 My house is quiet now. But from 1999-2001 there was a definate something hanging around. A paranoia on my part perhaps? Emotion from my Grandmothers death? A murdered 80's Hooker? Don't worry, I'll expound upon my theories later. Firstly, I would like to present the "facts" of the haunting.
What follows is pretty much a trascript of a page from earlier in this pages history. Its been edited slightly for reading ease and to make it sound nicer. Heh.. It was written in February of 2001 right in the thick of the strange occurances. It started off innocently enough; easily explained events on their own. The TV's would act up, turning themselves off or on, changing channel. We just assumed it was a loose connection, or bad TV's. Thumps and bumps and clicks. But as I said, we live in a condo and generally blamed the neighbors, even when reason would dictate it could not have been them. They were out, or the sound was obviously coming from inside our house. But in March of 1999 my grandmother died. And this is when the idea of a paranormal explanation began to surface. And not without good reason. The disturbances became more frequent and more severe. Radios would now short out for no reason, the lights would flicker off and on, and the TV problems became much more frequent, sometimes turning themselves on or off 5 times in a row. So soon after the loss of her mother my mum was immediatly convinced that it was Grandma trying to send us a message. I was not as convinced. Not because I didn't believe in ghosts but because playing with the TV was not Grandma's style. I realise I didn't know Grandma as well as mum, but you have to remember my mother was grief stricken and her judgement was thusly clouded. At the time I think she would have taken any sign she could get. In fact, I think that so much emotion in the house at the time would have made it easier for anything odd to happen, or seem like it was happening, whether it was spirits, or our own restless energy. As the pain of Grandmas passing eased things seemed to settle. The TVs still acted up, but not as persistantly and the other electrical disturbances ceased, like the lights. Everything seemed normal untill the fall of 2000. That was when our noisy nieghbors moved out. With the demon spawn children from next door removed and only an elderly couple next to us we thought we could count on some peace and quiet. But the thumps and banging continued, much more noticeable now that we were essentially alone. It was around this time that I began to have panic attacks on the stairs. When you walk into my house, you step into the foyer and the first thing you see is the stairs. To the right of the stairs is a wee snippet of hallway, which lasts untill you reach the living room/dining room/kitchen. Its much bigger than it sounds. Anyway, I would walk up the stairs and Id get about 3 or 4 stairs up and an overwhelming terror would sieze me and Id have to run up the last 10 or so stairs. I couldn't not. I think I'd have a heart attack or I'd piss myself if I didn't. Or, and this is what it felt like, something horrible would grab me from behind and rip my spine out. It started as a tingle in the small of my back and would spread untill my whole body felt like ice. I only got this feeling at night, and only every once in a while. It didn't matter if there were lights on, or if people were still in the living room, or if someone was in front of me on the stairs. I always assumed it was just another one of my...er...charming quirks. But perhaps its something more... Feelings are the weakest evidence you can have for something, so I'll just get them over with right now. The rooms that are creepiest to me are the stairs, the computer room, my bedroom and the path behind my house. (Ed. note: the computer room is now my bedroom and my old room is a spare room. For conveniance these terms have been changed through out the rest of the story) If feelings were all I had to offer you, I would understand if you scoffed and left right now, but thankfully I have some slightly more concreate, if not actually solid evidence. We shall start with what I have seen. Almost as insubstantial as feelings, what any one person sees is as subject to ridicule and disbelief as anything. But what the hell. In my bedroom is where most odd things I've seen have been. Out of the corners of my eyes I see white things flash and dart, or an odd shadow will disapear when I move my head. I suffer from the same in the spare room, but with less consistancy. Finaly we have the things no one can deny. The noises. My other neighbors, the old couple also moved out soon after and my family was compleatly alone. Still the banging and clicking continued. And grew louder, and increased in frequency. By the time our new nieghbors moved in -another elderly couple- the fact that something weird was happening could no longer be denied. At the very least you had to admit we had some very noisy pipes. The most bizarre, alarming, and certainly the hardest to explain happened to me one night when I was home alone. A little structural explanation to start with. After you come up my stairs you see a bit of wall. Turn down the hall to the right and you see a closet that holds the washer and drier on the right of you and the spare room on the left. Continuing down the hall you see a linen closet next to the washer and drier and my parents bedroom on the left. The bathroom is at the end of the hall, and the door to the master bedroom which I use for my computer (and bedroom) is next to the linen closet. The Computer room is connected to the bathroom by a sliding door. Anyway, I was sitting at the computer with my back to the door, when I heard a loud thump down the hall near my bedroom. I turned in my chair, and stared at the door, which was closed. I heard another thump, closer this time. I was afraid by now, because I knew that there were no nieghbors in either of the houses, and that the cats were in the room with me. My parents weren't home either. Another thump and another. They were faster and coming closer, they seemed to be going along the opposite wall. They went up and down a couple times and then stopped. I waited a few moments and then jumped up and whipped the door open, to find nothing on the other side. The whole time this was happening the cats were going absolutely ape-shit, yowling and hissing and jumping around. We have very docile cats. They ran out of the room when I opend the door, and hid downstairs in the living room. So did I. Another odd noise that everyone in my family could tell you about was when we heard the worlds loudest crash obviously coming from downstairs in the living room. Everyone lept up to go see what had fallen, and why since the cats were quietly contained in the garage for the night. When we got there everything was in perfect order. My parents slept through the time the bathroom door squeaked all night long and they were also asleep for the loud banging experianced [Jan 26].
My mother has had some experiances of her own. She claims that she has been in the shower, and something has opended the shower curtain on her. She has also described something similer to my panic attacks happening to her on the path behind my house. And although they aren't saying anthing (hahaha...) my cats have also had some experiances. They see things that arent there. And you may say "Oh well, all cats do that," but these are clearly disturbing things. The cats will bristle and hiss and back away from nothing at all. I have a couple of theories of what it was that was causing a haunting in so new a house. The first, most boring and most likely to appeal to the skeptics is that it was all in our minds. I was going through a phase at the time of being very interested in the paranormal and looking for it wherever I went. (I still rather do this, actually.) We had just lost my Grandma and my mother was probably looking for a something to make her feel better. The second theory is that it was in fact my Grandmother. Not much to really say about that. The third, and though in some ways more outlandish but ultimately more believable, that it was my Grandfather. Despite the fact that Grandma died recently and Grandpa died when I was four, I find it easier to believe it was Marvin. This comes from the fact that the experiances were frightning. Somehow I just don't think Grandmas presence would be scary. My Grandpa, on the other hand, was crazy. He shot himself with a homemade gun (and we all know how suicides are often the supposed causes of hauntings). Lastly, he was defineatly the stronger character of the two. He may have been able to take advantage of the emotionally charged atmosphere of our home and manifest, even after all that time.
The last, and most outragious theory I have is that it is the spirit of a murdered prostitute from the 80's. Why you ask? Because of a weird incident that happened around the same time as everything else. One night, after getting home late from...somewhere, just as we were all spilling out of the car a strange, drunk, disheveled woman in rather 80's/early 90's clothes (short skirt, colored tights, fringy blue cowboy coat, big hair) appeared out of no where. When I say she appeared out of nowhere Im not kidding. She was just suddenly there. She asked if we could call her a cab. Bluebird Taxi was her request. We said okay, wait out here for a moment. We went inside for a second before mom realised she didn't know any Bluebird Taxi company. She popped back outside to ask if she knew the number or if the regular yellow AC Taxi would be Ok, but she was gone. Utterly vanished. We looked for her. We just said "Oh well, she must have shambled off," and dismissed the incident. I didn't think of it again, untill I saw the same woman walking down the path behind our house one day. I wouldn't have noticed her exept she didn't make any noise when she walked. On the gravel. I thought she might have been a murdered prostitute from the 80's after stewing about it for probably longer than is healthy. She may have been dumped in the empty lot that our complex was before. We do (unfortunatly) have a lot of hookers in the general area. I also know that a dead hooker is not exactly breaking news. There was one small blonde woman who used to work the area that was beat up and left in a ditch a couple years ago and it barely made the news. We only found out because someone Daddy works with knew a cop who mentioned it. Or maybe it was different women and I have too much imagination. Whatever. |
