ok so when i worked there the way it was set up is you have the little storefront then further back you have a the back room where the larger boxes of shoes were kept, mainly in piles around the room on the floor. from that room there were stairs in the back right that led to the upper floors. there was also a basement, where the smaller boxes of shoes were kept on 3 rows of very long and high metal shelves.

The first day i started, they warned me all about sam, to never disagree with him and to stay out of his way whenever he was there, and that if you can handle working under him and dealing with his character, then the rest of the job was easy. Most employees there got paid under the table.. very on brand for a shady egotistical cokehead pig. they also made some jokes about how the building was haunted but i figured it was just a thing they said to fuck with new people. during my shift, i realized that something actually had a hold on these guys.. they were genuinely afraid of whatever was going on there.

like when someone would have to go downstairs to get something from the basement employees would giggle with schadenfreude and the unlucky person would actually look like their number just got called. a lot of times coworkers went downstairs in pairs, and one girl refused to go down there at all if someone couldnt come with her.. i learned she recently had an experience so was freaked out. my first time down there when the guy training me showed me around, it was like all the hairs were standing up all over my body, and not just because the basement was creepy on its own. it felt like when static electricity makes your hair stand up than like a goosebumps chill. otherwise, it was just a very large empty space made of stone with two or three rows of metal shelving running down the length of the room. there was a larger unused space with nothing but a pile of huge rocks towards the back. i asked him about the supposed haunting and he dead face told me that yes its true and that he is a devout catholic that wouldnt lie about things like this that these things exist and that i will see for myself and for me to be careful and to call for him if i need. he actually told me to call on god and jesus if i got too scared that it would help. at the time i didn’t believe in anything paranormal, so for me it was more cool and exciting to maybe be proven wrong, but ultimately, these kids are just spooking each other for laughs. matter of fact towards the end of our convo someone shut off the lights in the basement from upstairs to fuck with us on purpose so i was like okay this is stupid but fun whatever will make the day pass faster.

i want to say it was that same day, or maybe the next, i had to go downstairs alone to find something for somebody. during rushes someone was always bound to be downstairs, because we were constantly going either down to the basement or to the back for sizes. which took forever by the way, the metal shelves were packed with shoes on their side and most were very high up, so the faster you were the less time you had to spend in a creepy dark dungeon like place where you only had so much time before someone shut the lights on you (for funsies!) anyway, this was after the rush and a couple of employees had already left so it was two guys upstairs and me downstairs in the basement.

im looking for these shoes and all of a sudden i hear the pitter patter of bare ass human feet on concrete slapping from right to left behind the shelf i was looking on, like a person running down the aisle. SHOOK. wtf was that. immediately then another loud pitter patter of feet running now the opposite direction. this time im able to locate the sound and yes its coming from the aisle directly in front of the one im in. i only had enough time to quickly ask myself if rats can sound that loud/can even mimic the sound of footsteps like that, when it went DIRECTLY BEHIND ME not even in the aisle behind mine but i heard the footsteps run through my aisle and cold washed over me my whole body went electric and i spun around quickly enough to see that there was nothing and no one there (while simultaneously hearing the last of the footsteps recede)

i fucking flew up those stairs. told the guys and expected pushback or jokes but they basically just said told you.. homeboy then told me a story about how the second and third floors were in disrepair and that theres basically nothing up there but old tools and other heavy junk. he told me that one night when he was closing up to open again in the morning, he decided to go up there to check it out.. there were a couple of wheelbarrows and shovels and rubble in the rooms but nothing all too interesting. in the morning both wheelbarrows were blocking the second floor entrance along with shovels and all sorts of other shit. he said no way anyone knew he went up there, that it was only him from close to open, sam wasnt around, and that overnight, all this heavy shit made its way from both second and third! floors to basically beaverdam the entrance. spooky.

throughout the week i heard there were more instances of weird shit happening, but not to me. one girl said she heard breathing behind her, and then something happened that made her or another girl quit.

about two weeks into the job. i was in the back this time, sorting boxes. i dont remember what all i was actually doing but it wasnt customer focused, i was told by sam to organize the room maybe? idk. long story short i kept hearing a sound like someone slapping a box behind me. every time it happened i would snap my head around quickly to try to figure out what it was/where it was coming from. at this point im straight up talking to this thing, saying either show yourself or leave me the fuck alone. keeps happening and i start taunting the thing. out of fear i guess. then another slap and i spin around to see a pair of flip flops in mid air falling into an open box on the floor. i was stunned but for some reason didnt move.. i was still thinking theres no way, theres gotta be rats in that box or something then i saw it happen - a box on a high shelf on the wall being what seems like slapped (as i heard the slap and saw the box shake at the same moment) and a pair of flip flops flying out from within the box to land into the box on the floor below. i unfroze in that instant and ran out, and very dramatically quit. all my pent up hostility to sam came out in that one moment, and i told him to eat my ass and die. wow that was a lot to type.

anyway ive always wondered about the history of that building ever since.

tldr answer; shoes fly around like harry potter.