Toys R Us

by Dara Barnwell

I’m sure everyone has a desolate, crumbling old building in their neighborhood. The windows are broken and cracked showing lurking darkness deep in the halls. The doors hanging crazily or maybe boarded up. Grafitti covering the walls and trash in the unkempt yard. The neighborhood kids know beyond a shadow of a doubt it’s haunted. It’s very existence SCREAMS haunted. If you were to even put one toe in the front yard some ghost or ghoul would jump out of the house and get you.

But what places that are bright, sunny, and normal? No one suspects a place that many people walk through daily as a haunted place. Such was the case of the Sunnyvale, California Toys ‘R’ Us.

Toys R Us built a new location in Sunnyvale, CA in the 1970s. As employees began stocking the shelves they began to hear inexplicable sounds. Then the activity began to manifest. Employees saw toys flying off the shelves when no one but them was around. Balls began to bounce down aisles from the shadows. (Seriously?! Is there anything creepier besides dolls and bouncing balls?) Employees began to complain and after it opened, so did the customers.

Finally, Sylvia Browne-the medium-got wind of it and decided to make a visit. She ended up doing a seance in the middle of the store and allegedly came into contact with a spirit named Yonny or Johnny who was a Swedish immigrant. His spirit told her he was rejected by the ranch owners daughter that the building now sat on. She moved away to marry another and then by a tragic accident he died. However, she couldn’t convince him to move on. So Yonny or Johnny still lurks there.

I wondered what became of the store once Toys r Us became defunct. After doing some googling I found out it became a sporting goods store. No word if the ghost still haunts the building.