My last house - long ghost story

[pennyia]

I've recently moved out of my old house (couldn't afford to stay there any more) and am trying hard to enjoy the peace & quiet. I never really used to believe in the paranormal. But now, I'm convinced there was something happening there. I just hope it stays there and doesn't follow me.

I was six months pregnant when my teenage son & I moved into a ranch house in a small town in central Iowa.  We had a lot of trouble with light bulbs blowing out when we would turn lights on & off right away when we moved in. I called in an electrician - who declared the house wiring 'fine'.  Amazing really, as I'm pessimistic enough to expect them to want to charge me thousands of dollars to fix a barely there issue.

Another thing we noticed right away was the bathroom door seemed like it was closing all the time... so the logic in my brain tried to figure out why. Every theory I could come up with always fell apart when I would experiment. Like, the heater vent was behind the door, so it must close when it went off, etc. But none of them were true.

I'd hear noises most every night from the kitchen... I usually assumed it was the cats (I had two at the time) but whenever it sounded like something was broken, I'd hop up to double-check, only most of the time I would wake the cats up when I tried to get out of bed. So it obviously wasn't them. After a while I went with the 'assumption' that it was the cats, so I wouldn't prove myself wrong and get freaked out.

My family members (even the ones that don't believe in this sort of thing) thought the events they witnessed were unexplainable. But that doesn't mean it was paranormal, just different.

Before my second son was born, I actually witnessed our 'visitor'. I was in bed about 10:00 pm laying on my side, facing the TV & the hallway that leads to the bathroom just outside my bedroom door.  I saw a young boy (about 4-5' tall) walking from the living room (light on in the living room) towards the bathroom, heard the door shut. Since I was sure the only ones home at the time were myself & my son... I got up to check. My son said no one went past him and there was no one in the bathroom. I didn't explain what I'd seen to my son (didn't want to scare him)... but a month later, he did admit he'd seen the ghost (or apparition or whatever) that night; and in fact, described him perfectly the way I'd seen it.  Since the light was behind him, I couldn't see his face well, but he was wearing a black baseball cap, had dark-brown hair, a dark sweatshirt and jeans.

After that the activity really picked up, from locked front doors & back doors when everyone went to bed to being sitting adjar when we got up, windows locked were opened, pools of water on the floor with no obvious source, items being moved, voices, noises, lights going on & off in the middle of the night... it was miserable. But then one day it seemed to almost stop. I didn't connect it all at once, but when things stopped in the rest of the house, my new son's room became a hot-spot... he was about 18 months old and wouldn't sleep in his own room any more. At first I blamed it on my changed work schedule or the stress I was under since I was switching jobs, but then I thought it was a phase. A good friend and I were discussing it as I was completely at my wits end. He'd been such a good sleeper before, and none of my mommy tricks was helping at all. It got so bad, I finally gave in and tried letting him 'cry it out' (which I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for)... he cried from 8 pm until 8 am... it obviously wasn't going to work. She's the one that connected all the bits & pieces together and she thought that it was because I had hung a cross shaped wind chime in the hall way that had been a gift from my former co-workers at the exact same time that the events outside of my son's room had stopped & the events in his room had started... and that we hadn't had a decent night since hanging it in the hallway.  I really didn't believe her at the time, but I did discuss it with my mother (who never believed any of the things I kept describing in the house)... she moved the cross intending to prove to me that it was all nonsense, however, it backfired. Withing 30 minutes of moving the cross, the bathroom door shut on its own, my bedroom light started acting up again... and that evening, my son went to bed without a single peep & slept through the night.  She claimed it was just coincidence, but it  was just too bizarre for me to ignore.

By now my son was 2, and his shoes were never be where they were supposed to be. At first, I assumed he was moving things. But then I started putting them out of reach... they would still disappear... so then I'd blame my teenager (poor kid got blamed for a lot that I now believe wasn't him).  But the weekend my teenager spent with grandma he couldn't be blamed for them still disappearing, and I was the only one in the house tall enough to reach them. How do they relocate from the first floor closet shelf to the kitchen floor???? I mean seriously! Another time we lost the remote to the TV in my bedroom. Of course, that's not paranormal... that's pretty normal in every house. Remotes just have the habit of disappearing. I just figured I'd find it under the bed, or stuck in the blanket folds or something... but nope, didn't find it for three weeks. Where was it? Three weeks later I found it laying on top of my bedroom pillow. Um, kind of impossible for it to have been there for three weeks - right? So, again, my teenager got blamed.... he claimed innocent... but if he had found it and put it where I could find it, why would he deny helping me find it? I thought he was just messing with me, but he said that he wasn't THAT bored - LOL.

Things were pretty active still, but April 2006 was the step beyond even what I could 'live with'. My boyfriend was coming to spend the weekend, so I cleaned the living room of all toys. By Sunday night, some of the toys had migrated back into the living room.  When I went to put them away, under the pile of toys (at the end of the couch, just feet from the hallway)  I found the oddest thing. It was a sheet (an obvious photocopy) neatly folded into fours. I opened it up to figure out if it was important or trash, and couldn't believe my eyes. It was a maid's work-schedule for a hotel (that had since changed its name) for Thanksgiving 2003.  ???!!! WTH? Anyway, I was standing there staring at this schedule for the longest time, turned to show it to my son to ask him about it... and right there, on top of the TV (where nothing had been five minutes before) was a senior picture of a girl inside of a baggie (of the type they don't make any more)... AND it was dated in the early 80's and had the girl's name written on it. I'm not sharing it, as after searching & researching, I actually found this woman. To protect her, I don't want to connect her name to this story. But, not only was her name on the photo (her married name, even though she didn't get married until a year after graduation ?), but she was one of the maids on the schedule for the hotel that I found. She had no connection to the house nor my sons nor my boyfriend. Recognized her photo, but was so uncomfortable with how it came into my hands that she wanted nothing to do with it.  I confronted both my boyfriend & my son...  both of whom were the only ones to step foot in the house besides me... neither claimed any knowledge of it... and I decided to believe them, because really, what would be the point of putting this in my house??? It was just too random.

I finally broke down and called in some investigators. (think TAPS, but local).  They identified an unusually high EMF readings in my house... the captured several EVPs (one that said my name) there were four distinct and different voices, they captured images of red streaks on their digital cameras, had a lot of new batteries drain unexpectedly, the bathroom door did shut while they were there (but they were on break, and the women had turned off the cameras to use the bathroom); and even captured EMF spikes on EMF readers that were placed along the hallway - kind of like a 'phantom motion sensor' that went off about every six minutes and would progress from the living room end of the hallway, and go down to the bathroom and ended at the bathroom.

We finally moved out, and things have been much more peaceful in my apartment, although I have to admit, the issues with light bulbs failing more often than they should still sets my teeth on edge. I never discussed any of this directly  with my son, although he probably did hear me talking about it in general. But, when we moved, I didn't have any reason to talk about it. The first week, he would walk through the apartment looking in every room... when I asked him what he was looking for he'd simply state 'there are no ghosts here".  Thank Goodness!

 As many of my friends have heard the story, and I'm assuming like them, most readers of this post will simply try to explain away everything we experienced. And it's totally feasible that some of the things that happened may have a non-paranormal explanation. But, when you look at the totality of all the things I witnessed.... I'm a complete believer. I simply can't deny what I saw with my own eyes.

[YamahaGoddess]

Feb. 18, 2008 at 9:48 PM that's pretty freaky and awesome at the same time! (yes i like stuff like this!) my husband swore up and down our old house was hunted. he used to see shadows and even his friend who was staying with him said he heard kids in our living room when there was no one there and all tv's were off. Thanks for sharing!