The Ghostly Burglar of the Columbia House
Boarders at a downtown Seattle hotel were baffled by a mysterious thief who appeared to move through locked doors while they slept—only to have the landlady turn the blame back on them.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Sam Cohn, who resides at the Columbia house along with his friend Charles Mark, the furrier, made the following statement: 'After Mark and I retired at room No. 5 quite early last evening, and as usual left our door unlocked. In the morning when we waked up, we found our trousers had been rifled. We instituted a search and found one pair in the ladies' toilet and one pair in the office. The thief who had entered the room while we were asleep robbed me of $12 and Mark of $18. I had a gold watch, for which I paid $65, which was not taken. When I told the landlady of what had occurred, she said we must have been walking in our sleep, and that our own clothing had 'tired' me, or I never should have said anything about the burglary.' Several other people in the house had similar experiences, and when they complained to the landlady she told them jokingly that they had been walking in their sleep. Persons living almost directly opposite the Columbia house, on Third street, heard loud noises about 1:30 yesterday morning, but saw nothing.
“When I told the landlady of what had occurred, she said we must have been walking in our sleep.”
This 1888 account of a hotel burglary—with a dismissive landlady gaslighting her tenants—parallels the modern frustrations of Seattle renters dealing with property crime and unresponsive management. It captures the precarious, semi-public nature of life in the city's early lodging houses.
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