Valerie on the Stairs (2006) on Netflix

Plot summary

Rob Hanisey owes rent and bills and has no publisher. After the tenant before him, Terry, takes his own life, Rob gets a room at the Highberger House, where the supervisor, Nancy Bloom, says a wealthy philanthropist bought the building in the 1930s so that unpublished writers could live there without paying until their first book came out. In the house Rob keeps running into Valerie, a young woman he first takes for a ghost. The noise of his chasing after her irritates the other residents, Patricia Dunbar most of all, while Bruce Sweetland stays cordial. Valerie asks for his help against the Beast, and before she can explain who she is, something dark drags her into a wall.