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Classic [[Urban Legends|urban legend]] horror scenario: Someone, usually a young woman who is home alone, often a baby sitter, gets a [[Harassing Phone Call|creepy phone call]]. The police trace it but learn that the calls are coming from inside the house.
This is a partly [[Discredited Trope]], because the whole urban legend relies on a myth about old analog land lines: the idea that you could, by tapping the receiver button carefully, manage to dial the telephone number of the building/home you were occupying at the time. Before cell phones, it was generally not possible to call someone from the same house you were in (at least without additionaltwo-line land linesservice, which are uncommon in a single dwelling, or aone lineof on anthe old mechanical step-by-step exchangeexchanges which mayhad haveto allowedallow "revertive calls" byto diallingsupport your[[Party ownLine numberTelephone]] -calls orto some otheranother party on the same party line - then hanging up).<ref>In fact, tapping the switch-hook is electrically no different than what the dial does: It momentarily opens the circuit. Five momentary openings in quick succession registers at the exchange as the digit "5", and so on. The dial just does it more conveniently and more reliably. And if you dial the number of the line you're on, whether with the dial or the switchhook, whether or not there are other extensions on the line, you get a busy signal; that line ''is'' off-hook, after all. Nor is it electrically possible for the exchange to ring the other extensions on a line when one of them is off-hook; the low impedance of an off-hook phone will essentially short out the ring voltage.</ref><ref>I can't speak for all carriers, but Verizon in Western Washington as of a few years ago, when you dialed your own number you got a quick recording telling you to hang up the receiver... when the receiver was hung up, they would ring your number with nobody on the other line. In some exchanges, it had to be this way because of "party lines" where more than one subscriber was physically connected to the same line with a different number. The only way to call the other party on the same line was a "revertive call", done by dialling the number, hanging up, then picking up again when the ringing stopped – so an exchange which supported rural party line service had to allow this. So on at least one phone network, at at least one point in time, this urban legend was plausible.</ref><ref>When you do same party calling (phone company term) on a land line like this, the carrier will play a similar message when the caller picks up the phone, identifying the call as being from the same number. This is still used commonly in places with multiple buildings on the same phone line.</ref>
The sense of dread that a phone call is coming from the very building you are occupying may be lost on people who are used to being able to call anyone from anywhere at any time. However, learning that instead of being safe in your home, you're actually locked in the building with the psycho who's been making [[Harassing Phone Call|threatening calls]], can still be pretty scary, [[Cell Phone]] or not. And no, Caller ID won't make it clear that this is a [[Short Distance Phone Call]].
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