I don't have much, really.  I didn't get into this because of any particular event.

But I recall being very young, maybe 8 years old, and home alone with my bigger brother one evening, who was 6 years older than I;  he was sick, in bed, in his room upstairs.  The rest of the family (parents, other brother, sister) all went to go out for ice cream briefly, as my family often did on a certain night of the week back then.  For whatever reason, I either opted or was told to stay home with my sick brother while they ran out.  It usually only took 10 minutes anyway.
While everyone was out, I decided to bop on downstairs to the kitchen and get some cookies.  I then hopped up on the counter so as to reach the cabinet where the cookies were, opened the cabinet, grabbed a few, and then, I heard it – thump..  thump..  thump.. sounding exactly like slow, heavy deliberate footstps coming up from the basement.  I quickly remembered no one else was supposed to be home.  Yikes!  At first, I refused to believe it.  I was at the age where I was just conquering nightmares, and I wasn't going to chicken out while awake!   ..thump… thump .. they drew closer and closer to the top steps, the sound and pitch were unmistakably footsteps.  Well, when it sounded like they were only a step or two away from the top, I couldn't take it anymore.  I bolted upstairs like lightning, scared out of my mind.
That's all I really remember.  I don't really remember everyone else coming home, certainly not anyone explaining to me that someone had stayed behind, which would've diffused the whole thing.

No one in my family walked slow and heavy like that, unless they were deliberately trying to scare me.  And how would they know I'd go to the kitchen for cookies if they were? Or was my mom home after all, coming up the stairs with a basket of laundry or something?  How come I didn't hear the dryer door shut first then?  It doesn't seem like my mom would come up so slowly, and not say a peep the whole time either. The footsteps didn't sound like hers either, I think I'd know that sound by then.
I'll never know.  But nothing else ever happened there either, for that matter. 

One other, more compelling story, but this isn't really about me, it's about my son.  And it's in three parts.

Part A:  My son is two and then some, playing in the living room one afternoon while my wife and a newer neighbor from right nextdoor are talking on the sofa.  My son starts talking to the front door, (which was closed) and my wife asks, "Who are you talking to honey?".. my son replies, "the man".  "What man?"  "The man standing right there!!" "There's no man there, hon".. "Yes he is.. he's right there!" my son insisted.
My wife and neighbor got creeped out, the wife told me. My son described him and said he had a very rough "grrr" kind of voice. Unfortunately, I wasn't there to see this whole transaction for myself.

Part B: 6 months or so later -give or take a month-  my son sees the same guy again, this time, at the foot of our basement stairs, just sitting there. Okay, now that's creepy.

Part C: Here's the fun part: a little less than a year later, my wife is talking to a different neighbor, one who's been in the neighbor many many years, and knew the original occupant of our house – who also happened to build the house we now live in.  Well, they're just talking, and it came out from this elderly neighbor that the guy who built our house had had a traichometry done at some time in his life.. and, among other things.. that he used to sit at the foot of the basement stairs, on a little red stool (that we still have, it came with the house) and get his hair cut like every other Sunday or something.

So there ya go.. rough voice, sitting at the basement steps.. we even know the guy's name now.
Wooooo!

Stephen said:

Just to be certain: did you live in a duplex, or any other kind of attached housing?

 Good question!  But nope.  It was a brick rancher, built about 1950 by my father and his father, and a bunch of their contractor friends. The house was separate, and relatively new, especially at the time. (maybe 1970?)  We even lived on a double lot, smack in the middle of it, so the next closest house was a good 70 yards away or so.

I'm thinking, if there's a rational explanation, the best one is simply that someone remained home and I didn't know about it. Maybe my mom was walking up slowly and heavily because she was carrying somethng up..? Drives me nuts not knowing.  I don't think anyone else in the family (who's still alive) remembers anything about it.