The following happened during my childhood when we lived at this apartment complex. We stayed there for many years just moving from apartment to apartment but all still in the same area. We’re convinced it was the land this development is on because each apartment we stayed at, we experienced something weird. Here’s the first of many experiences at Coco Parc. The old man: - the first incident happened when I was very little. I was 5 my sister was 9. We lived in a first floor apt. One night the family was going out, and as we were going out, my mother told my sister to run back into the room to grab my flip flops. As she entered the room she stopped in the door way because right next to our bunk bed, sitting on top of our big plastic toy chest, was a man smoking a cigar. My sister screamed and ran back toward the front door. When she told my dad what she saw, he went to investigate. He said when he entered our room, there was no old man, but the room smelled of smoke. A few days later we had an issue with the A/C or something and my dad was talking to maintenance guy, and in just casual conversation my dad asked him how long he’d been working at the complex and if he happened to remember who loved here before us. The maintenance man without skipping a beat said, “oh yea, it was some old man who was always grouchy and would smoke his cigars inside and outside his apartment. He died a few years ago, we almost didn’t get the smell of cigar out of the apartment.Continuing my saga of events of stories from the Coco Parc apartment complex. The following is a story that telling it to anyone new still gives me chills to this day. It happened to long ago but I remember it so vividly. The man in the hat: My sister and I were a little older now. We moved to a new apartment, still in the same apartment complex. You see we immigrated here from Colombia, and though my parents worked and we went to school finding a brand new place to live was difficult. So instead we stayed in the place where they knew us and we just hopped from apartment to apartment. This new apartment was again on the first floor. 2 bedrooms. It was a little bigger, our room was the same. But my parents room was definitely bigger. On one wall you had two windows, the outside of which was where the AC unit was and was surrounded by bushes and those short palm bushes. If you live in Florida you know what I’m talking about. They placed their bed between the windows and under each window a night stand.on each night stand we had small lamps, the lamps you tapped the base of to turn the light brighter or make it dimmer, it was very popular in the 90s. The wall across from the bed was for the tv. To the right of that was a sliding door that lead to the “balcony” though I guess porch since it’s the first floor. The wall with the TV is where the doorway to the living room/kitchen was. So when you walked in, you’re facing my parents bed and the two windows. One night, my parents left to go to dinner. My sister and I stayed in. Just the two of us, again we were slightly older they felt my sister was old enough that we didn’t need a babysitter. So they leave. My sister and I are on the couch in the living room watching telenovelas. We’re laughing having a good time nothing out of the ordinary. My sister gets up to use the bathroom in my parents room but takes the remote. She wants to make sure I don’t change the channel. She drops the remote on our parents bed as she goes to the bathroom. She comes back, sits down, goes to turn up the volume but forgot the remote in the room. As big sisters do, she told me to go get it. After a little back and forth I as the younger brother submit and go retrieve the remote. It’s here where things take a turn for the weird. As I walked up to my parents room and I stood in the doorway, the lamps sitting on my parents nightstands began to flicker. Brightening and dimming, on their own. Again remember these are the lamps you need to physically tap to do something like that. Me in my ignorance smile, and yell out to my sister to come quick the lights are doing something funny. As my sister joins me in the door way she stops hard and grabs my shoulders. I look up and see shes not looking at the lights but has her eyes fixed on the window to the right of my parents bed and next to the night stand. As I look over to see what she’s so fixed on, I immediately get shivers and the hairs on my arms and neck stand straight up. Outside, peering into the room is what I make out to be a man. I don’t see clear features or honestly remember clear features just that he was in all black. And was wearing a hat. Not just any hat like a baseball cap, but a large rimmed hat. As we kept staring we see his shadowy arm raise up, and begin to wave at us, “come here.” At this point we scream, run back into the living room. And desperately start paging our parents, the code 911. I don’t remember how long it took my parents to get there and what happened in between the time they did, it just felt like they got there in a blink of an eye. I just remember telling my dad what we saw. And him going to investigate and finding nothing. But needless to say we moved out of that apartment rather quickly, and it was the last time we got an apartment on the first floor.