Hinkler Central cleaner claims mall is haunted

From a little boy in olden day clothes, to a lady in white and a mysterious shadow figure, a former cleaner claims that once the Bundaberg CBD’s main shopping centre closes for the night, strange things come out. Read about his encounters.

Hinkler Central is one of the Bundaberg region's most popular shopping centres.

Originally two separate, smaller centres, the two were joined years ago, with the space in between providing room for a number of new stores.

During Bundaberg‘s 2010-11 and 2013 flood events, the centre flooded, but it has always bounced back bigger and better.

But as thousands of shoppers flock to its doors every day, other things apparently lurk behind the scenes.

Speaking to the Bundaberg NewsMain, Michael Cavanagh, a former cleaner at the centre, said those who were there after dark told tales of a woman in white, a dark shadow person and a little boy in olden day clothes who played on the escalators.

Mr Cavanagh claimed the young boy looked to be dressed in late 1800s to early 1900s clothing - a button-up shirt, hat, shorts with suspenders and shoes and socks.

“I would just see him occasionally appear at the top of the escalators near Kmart and he would run down them,” he said.

In the last part of his night shifts, Mr Cavanagh explained he was often on his own.

“This one night I had been feeling like I was being watched the whole shift and in the last hour of my shift I was buffing the floors and I was doing the walkway between Sanity and the foodcourt, I was looking at the floor and when I looked up at the windows of the exit, in the reflection behind me, I saw this black shadow of a person standing a few metres behind me like it was watching me,” he said.

“I kinda froze up just looking at it in the window reflection and then it just turned on its heels and ran towards the Kmart end of the shopping centre, I turn around and went over to where it was watching me and looked in the direction it ran but there was nothing down that way.”

The mysterious apparition appeared one more time that night before Mr Cavanagh finished buffing the floors.

This time, it appeared near the food court and stood inside a jewellery store just watching.

Others have claimed to have seen the shadow person in the underground car park.

Then there's the lady in white.

Mr Cavanagh said she was known to appear at the top of the ramp near Woolworths.

“She usually appears when you are halfway down the ramp and turn around so you are facing that way and she stands there watching you,” he said.

“But I only saw her once and it was as I was walking towards the ramp one night to vacuum it and she appeared at the top of the ramp, but she was like floating just off the ground and then just floated gracefully down the ramp.”

Objects were also often known to move about, according to the former cleaner, and there were times when no one else was around and chairs would move by themselves.

“I was cleaning some toilets one time and someone started talking to me and it sounded like my coworker and I really thought it was them,” Mr Cavanagh said.

“I don’t remember what I was talking about to the voice, but when I came out of the toilets, there was no one around and my coworker was at the other end of the shopping centre.

“I thought he was playing a joke on me at first but he seriously had no idea what I was talking about.”

Mr Cavanagh worked at the centre between 2016 and 2017.