I can’t even believe I’m not the only one. I lived in a house when I was 12 in a small town, The Dalles. I was the only person who lived downstairs, with about 3/4 of it being underground. Since the main entrance was upstairs, I’d really only be downstairs for sleeping, hanging in my room, or on the computer in the room opposite of mine, with the family den in between. There was a hallway between the 2 rooms that you could look down, going deeper into the house, veering right towards the laundry room. There was a laundry chute from the upstairs main bathroom to the laundry room.
I would have a habit in the morning of waking up, getting dressed, opening the door, leaving my light on, crossing the darkness of the family den to turn on the stairwell light, doubling back to my room to turn off my bedroom light, then walking upstairs to get ready for school and head out. One day, I’ve gone through the process of getting the stairwell light on, turn off my bedroom door and hear a raspy breath nearby. I look down the hallway and see the hat mam, red eyes and black form with a hat! I bolted upstairs to the bathroom and swore I heard noises from the cupboard where the laundry chute was located, thunking. I looked at it later and saw there was a cover for the chute that I had never noticed, we always kept it up. My mom didn’t even process we had a cover for it.
A couple months later, during the summer, I was playing video games in that house, upstairs. The living room was right above my room, but I preferred to be upstairs when others weren’t home. I was busy playing a video game when I heard noises downstairs in my bedroom, like banging on the door. Suddenly, I hear noise clambering up the stairs and a loud crash against the back door. I came creeping around the corner in the kitchen, saw it was my flip flops, and just bolted out the back door. I never stayed in that house alone after that and felt blessed when we moved a few months later. I don’t know if this was all the hat man, or if there just were more phenomenon happening.