I thought such thing is common? There was this list of Top 5 Most Haunted Universities and their fair shared of urban legends too.
https://www.topuniversities.com/blog/5-worlds-most-haunted-universities
Also, you're right about "folklore", I once had a class on it and gave me another perspective to see that folklore and scary tales can be invented as the means of cultural preservation, think of not touching certain objects because they are frail and old. Human seems to have interesting relationship to fear and punishment, so maybe that's why.