can you see me?” anymore because he is saying something new. I don’t need to put a cup against the mirror to hear him. It is crystal clear.

“I am lonely. I am lonely. I am lonely. I am lonely. I am lonely. I am lonely. I am lonely. I am lonely. I am lonely. I am lonely. I am lonely. I am lonely. I am lonely. I am lonely. I am lonely. I am lonely. I am lonely. I am lonely. I am lonely. I am lonely. I am lonely. I am lonely. I am–”

I turn out the light. I leave the bathroom and shut the door and go outside. I want to punch someone in the face but there is no one to punch and I can’t exactly punch myself.

By the time I bring up the nerve to talk to B in the morning she has already heard the man’s new sentence and so has our son. E has had his share of emotional problems at school lately but this tops them all. He is a wreck. He is inconsolable. “Why can’t I talk to the man,” he says. “We should be friends with the man,” he says.

That night I am more drunk than usual and I decide I am not going to spend another night in the house with him. So I abandon B and E and I go outside to try sleeping in the car. Just to get some rest. But when I get there B is already in the car with E because I guess they are trying to avoid me, and there isn’t enough room for one more. So now I am trapped inside the house with him. I guess I am trapped.

And so I let him have it.

I tell him everything. I tell him he’s ruining our lives and he doesn’t even pay rent. I tell him he’s never been alive and he shouldn’t exist in the first place. I tell him he’s nothing. I tell him he’s worthless. I explain his worthlessness in fine detail. I am the Walt Whitman of explaining his worthlessness.

But he just keeps saying the same thing again and again in the same tone of voice. And I guess I must have been pretty drunk because in the morning my knuckles are scabbed over and there are shards embedded in them. The mirrors in the bathrooms are cracked and broken. And he is still in there saying “I am lonely. I am lonely. I am lonely.”

B says she does not feel safe around me anymore but she is wrong. She is safe. I tell her so. I tell her that if she wants to be even safer we have to get rid of him. So she agrees. She is crying but she agrees. She tells me she is on my side. She tells me she will help get rid of him.

I am still drunk so she drives us to the hardware store and we buy as much coarse grit sandpaper and and black spraypaint as we can. I guess any color would do but we decide on black. Black is best. We bring it home.

I storm into the bathroom with a fresh can. I want to do it myself so I can see the look on his face when I do it. And when I walk in he is screaming this time. And his voice is so loud. His voice is like a jet taking off. It is an air raid siren. His voice is the loudest sound I have ever heard. It is louder than life itself and maybe it is louder than death. And his voice is saying:

“WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME? WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME? WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME? WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME? WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME? WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME? WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME? WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME? WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME? WHY DON’T YOU L–”

And I am spraypainting over him now. I am spraypainting his gray shirt and his gray pleated pants and his stupid crew cut and his thin lips. Spraypainting over the shards. Letting the paint drip down the walls. Letting it pool on the sink. And as I do he is getting quieter and quieter and quieter until I realize he can’t get any more quiet than he is. Until I realize he is gone. Until he has been totally and completely eaten alive.

And for the first time in weeks, maybe the first time in my entire life, it is silent.

I hug B with tears in my eyes. She has tears in hers too. I tell her we have conquered this thing. She says we have conquered this thing. I tell her we are a family again. She says we are a family again.

And we are a family again.

I spraypaint the windows black from inside and then black from the outside because there’s no reason to risk it. We start getting letters from the Homeowners Association. I spraypaint those black too. The TV goes in the bin. E is crying. The glass comes off the picture frames. E is crying. The laptops go on ebay.

E is crying.

I tell B and E that for the next week the three of us have a job to do. Our job is to find pieces of him we missed. Polished banisters. Glossy wood. Exposed bulbs. Our job is to use the sandpaper to remove him. And for the next week we do the work. We live on sandpaper. I carry it with me like a weapon. I am an efficient hunter. The air fills with sanding dust. I learn this is called swarf, and I learn what it feels like to cough it out of my lungs. I learn what it feels like to watch E cough it out of his lungs.

E is crying, and we are a family again.

We call the contractor to take down what’s left of the broken, blackened mirrors. When the first contractor isn’t returning my calls I try another one. Eventually we get it done. We are left with bare walls where the mirrors were. I drag B and E into the bathroom and show them. It is a glorious sight to behold. The contractor tries to sell us replacements but we explain to him that he can go fuck himself.

And for the next month we are in paradise. E is crying of course, but we are in paradise. B and I aren’t talking but we are in paradise. I stop caring about when I’ll get a job because the ordeal is over. There is finally peace in the house. There is silence.

There is silence, and we are a family again.

And suddenly I don’t know who the hell I am kidding. Suddenly I wonder how could this be paradise? The others avoid me like a disease. We are living in separate worlds. And then I notice B is spending more and more time sitting on the edge of the bathtub, staring at the bare wall where the mirror was, like she is trying to burn a hole through it with her eyes.

At first I don’t say anything because I have nothing left to say to her. But eventually having nothing to say is no excuse. I confront her over it. I tell her we are not supposed to be trying to see the man. We are supposed to be moving on, like I asked. We are a family again, I say.

And she says, “What if he was just lonely.”

And the terrible thing is she means it. She actually means it. And she says, “We should have talked to him. We should have made friends with him.” And I wonder how this horrible idea got into her head. I wonder who this person is.

And then she says, “What kind of a lesson does this teach our son?” And I remember who this person is. I recognize this person. And she says “I can’t stand the thought of him locked away in there. I can feel him. I know he’s still in there. He needs our love, C.”

And she is right. She is right because she is always right.

We call the contractors and we apologize profusely. We say we actually do want to replace the mirrors. We love mirrors. We ask them how soon they could come by the house. We make plans. We sit down with E and we tell him about the mirrors. And E stops crying.

And halfway through the job one of the men is complaining, and the others are arguing. One of them starts yelling at B in Spanish. She hasn’t done anything wrong and he is yelling at her for some reason. And just as quickly as they start the job they abandon it. They leave the mirrors face-down on the carpet and they drive away.

I follow B into the living room. She kneels at a mirror and gets her fingers underneath it and tilts it up. She sees something in it and then gently she sets it back down. She moves to the other side of the room and sits down in an armchair and makes herself small.

I walk up to the mirror too. I get my fingers underneath it. I tilt it up.

And I find out B is right. She is right because she is always right.

He is still there but he is seated. He is seated this time. He is seated in a wooden chair. He is seated in a wooden chair and he is done talking. He is not talking anymore. His eyes are just as wide, but his jaw hangs loose. His jaw hangs loose and his arms dangle at his sides. The blood from his slashed wrists streaks down his forearms and snakes between his fingers and drips to the ground and forms two identical pools.

The dripping never stops. The blood never dries. The body never decays.

The man is in every room of our home Ryan. We have gotten rid of all the polished surfaces and every mirror and every pane of glass but he is still right there in every single room of our home. Because he is in the reflection in the glasses on my wife’s face.

And when she is not wearing her glasses, he is in her eyes.

And he is in E’s eyes.

And he is in mine.

I have tried to catch him blinking. I have sat on the floor for hours staring at his reflection in E’s eyes. E doesn’t like this game but I tell him we have to play it. I tell him we have to try. I have been unsuccessful so far, but I have to keep trying. There’s a part of me that knows he’s in there somewhere. That he isn’t really dead. That he’s still watching us. If only I could catch him. If only I could see him blink.

Because if I don’t, Ryan, if he really is dead, then the house is haunted.

And this is the reason we haven’t sold. This is the reason. The buyer must agree to watch him for us. The buyer must agree, because someone needs to watch him for us. Someone needs to see him blink. We won’t be there anymore to do it so someone needs to do it for us. Someone needs to watch him.

So far, no one has had the courage.

And this is why we will not sell you our house Ryan. This is why we will never sell you our house.

You do not have what it takes.

No one does.

Yours,
C

–

I tried calling C to talk about the letter he sent me but I haven’t heard back from him yet.

The last thing I want to do is overshare something private and have C and B find out I’m a shitty friend, so I’m planning to delete this post soon (hence the throwaway). But before I do that I wanted an outside perspective.

Basically, I’m totally still interested in buying as long as B and C are willing to let it go. Flipping it should be a breeze for someone like me — it’s a beautiful home, as long as I’m careful with how I stage it.

I guess what I’m asking is, would I be taking advantage of my friends to profit off this? And what’s the best way to bring up the idea to B? I would need to get on her good side to make the deal happen.

Thanking you in advance for your help.

X