After a seven-hour ride on Amtrak from New York to Richmond, Virginia, I decided to walk from Richmond—Main Street Station, a wonderful train station from 1901, uphill for half a mile to my hotel to stretch my legs for a bit. It was Halloween night, unseasonably cold, and downtown Richmond was practically deserted. A stranger in an unfamiliar city, with no one around, on the scariest night of the year. A perfectly eerie night, but I had no clue that the spookiness would continue for seven days in my hotel.

I trudged along East Main Street, toting my luggage behind me, and finally arrived at The Commonwealth. I entered the bright two-story lobby and checked in with the clerk, who was originally from my hometown of Brooklyn, New York. We chatted for a bit about New York’s outrageous rent rates and what some of Richmond’s top attractions are—a good indication of the friendliness of the staff.

I made my way up to my room and noted that the air conditioning was running, just at the right level of noise to irk me and keep me awake. But I’d handle that later, I thought, as I unpacked everything for my weeklong stay here.

I hopped in the shower, which had been bone dry, but, when I was through, the showerhead dripped, dripped, dripped, plinking on the metal plate in the basin, no matter how tightly I closed the nozzle. It’s another one of those noises that inevitably would keep me awake, but I shut the door, and that took care of that.

The air conditioner, however, proved to be more challenging. Over the next several hours, I tried playing with the control panel: the fan level, the temperature, every other button available. No matter what I did, it did not respond appropriately. I had maintenance come up, and he recommended putting the temperature higher so that it wouldn’t turn on at all. That worked for about 20 minutes, and then the whole thing started again, now accompanied by an irritating buzz. At 1:30 a.m., completely frustrated, and still wide awake, I unplugged the whole thing from the wall. That probably wasn’t proper hotel guest etiquette, but so be it. It worked…for 10 minutes. The buzzing returned, and the fan and air conditioner went on and off and on and off. I had visions of Phoebe Buffay in the episode of Friends in which she couldn’t get her smoke alarm to stop beeping, even after destroying it.

So, at 2:45 a.m., I went downstairs and, at the risk of becoming an importunate guest, explained the situation. The new clerk on duty now was empathetic to my situation and suggested that Halloween had something to do it with it; she was clearly a little unsettled by this holiday of ghosts and goblins. She graciously upgraded me to a king suite. So, at 3.a.m., I had to repack, move from one floor to another, and unpack again. The extra work was worth it, though—my new corner room had a large bedroom with windows on two sides, king-size bed, sofa, dresser, and 50” flat-screen television. The short hallway led to the spacious bathroom and to the living room, with a sofa, a couple of chairs and tables, a credenza, a very long desk, and another 50” TV. Even better, no water was dripping, and the air conditioning wasn’t running with mysterious noises.

Much happier here, I finally went to sleep after setting my own alarm clock, as well as the alarm clock in the room, for 8:30 the following morning. Who knew that my earlier room’s oddities would be harbingers of strange things to come: When I awoke, it was 9:09. Neither alarm had gone off. And when I rose, I noticed two of the dresser drawers had opened during the night.

Clearly, something odd was happening here at The Commonwealth: a showerhead that dripped for no reason, an air conditioner with a life of its own, weirdly malfunctioning alarm clocks, spooky drawers. Perhaps the hotel was haunted? Possibly.

The Commonwealth is a historic hotel, perfectly located across the street from the Virginia State Capitol in the slow-beating heart of downtown. Its origins go way back to 1846, when a young Louis Rueger immigrated from Germany and opened a saloon and café at the hotel’s current location. The Civil War ended his business under martial law, and his building was seized, to be used as the Confederate States of America’s Navy headquarters.

Rueger went back to Germany, but then he returned to Richmond, only to find his building had been destroyed during the massive fire of 1865. He rebuilt, and his sons and grandsons joined him, adding boarding rooms above the saloon for intoxicated clientele. The Ruegers acquired surrounding buildings and opened the three-story, 24-room Hotel Rueger. Further construction expanded the hotel to 10 stories, and the existing building opened on November 5, 1913, with 136 rooms (80% with private baths), a large dining room with seating for 200, eight private dining rooms, a basement-level grill room for businessmen, and a roof garden.

In the 1950s, new owners changed the name to Hotel Raleigh and enclosed the roof garden to make an 11th floor of rooms. In 1982, a new owner whittled down the number of rooms to 59, expanding the size of each. He then changed the name to the Commonwealth Park Suites Hotel. Now just The Commonwealth, more recent additions include a custom mural on each floor, painted by local muralists, as well as each guestroom door bearing a tattoo that includes the name of the room, which acknowledges Richmond’s ranking as the third most tattooed city in the United States. Despite new additions, the hotel has maintained its early “modern elevators,” fairly small by today’s standards, as well as the original marble floor from 1913 in the restaurant, Rueger’s. So, with all that history, who knows what, or whom, is still lurking about?

It was a question that resurfaced at the end of my first full day exploring this historic city. When I returned to my room in the late afternoon, I found one of the dresser drawers had opened again, the bathroom light was mysteriously on, and the toilet bowl was running and running and running. That’s certainly not how I left things in the morning.

I called the front desk to address the running toilet—I didn’t want my room, or the entire hotel, for that matter, flooded by some malefic force. Five minutes later, the very second the maintenance worker knocked on my door, the toilet bowl stopped running. That’s too much of a coincidence to be merely that. He came in, fiddled with the guts in the tank, and claimed it was fixed now.

Before heading out to dinner, I turned on the television and tuned in to the guide, which displayed programming for Channel 2—and only Channel 2—in an endless scroll: Channel 2, Channel 2, Channel 2….

I never knew what to expect whenever I returned to my room. The toilet bowl never worked the same way twice, the one-channel TV guide never deviated, the drawers continued to open erratically at will, and sometimes the bathroom light would be switched on, sometimes not.

The one constant, however, was how nice the hotel is. The rooms are comfortable and have all the modern amenities; the staff is amicable and chatty; canine guests are treated to free doggy biscuits at the front desk; and human guests can work out in the fitness center and dine in the hotel’s restaurant, Rueger’s, which features a wall of black-and-white archival photos of the city, and a comforting menu.

Toward the end of my stay, in a happy happenstance, The Commonwealth celebrated its 110th birthday by setting up balloons in the lobby and offering guests delicious complementary cupcakes (including a gluten-free option) for a couple of nights.

Now, of course, there are logical explanations for all the seemingly supernatural happenings here (except the unplugged air conditioner that continued to function; that’s still a mystery)—faulty plumbing, an unlevel piece of furniture, housekeeping leaving lights on. But isn’t a ghost story much more interesting?

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