College Roommate Is a Poltergeist

A student in one of Wendy Hornsby’s classes explained that her work had fallen off recently because “there’s a ghost in my house and it kept me up all night long for a week.”

It must be a scary spirit, because it’s not like the haunted student is a kindergartner. She’s in Hornsby’s history class at Long Beach City College.

Hornsby recommended that the student find a nice, quiet library where she can study.

Or nap.

FLOATING RIGHT ALONG: When mobster Bugsy Siegel’s half-century-old safe was opened the other day at the Formosa Cafe in Hollywood, where Siegel once had an office, it was . . .

Empty.

Yes, I was shocked too.

And so was Carl Belknap, owner of In-A-Floor Safe Co., who tells me that a psychic had “telepathically entered” the safe beforehand and spotted “envelopes of names, a ruby ring and two deeds to properties in Nevada.”

When I hear something like that I start to question my faith in psychics.

SPEAKING OF MYSTERIES: Welcome to this column’s edition of “The Wacky World of Numbers,” showcasing unusual sightings of figures by readers over the years (see accompanying). They include:

* An opening on the 22th (snapped by Paul Rabwin)

* A third-rate spelling of a floor designation (Irene Guimera)

* A Midwestern bank whose name would bedevil a numerologist (Nancy Stewart)

* And, finally, Roman numeral signs for alternate paths to one of the nine levels of civilization unearthed at a site in Troy in what is now Turkey (Bill Kinman).

That’s enough IV now.

STUPID CRIMINAL TRICKS: Police went to check on a car parked in an alley in Venice, whereupon the driver sped away. But the motorist seemed unable to control the vehicle, which had been stolen. He crashed a short distance away and was captured, according to The Blue Line, an LAPD newspaper. Police said the suspect, a juvenile, told them, “I’m not a very good driver.”

SCHOOL STARS: West Granada High has been renamed Kirk Douglas High in honor of the actor whose foundation made a $25,000 grant to the San Fernando Valley school. Some other celebs whose names are attached to schools in various ways:

* Hart High School in Newhall (named for silent screen cowboy star Bill “Two Gun” Hart)

* Steve Garvey Junior High in Lindsay, Calif.

* John Elway Field at Granada Hills High

* Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center at Cal State Long Beach

* Michael Jackson Auditorium at Gardner Elementary School, Hollywood

* Barbra Streisand Professorship in Intimacy and Sexuality at USC

* Johnny Carson Television Center at USC

* Claire Trevor Bren Theater at UC Irvine

* Georgia Frontiere Library at Hamilton Elementary School, St. Louis

In case you’re wondering, there are no schools that bear the name of Frontiere in L.A. or Orange County.

miscelLAny:

Don Mann of Malibu points out that the cities that recorded the most dog bites of mail carriers last year, Houston and L.A., also are the two smoggiest regions in the nation. Maybe the mutts are angry about being outside in that polluted air.