The Red Ghost of Farrer Court

Confession by Dian

My story is about my old childhood estate, Farrer Court, which has since been En Bloc and sold off for a record price.

​I grew up there and we lived in two different apartment buildings within the estate because we moved out and then moved back to the estate (my mum loved moving house I don't know why).

We were originally living in Block H for maybe about 7 years and this block was the furthest inside and it was the only standalone block in that area within the estate, super private and was super quiet. Each apartment block was a distance from each other and walking out to Empress market to do weekend marketing with my mum was quite a bitch because the area had lots of hills. 

​There were 2 lift lobbies and ours was the furthest inside too.

 I always remembered the lobby area to be super dark because it was tucked behind a wall where sunlight could shine through properly and at night it was lit but not well lit. ​

Whenever we came back home late, the lobby is pretty dim and we were always looking over our shoulders. Pretty much if someone wanted to rape or murder you at night, it would've been very convenient because next to the block were just trees and greenery . (If you want to know what my condo looked like, it's exactly like Lakeview Condo on Thomson next to Macritchie. Likely the same builders.) ​

The view for the living room and 2 bedrooms was facing Tulip Gardens while the dining room, kitchen, common toilet and one room was facing a wide open beautiful view of the basketball and tennis court. Each floor there were only 2 units so it was either us or the neighbours and our neighbours were Taiwanese who were seldom in town so most times it was only us. So basically strangers had no business being on our floor. ​

My sisters and I were latch key kids and my mum worked nights some days in a week. So on those days her shift would end around 11pm and there was a company van that sent her home when she worked nights. She would reach home at around midnight and us 3 latchkey kids would actually go down at midnight to fetch her because of how quiet and secluded our apartment block was. ​

So that's the pre-scenario I've painted to you.

The incident I'm about to relate happened on one of those nights that we were waiting for my mum to come home at midnight before going down to fetch her.

The Lady at the Peep Hole. Ill. by Dark Art by Syed Wilson.

My sisters were studying in the room and I was just hanging around with them on the bed. One of my sisters asked me to refill her cup in the kitchen. I took her cup and went out to head to the kitchen and on the way to the kitchen, you can see the main door. As I was walking back to the room from the kitchen, I noticed that there was someone outside our house as I could see feet from where I was. I asked my sis if my mum was coming back earlier that day and she said no. And I told her that I saw feet from under the main door. She told me to go open the door, that maybe it was my mum and that maybe her van dropped her off earlier and she decided to come up on her own. She reminded me that our doorbell was not working. It was about 11+pm at that time.

So I headed out to the main door and out of habit.

I looked through the peephole and what I saw still makes my skin crawl ​

I was about 9 yrs old when this incident happened but till today whenever I retell this story it makes me skin crawl. (I'm typing this at midnight right now and my hubs is working night ).

There was a Chinese lady standing outside our house. And I presumed Chinese because she was wearing a red cheongsam (a traditional Chinese outfit that was popular with the ladies from the 20s to the 60s). She had medium length hair which fell just below her shoulders. Her face was turned to her right but her eyes were downcast and her hair was partially covering her face. What was fucking creepy was, she had a fucking smirk on her face and she was slowly turning her head, presumably to look at me.

This was when i noticed that her skin was bluish. At that instant I knew I was not looking at something human. I knew that "she" knew I was looking at her through the peephole. I fucking ran back to the room terrified but sadly I didn't breathe a word about what I saw to my sisters, even when they asked me if it was my mum at the door. I couldn't sleep properly for many days after because the image of that lady flashed my head. I was so scared to even look at the direction of the main door whenever i walked to the kitchen at night for fear of seeing feet under the door again.

It was ONLY about 10 years LATER, I related the incident to my sisters and mum and we then found out why my mum always made us wait for her downstairs whenever she worked nights.

She told us that she would ALWAYS see a lady in red downstairs in between the pillars when she came home late. ​

But she never told us why she wanted us to fetch her as she didn't want us to be scared! But she herself was terrified laaaah! Imagine making your 3 young latchkey kids wait for you bawah (below) block in a secluded apartment block! And worst still, my sisters also said that they would always catch glimpses of someone in red behind the pillars too while we waited for my mum! Found out all this only 10 years later!

​According to my mum , one of the estate cleaners told her that the lady used to live in the neighboring block and had jumped off from her block in red after finding out that her husband had been cheating on her! The cleaner was a middle aged Malaysian lady who had been working in our estate for quite a while

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Read the rest of the Farrer Court Saga - Bad Feng Shui or Dirty Tactics and A Place for Murders and Suicides