Turkish Urban Legends No. 2: Apartment No. 129

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According to some sources it happened in Ankara, according to others in Antalya—in the İşçi Blokları (Workers’ Housing) neighborhood, on 1530th Street. Two female university students performed a ritual around 1:00 AM, surrounded by candles and candlesticks. After that night, numerous claims emerged: residents harming themselves, animals being sacrificed, and more.

According to those who lived in the building, a violent tremor struck on the night the women died. Furniture was thrown around in every apartment, and windows shattered.

The strange part? There’s no record of any earthquake or seismic activity that night. Following this incident, the building’s residents abandoned the place, never to return. Those who eventually mustered the courage to enter reported truly hair-raising experiences: indescribable smells, unsettling whispers, windows shattering on their own, and strange symbols and writings on the walls that they couldn’t decipher.

So What Exactly Is This Apartment No. 129?

The passage you just read is the opening of Episode 7 of the Kat 3 Daire 5 podcast. This event -which we might classify as an urban legend—begins in Ankara in some news articles and continues in Antalya. There’s a neighborhood called “100. Yıl” (100th Year) in both cities. However, considering that İşçi Blokları neighborhood is actually located in Ankara, and that the story involves two students, the needle points toward Ankara, particularly since the 100. Yıl district is quite close to ODTÜ (Middle East Technical University), making the student connection rather fitting. Our aim here isn’t to verify whether this actually happened, of course. But the way this story has been presented in the media is genuinely confusing and, at times, almost laughable.

First of all, as I mentioned above, nearly identical texts appear on various news sites. Some citing Ankara, others Antalya. Some sites even mention both cities in the same article. Furthermore, almost every online report refers to some vague point in the past. Unlike the haunted bathhouse claims from Eskişehir, there’s no specific timeframe attached to this story. Only one article mentions 2009, and even that piece contains references to both Antalya and Ankara. There’s no interview with an eyewitness or building resident anywhere to be found.

One of the most intriguing aspects of this urban legend is the abundance of gore elements in the narrative. Depending on where you look, you might hear about cats hanging from the ceiling, animals slaughtered during the ritual, walls weeping blood, and more. Alongside these, there are also more realistic explanations floating around, such as claims that flooding caused the building’s foundation to collapse, which is why it was evacuated. Still, the exact location has never been definitively identified.

As Mehmet Berk Yaltırık puts it: “Real or fiction, a story is a story.” With that in mind, let me weave together a narrative from everything we’ve discussed.

The Ritual in the Apartment

Two friends found themselves terribly bored one evening and decided to try summoning spirits. Armed with half-baked information they’d scraped together from the internet, they prepared a ritual. They lit candles and began their séance. But nothing happened. Disappointed, the students called it off.

That night, however, they were plagued by disturbing dreams. The next day, when they compared notes, they realized they had both experienced the exact same dream.

Dreams chased dreams, and then strange things began happening in the apartment. Doors and windows would open and close on their own. Glass and mirrors cracked without explanation. Objects would disappear, only to turn up later in bizarre places.

Since the incidents began, the two friends hadn’t set foot outside their apartment. Police records later revealed that they had sent messages to friends claiming they’d gone back to their hometowns. It was as if something had trapped them inside that apartment. By the time they said “We need to get out of here, no matter what,” it was already too late. They died under mysterious circumstances. No one realized they were dead until the smell from their apartment permeated the entire building.

After this incident, no one ever lived in that building again. The entrance was sealed off. But people passing by say that on certain nights, they still see two women in the windows.

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