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A woman who thought she was moving into her dream living situation discovered the house had a very dark secret.
Brandi Lockhart moved in with her best friend Alex, her cat, and a third roommate, Sabrina.
Little did she know that their ‘fourth roommate’ would turn their lives into a nightmare.
At first, Brandi was excited to not have live with a ‘stranger’ having known Alex for a long time, and she managed to dismiss Sabrina’s eerie side, like having candles burning in her room and religious symbols on her walls.
Having grown up in a Catholic household, Brandi didn’t want ‘any part’ in organised religion as an adult.
‘But I didn’t make the right decision,’ she warns, as she tells her story for the first time in discovery+’s Eli Roth presents: A Ghost Ruined My Life.
‘It was really nice,’ Brandi recalls in a confessional, remembering how she felt ‘safe’ and ‘comfortable’.
But things quickly changed when strange occurrences took place at night.
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Brandi was left fearing for her life (Picture: discovery+)
Brandi would hear sounds of someone tapping on her window or on the walls, only to find the hallway empty.
She brushed it off as ‘pipes in the wall’ at the time, but was left feeling ‘uneasy’ when Alex claimed to have not heard anything.
At one point, Brandi thought she would try and decorate the home, wanting to cut off the ivy growing around the house.
She soon realised her mistake, as the ‘ivy’ bled on her windowsill. But she still wasn’t to know the dark secret lurking in the house.
When Brandi continued hearing knocks but seeing nothing, Sabrina told her: ‘I think that just because someone’s knocking, doesn’t mean you should answer.’
One night, Brandi decided to knock back to make it stop. That was ‘just the beginning’, she says in a confessional.
As she began feeling like something was watching her, she felt like she was ‘in the presence of something evil’.
The feeling that she and her friends were not alone made her feel like she was in a ‘horror movie’.
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Brandi was being haunted by the ghost ‘manifesting’ in ivy (Picture: discovery+)
‘You feel like you’re in the middle of a forest and something is watching you,’ she says.
‘I get goosebumps. My hair is on edge.’
Brandi adds: ‘It’s a constant feeling of paranoia, there’s something uninvited here.’
Eventually, Brandi understood that whatever ‘insidious’ force was haunting the house, was somehow using the ivy to ‘manifest’.
‘The uneasiness and heaviness in the air, it was there,’ she says.
At the time, she was left questioning what was going on, but knew that no matter who or what was behind it, ‘it had to go’.
‘There was an outside influence on why there was conflict that wasn’t there before,’ she said, after disagreements with her housemates and tensions grew thanks to the ghost.
‘I felt like I was being oppressed,’ she recalled, as she felt the presence growing stronger, making her feel ‘helpless’ and like she was ‘fighting for [her] soul’.
The most terrifying incident occurred when Brandi one day began choking and coughing up blood-drenched ivy.
‘I was fighting for my soul’ (Picture: discovery+)
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‘I’m in my own horror movie at this point, and I’m losing direction of the movie.’
‘I felt like I was in a fight for my soul,’ she adds.
Eventually, Brandi was left hunting for answers about the ‘dark and bloody’ history of their neighbourhood, after some horrific crimes had taken place.
She quickly discovered that by knocking back against the walls, she had invited the ghost into their homes. But she was now determined to fight back.
‘I went from wanting to give up,’ Brandi began, to ‘needing to get it out the house.’
One night, Brandi felt the paranormal force strangling her with its claws, as she woke up her housemates with her screams.
Unsurprised by the situation, Sabrina questioned if Brandi had let ‘it’ back in, and was quick to move out, followed by Alex, leaving Brandi all alone.
‘It effected me really bad,’ Brandi tearfully admitted, saying she thought it had targeted her because she had ‘rejected’ organised religion.
‘You invited this thing in because you didn’t stay on the path you were put on,’ she thought.
Brandi was being haunted by the ivy (Picture: discovery+)
She continues: ‘The situation was frightening because I didn’t have control, I didn’t know how to get out of it.’
Despite not feeling safe anymore in her own home, Brandi couldn’t afford to leave and was left with no choice but to face her demons.
Making the final decision to move out, Brandi came face to face with the demon one last time, and found the most terrifying experience waiting for her.
Confronted by the ivy demon, Brandi ran out screaming.
She says: ‘I was gone and I felt a weight had been lifted off of me when I moved on.’
Brandi still has no idea what happened to her in that house, but now feels like a ‘different person’.
Nonetheless, she’s left always ‘looking over her shoulder’ and looking for shadows that ‘shouldn’t be there.’
‘I’m in control now, and nobody can hurt me,’ she tearfully concludes.
Eli Roth Presents: A Ghost Ruined My Life is available to watch from July 14 on discovery+.
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Terrifying!