The Playful Spirit
Oct 25 '04
The Bottom Line What's the chance that the new place I live is haunted? Well I guess my number came up!
Having had plenty of opportunities to experience the supernatural in the past, I didn’t move into our new place expecting to experience anything strange or out of the ordinary. I guess I figured I had already been there and done that, so why should I be bothered again?
The multitude of crucifixes everywhere in the house should have been a giveaway, but neither my boyfriend and I, nor his sister thought much of it. We just laughed to one another as we were looking over the house. We thought it was strange that no one had lived in the 2nd floor apartment for over 20 years, but we didn’t really think anything of it beyond the weirdness.
It was kind of eerie up there – and a big reason I pushed for the 1st floor apartment (that and I didn’t want to lug everything up the stairs), even though it needed a lot more work than upstairs. I mean, the place looked like a time capsule. When we first looked at the house, the old telephone was on the wall, clothes were still in the closet and everything, but nothing had been touched in 20 years.
Our apartment on the other hand seemed far from spooky – it had been trashed and it took two months of fairly solid work to fix it up, make sure everything worked and paint the place before we finally moved in.
How it started
Before I was even aware of anything – my boyfriend would be there painting when he’d hear someone calling his name. He’d get down from the ladder and go and look out to see if someone was at the door or was in the house and there was never anyone there.
When we’d be working in a room, I could swear I saw something move by the door in another room – just out of the corner of my eye. I’d get up and look and there’d be nothing there.
Once we got mirrors up, I’d be washing my hands or something and catch a shadow race across the mirror. When I’d turn around, there wouldn’t be anything there.
Scary Crap
This all had been going on for several months and there were other things, like footsteps in one apartment or the other when that apartment was empty (we heard a footstep upstairs, or she heard footsteps downstairs), or having a UPS package rejected. She even called UPS and said that the only way for a package to be refused was for someone to tell the driver they wouldn’t take it. None of were home when they tried to deliver.
Then one night my boyfriend was talking about things in the house that were making him think it was haunted like the voices, the sounds from other apartment, and things falling off of shelves throughout the house when we remembered we had to feed his sister’s cat upstairs. I had tried to talk him out of thinking anything of it, as I didn’t really feel like living in a haunted house. So we went outside and went to unlock the door to her apartment when we realized the door was wide open. We had just been out there about ½ an hour earlier and the door wasn’t open. He just about threw up and my stomach knotted up and I was like “damn, that’s weird,” trying to stay all cool and stuff.
Believe me, first off thinking that someone could be robbing the place, and second off thinking that it really was haunted, I never went more slowly into a place. I turned on ever single light and we fed the cat and made sure the door was locked when we went back out.
It keeps on going
Ever the skeptic, I’ve tried to remain objective about the whole thing and find rational explanations where I could. Like all the noise, it’s an old house that’s probably settling so squeaks and groans are expected.
Random noises calling out your name isn’t all that expected though.
The shadows in the mirrors and the glimpses of something through the doors could just be figments of my imagination or reflections and flashes from traffic outside or any other perfectly normal thing.
But then again, I don’t think it would be so often.
The things we find on the floor or out of place could just be from us forgetting where we had it, or an unstable placement of it originally.
However, are we really that forgetful and not careful?
Who is it?
None of us know the history of the house that well and we can’t seem to find anything out. We do know it’s about 100 years old and that several generations of the same family lived there.
The spirit or force doesn’t seem to be malevolent, but more playful than anything else. It seems to be playing with us, moving stuff, turning on and off lights, and making noises.
My boyfriend’s sister seems to think it’s an old lady – wandering throughout the house.
I’m not sure what it is – but in general I’m not scared of the house, I just get a bit freaked out at times.
The straw that broke the camel’s back for me…
Last night we were all sitting in the upstairs apartment watching the Red Sox game when a bit of noise and motion from the room next to the living room where we were. We were able to catch the tail end of a book flying out of the bookcase and landing on the floor, about 4 feet from the bookcase.
This wasn’t an example of a book out of place that fell with some shaking in the house or anything. This was a book that was in the shelf with the other books, somehow pulled out of those books and shot about 4 feet across the room.
We looked around to see if there was any reason for it. The cat was in the living room with us, it couldn’t have done it and there was nothing else around the bookshelf that could have pulled on the book or anything. It just seems to have slipped out from between the other books and flown across the room.
Eeek…
And so…
I’ve pretty much become resigned to the fact that things where I live now aren’t quite normal. I get up the basement stairs a little quicker since I don’t like looking down in the dark, I try not to really stare at a mirror or look at the doors to other rooms, and I’ve stopped really wondering why cell phones don’t work in the house, but work fine outside.
I’ve seen a book fly out of a bookcase and land several feet away with nothing apparently touching it and I’ve seen a door wide open that was closed just a ½ an hour before that.
I’m not really freaked out – at this point – it’s like a party story – you know, “you won’t believe what happens in our house.” Though I will admit that on nights when I’m the only one there, I turn on just about every light.
No one liked my idea for selling tickets and having people tour the house though, I had figured we should at least make a buck or two out of the haunting.
I’ve decided to add this to the original ghost write-off I had a while back, so if you’re interested in reading more stories, or submitting your own for the write-off, check out the Great Ghost Write-Off.
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