Help me freak out my roommate

[Mojo]

So a year or so ago when we first started living together, I built a computer to go with his TV and my surround sound system to complete our entertainment set up. I instructed him how everything should be turned off as to not damage anything. He didn't listen and ended up shorting out the subwoofer due to his lazy practices. He still doesn't turn everything off properly despite this.

I figure that I might as well exploit this weakness of his and use it against him. He's super paranoid and it's around Halloween, so I'm thinking something similar to Paranormal Activity should do the trick. If you didn't see the movie, it's something to the degree of noises and odd occurrences that occur during the night. The movie was ok, but the RL version would certainly be very suspenseful. If you haven't figured it out already, I'll be using the computer and surround sound system he's leaving on every night to facilitate this.

Now then, I'm looking for some advice on what sort of sounds to play as well as recommendations for software to facilitate this. Ideally, whatever I'm playing should start off subtle and escalate as the days go by. Playing the sounds in the background without interrupting the screensaver would be ideal. Shutting down the computer after the sound(s) have been played might be even better. Whatever it is, it has to be running in the background. I do have access to a computer in my room and they're networked, so maybe I can remote into it that way? Either way, any sort of recommendations would be welcomed.

[Headspace]

Make sure you buy a camera and a Ouija board.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

If you can get bumps in the night going for a few days, the best payoff will be, imo, do the noise where's like a loud animal and a thump on the system at full volume.

Before the sound goes off sit in a chair in his bedroom or even in the living room dressed to the nines as a clown, make-up and everything. Just sit there quietly in his room ( if possible ), light comes on, ???, profit.

[Mojo]

Well, if I could afford a camera I certainly would. The ouija board isn't a bad idea, even if I just brought it in for a day or two and he saw it, it'd just feed into his paranoia.

[Mojo]

If you can get bumps in the night going for a few days, the best payoff will be, imo, do the noise where's like a loud animal and a thump on the system at full volume.

Before the sound goes off sit in a chair in his bedroom or even in the living room dressed to the nines as a clown, make-up and everything. Just sit there quietly in his room ( if possible ), light comes on, ???, profit.

He sleeps with a gun under his mattress, I'd probably be shoot if I did that.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

He sleeps with a gun under his mattress, I'd probably be shoot if I did that.

Ok then videotape it and leave a note saying to put it on Youtube if anything bad happens.

[Chun Liroy]

[Seydlitz]

Do you have a remote control for any of this?

A few years back, a friend of mine found the remote for my dvd player. He started hitting the eject button over and over, opening and closing the disc tray, without me knowing he had the remote. I had a screwdriver in my hand ready to open it up, but then he started laughing and I connected the dots.

Assuming you do some sort of creepy music route, and you're able to turn the system back on 5 seconds after he turns things off, should make things interesting.

[Headspace]

He sleeps with a gun under his mattress, I'd probably be shoot if I did that.

Load his guns with blanks. He'll shit his pants when the invincible clown stares eerily at him from across the room.

[Maguspk]

freesound :: view tag :: scary

freesound :: view tag :: horror

Check some of these out.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

Load his guns with blanks. He'll shit his pants when the invincible clown stares eerily at him from across the room.

lol fuck yeah

[Kazen]

The witch sounds from L4D.

[SephYuyX]

Remove the gun? I doubt he checks for it to see if it's still there, unless hes crazy.

[Araelus]

Load his guns with blanks. He'll shit his pants when the invincible clown stares eerily at him from across the room.

Just a word of warning from someone who's had to use blanks for film and theater in the past: blanks can kill.


2011 edit: The rest of this post was full of horrible ideas. I'm sorry for suggesting them.

[aduidarnenye]

My advice is to never scare a superstitious man who sleeps with a gun under his pillow.

[Tellahh]

• Buy some potatoes and dress them in doll clothes. Talk and play with them as if they are your friends. Specifically name and dress one like your roommate. One day, bake and eat the roommate potato.

Wow... just wow... o.O

[Maguspk]

Just a word of warning from someone who's had to use blanks for film and theater in the past: blanks can kill. On the other hand, the invincible clown idea is hilarious if you can do it safely.

In terms of noises, use Audacity or any other free sound program to make very low-pitch, low-frequency noise. Sounds barely below the audible threshold make some people uncomfortable or nauseous.

This album contains some strange noise tracks and creepy children singing, if you need source material. What exactly is your roommate scared by, anyway?


If it is a photo-montage screensaver, make another folder identical to his montage source, but with a space removed in the folder name or another inconspicuous change. Add a number of strange or disturbing (spiders, etc.) images to this new folder. Make it a hidden folder and change display options to conceal hidden folders, and make the screensaver use this new directory.

At first there should only be one or two such images, so it comes up rarely or not at all. Slowly add more and more weird images, until by Halloween the screensaver is entirely messed up. If you can somehow sync the scary noises with these images, bonus points.


Some other ideas:

• Move, but do not actually delete, computer files. I mean, we're being scary, not malicious.

• Find a way to reverse-wire the volume control. Then change it back later.

• Conspicuously perform some kind of maintenance on your computer. When your roommate asks, say it has to do with getting rid of junk files that can cause odd behavior. Make sure it is something he cannot do to his computer. If you have an old CRT, degaussing is a great example. If he complains about the weird night noises, suggest this type of impossible-to-copy maintenance.

• Borrow a friend's pet rodent (hamster, gerbil, hairless cat). When the sounds occur, "find" the animal in the room in the middle of the night, and throw it out of the room. If you can arrange a safe way to toss it out the window or something odd, do so. Have there be no more noises that night. The next night, see how long your roommate searches for another such animal.

• Have a friend call your room phone during the night at random intervals. Make sure they hang up and do not speak into the phone. (This works best with no caller ID.) Then, eventually, have them stop for a night. Then start again. Then stop. The roommate will lie awake at night waiting for the phone to ring.

• Get a small vacuum cleaner. Whenever your roommate leaves the room to go somewhere else, casually begin vacuuming until they are out of earshot. Do not use the vacuum when they are actually in the room. Never explain why you do this.

• Buy some potatoes and dress them in doll clothes. Talk and play with them as if they are your friends. Specifically name and dress one like your roommate. One day, bake and eat the roommate potato.

That's some weird shit, did you come up with that or get them from somewhere. Some of them seem odd but would probably bug the hell out of them more than scare them, like the animal in the room + weird noises thing. Evil.

[Araelus]

That's some weird shit, did you come up with that or get them from somewhere. ... Evil.

2011 edit: In retrospect, I'm sorry for suggesting them.

Please don't do any of those things I mentioned.

[Kobus]

find a friend with a gamecube, rent or buy ($5 max) the game "Eternal Darkness". record the soundtrack, play it/loop it. your roommate will freak.


edit: if you only use the computer surround sound, rewire the tv speakers and play the sounds through them even when the tv is off. takes a lot of work, but worth it.

[Xiona]

personally i would hide in the closet until he went to shut off my entertainment system. then when he shuts it off wrong, pop out of the closet and punch him in the face and neck until i felt like he paid for not only the shit he had broke, but his continued lack of consideration.