When you are a ghost, don't sit in town. Sad cases will wait for you to unghost so they can kill you and pat themselves on the back about killing 100 people when 80% of those were newbies just unghosting.

If you have to go to your pit to get stuff (better to go to your corpse if you can), wait outside of town somewhere until a few hours (game time) after you regain corporeal form. Then run past the pit and take a look in it without stopping. Do NOT stand there. If your stuff isn't there, run out of town to somewhere quiet and make another pass at the pit in a couple of hours.

I would also suggest playing a good align OR a neutral healer, possibly. Then you are of use to everyone and not specifically an enemy of anyone. Some will still kill you because they are lowbie bashers, but if you roleplay well you should find it easy to avoid them (using gate etc) and people will take you along to gain levelsa lot.