The Killer Upstairs and other Babysitting Urban Legends

Urban legends inform our social beliefs. They convey how to act in public and help align our moral compasses. For teens, the message is clear: stay close to home, cars are a gateway to death and destruction, and girls are always a target, even while babysitting. Here are a few babysitting urban legends retold and unpacked for their hidden meanings.

The Killer Upstairs

The story goes that a teenage girl is babysitting for a family she's babysat for a few times before. She's managed to get the three kids fed, bathed, and into bed with little trouble before settling down in front of the T.V. to pass the evening when the house phone starts to ring. The girl rushes to answer it, so it doesn't wake the children. She says hello several times, but the caller remains silent. Thinking that it's probably a wrong number, the girl hangs up.

A few minutes later, the phone rings again. This time the caller breathes heavily. Irritated, the girl slams the phone into its cradle only to have it ring immediately. Furious, she answers and yells, "What!" The caller breathes heavily and asks in a gravelly voice, "Have you checked on the children?"

Frightened, the girl looks towards the stairs where the children sleep in their second-story rooms. How could this person possibly know she's babysitting? The only people she told were her parents and the parents of the children. Before she can hang up, the caller asks again, "Have you checked on the children?"

Panicking, the girl hangs up the phone down again and phones the operator. She tells the operator about the calls, and the operator says she will trace the next call and stay on the line for at least a minute. No sooner has the girl hung up with the operator than the phone rings again. With a shaking hand, the girl answers. The gravelly voice asks again, "Have you checked on the children?" All the hair on the back of the girl's neck stands on end as she listens to the strange man's heavy breathing heavily before he ends the call.

The babysitter places the phone back on the receiver and waits for the operator to call. A few minutes later, the phone rings. The girl snatched it up and breathed a sigh of relief when she heard the operator's voice. The operator told the girl to get out because she's traced the call to inside the house. Terrified, the babysitter drops the phone and runs to the children's room. There she finds them all hacked to pieces.

Problems with the legend

While the issue with most urban legends is that they begin with 'this happened to my brother's best friend's sister's aunt,' which places the teller at a safe yet believable distance from the tale, the inability to provide proof is a red flag for anyone's B.S. meter.

Specifically, in the Killer Upstairs, a central problem with the story is that phone operators don't and never have had the authority or means to trace phone calls.

Additionally, the story doesn't work if there's only one phone line in the home. You can't make a landline call from phone to phone if there's only one phone line.

Possible Updates

Could the advent of cell phones change this story to make it more believable? It's easy to see how the issues with the phone line can be remedied through the combination of cellphones and a landline. A newer updated version could do away with the operator and used an app to locate the caller. GPS would track the caller inside the home. This update would serve to isolate the babysitter further, making the story even scarier.

The Dead Friend Version

Two college roommates who can't afford to go home over winter break stay in the deserted dorm. After spending most of the day inside watching movies, one of the roommates offers to pick up takeout. They order food, and she sets off to a nearby restaurant to pick up their dinner. After nearly an hour, there is still no sign of the roommate. The second girl begins to worry when she hears scraping noise coming from outside their ground-floor window. Curious and frightened for her roommate, who hasn't returned, the second young woman goes to check on the sound. She heads outside and discovers the beaten body of her roommate. Her nails are broken and bloodied as she tries to get her roommate's attention by scratching the wall under their dorm room window.

The Delivery Version

The roommates order food, and a knock at the door announces that the food has arrived. One of the roommates goes to answer the door but doesn't return. The second goes to check and finds her roommate stabbed to death in the open doorway.

The Babysitter and the Friend Version

Here a teen gets a babysitting job with a new family. Their house is remote, and out of the way, so the teen asks her best friend to accompany her. The two girls arrive, bid the parents goodbye, and get the kids ready for bed. Halfway through the night, the friend checks on the children (or to use the bathroom) and doesn't return. The babysitter begins to hear a thumping on the hardwood floor upstairs. Worried, she goes to investigate. She finds her friend lying on the hallway floor, her arms and legs amputated and her tongue cut out. In horror, the babysitter realizes the thumping is her friend pulling herself with her chin.

This last one is pretty ridiculous but fun for the gore factor. The ridiculousness of this version shows that many urban legends have a target audience much younger than the characters in the story. Who else would believe such a silly story? This is why elementary and middle schools are a hotbed for urban legend proliferation.

Babysitting Urban Legends Unpacked

The main message of babysitting urban legends is that girls alone are always in danger, even when inside a familiar home. Girls are helpless victims that need to be guarded and protected.

In western societies, babysitting is a rite of passage where young women play the role of mom and housewife. Housewife is a future role imposed by a male-dominated society. The Killer Upstairs isn't just a scary story but a warning to young women to adhere to society's traditional values.

In The Killer Upstairs, a frightening, dominating man is above (on top of) the babysitter by being upstairs. The urban legend reinforces a girl/woman/female's place in society: subservient to and threatened by men.

The subtext to babysitting urban legends:

• Telephone – A psycho harasses a teen through her favorite mode of communication.
• Much like the Killer in the Backseat, the babysitter discovers the danger is right behind her the whole time.
• By killing the children in the Killer Upstairs, the man brings about the most catastrophic failure a mother can suffer – the loss of her children that she should have prevented.
• The fact that the babysitter is more focused on the television than the children while they are being murdered is another message. The addition of a boyfriend and a makeout session can also work here. The babysitter secretly brings over her boyfriend instead of watching the children. This is the lynchpin for slasher movies like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street.