Over the course of a few days, I was aware of an ethereal man wondering about my house. He was gaining attention by showing himself to my seven year old and just being generally noisy around the house. I’ve drawn a pretty clear line to the ghosts around here that if they show up, they will be moved on with my assistance. Most of the time this is why they have shown up anyway, so it works out alright.

This was not the case with this man.

Late in the evening, I was winding down the day by watching some television alone on my couch. I felt him coming before he walked into the room. I could see him plain as day. He stopped at the end of the couch and looked at me.

He was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. He had a full beard and appeared to be in his forties. Immediately, I began my process for connecting to him and helping him move from this world to the next.

But instead of willingly leaving, he walked closer to me, sat in front of me on my coffee table and looked me square in the eyes.

I will admit, my heart rate elevated significantly at this point.

Then he leaned over closer to me placing one elbow on his knee, never breaking eye contact, then slowly and seriously states, “You can’t do that to me.” Followed by a smug grin.

At this point I thought my heart was going to pound out of my chest. I jumped up to turn on the light behind me and grabbed the remote control to raise the volume of the television to a window rattling level. I knew this would jolt me out of a state of mind where I could see or hear him.

And it worked. He disappeared. I slept with the lights and TV on that evening (I did turn the volume down a bit eventually).

I was on edge the next few days expecting to run into him again, but didn’t. My son had no more experiences with him either. I’m not sure who he was or what he wanted. Maybe he just wanted to scare me, which he succeeded in doing.

Believe it or not, not all of my experiences are dealings with dead folks. I have found I have some other abilities as well. Soon I will delve more into some skills I have recently discovered I’m pretty proficient at. But this story is about an ability I hope I never bring forth again.

I find that during emotionally charged times in my life, the ‘activity’ increases. Which is a fairly common thing, really. This particular series of events was somewhat concerning for me though. It started with a knocking that seemed to be coming from my walls. And seemed to follow me wherever I went. Some knocks were faint, but others were down right undeniable. While I found this annoying, living in this house, I wasn’t alarmed so much as just wondering how long I was going to have to put up with this!

The next day, however, I became concerned as I started to smell the overwhelming smell of sulphur. As if someone had lit a match, but minus the smoke smell. I smelled it at home, then later in the car. And I was picking the kids up from the sitter, several others smelled it too and began to investigate the possibilities of the smell’s origin.

What IS that?

Driving home, I noticed the gauges in my car started going wonky while I was in it. Needles jumping all over the place! 25 mph. No, wait, 90 mph. Half a tank of gas. No, wait, full, no empty….etc.

I was experiencing a new type of disturbance that was freaking me out. And it did not end there.

But before anything else happened, I turned to my old friend, google, for some research time. I looked up why I would be smelling the sulphur smell obviously not limited to one location.

What I found did not make me feel any better. After sifting through a ton of crap mixed in with some relevant information, I narrowed it down to a possibility of three things:

1) A Brain Tumor: Apparently, a common symptom of a brain tumor is smelling sulphur. Who knew? I did not. I pretty much ruled this one out straight away because of the fact that at least 3 other intelligent and functioning adults smelled it too. Unless we all have the same brain tumor, this can’t be my cause. On to possibility 2,

2) Aliens: Well, I believe in aliens…are they hunting me or something? At this point, I don’t know…I did have those ‘electrical disturbances’ in the car…hmmm…or,

3) Demon: Seriously? Shit.

Really? These are my three choices?

Then the night continued.

I was on my laptop in my bedroom and when I felt the sensation of my arm burning. Sort of like a fire type heat, but with a chemical type burn twist coming from the inside. It was strange. I pulled up my shirt sleeve to look at whatever was causing this pain. What I found I had to look at for a long time to make sense of it. The first thing I took note of was a scratch that was welting up in front of my eyes. Around this scratch was a red mark that looked like someone had been holding my arm very tightly for some time. But, I didn’t feel anyone touch my arm….

What gives here? I was so confused. I can always sense them before anything happens. I know when they enter the room or when I walk into a room that is ‘occupied’. This one was scaring me because I never felt it coming.

It was like a ninja ghost.

Despite my elevated heart rate, I needed to go on with my evening and keep it together, so I decided to change computers and went into the office and sat at the desk. I was just sitting in the rolling chair and was a solid two feet from the desk when I noticed a slight sway in the desk and the items resting on it. So I stopped to figure it out. No train going through. Earthquake? Nothing else was shaking…nope. While I sat pondering, it gained momentum. The desk was shaking fairly violently when I got out of the chair and left the room.

Going down the stairs, I hear the knocking in the walls again. The dogs couldn’t get away from me and out of the house fast enough. Cat, under the bed. Heart rate going up…

Thankfully, kids are seemingly unaffected at this point.

Around 4 AM, I emailed Chris (PROOV) and recounted the story, thus far, to him. After some discussing, he decided to again, involve Bishop Long. Here’s the response we got from him.

“Honestly, this sounds like a 100% case of Poltergeist and not Demonic. The fact that they are going through some pretty emotional turmoil right now, explains the knocking and the sulfur smell.

Poltergeist is not demonic. It is energy that is omitting from a person who is going through extreme emotional distress. When the person leaves the home, the activity will decrease in the home but when the person returns, the activity increases. Knocking is certainly very common for poltergeist.

There are some things that you can do. Have her stand next to a wall for a bit and see if you get any readings from knocking noises. Also, make sure that all curtains are removed from wall sockets. The number one form of destruction regarding poltergeist is fire.

Honestly, this does not sound like demonic to me but a very, very classic case of Poltergeist activity. I have seen this occur literally hundreds of times. The only way to eradicate the problem is to have the emotional distress under control. When the emotional distress is under control, they will see a dramatic decrease in activity.”

And he was completely correct.

I chilled. Activity stopped.

It seemed like such a simple answer. I know about poltergeists. Why did this not occur to me? I know that poltergeists are not actually spirits of once living people, but a person’s own energy causing a ruckus during times of angst. And this completely explains why I could never sense a presence. I was the presence!

I was my own ninja ghost.

Emotions and thoughts are powerful things. Much more powerful than most of us realize. Apparently, mine can beat on walls and shake desks.

In my experiences, ghosts have different personalities just as much as living people do. I don’t know if they are the same personalities that they had in their life here on Earth, because I’ve yet to come across a ghost I knew while they were living. But I bet they’re similar. And just like people, some of them are sweet as can be and some of them are just nasty to deal with. I thought I’d share a few examples of some of the more memorable spirits I have encountered inside my house.

This was the first ghost here in the house that scared the bejesus out of me. I walked out of my bathroom and saw him on the stairs sitting with his chin in both hands staring at me. He looked harmless enough. He didn’t say a word. But the vibe coming off of this spirit was alarming. Something about the energy of this kid sent my heart rate skyrocketing and I ran past him to get to my front door. This was one of the nights my husband came home from work to find me waiting on the porch so I wouldn’t have to go back in the house alone. This was the one and only time I encountered him.

I’ve written about this sad little girl before. She was not a nuisance at all. For years, she just followed me from time to time around the house seemingly for no other reason but to have company. Maybe she saw me as a maternal figure. I’m not sure. I’m hopeful that she is with her family again as she isn’t with me anymore.

This guy showed up at an inopportune time (for him anyway). I saw him several times. Sometimes he would just walk into the room, look at me as if he expected something from me and then walk out when I didn’t acknowledge him. He was new to being a ghost I think. He looked like anyone else you would pass at the mall with his modern clothing and hairstyle. One night, he leaned over my bed while I was laying down for the evening and said calmly, “I need your help with something.” Why this was bad timing is that I had no idea what I was doing with this ability. He was the first one that straight up asked for my help. I simply ignored him the best I could because what was I supposed to do? Now I would treat that situation very differently. He became rather insistent and imposing. His purpose for me was monumental though. I became so aggravated with his constant presence so close to me that one evening, I just turned around to face him and “pushed” him back. I have no idea how I did it, I just know that he backed off and left me after a couple more days. We refer to this “pushing back” ability around here as my Jedi Mind Trick. As annoyed as I was with him at the time, I hope he knows how grateful I am that he taught me that I can have some level of control. This allowed me to let go of the fear and move forward. So, thank you Man That Needed Help.

I have also mentioned this guy. He was the one that drove me nuts with the whistling for weeks on end. He falls into the category of the ghosts that just do what they do with little regard for getting attention. I wouldn’t file him under residual haunt though because when I asked (or demanded more like it) that he stop, he did. I think he simply had no idea how much his behavior was bothering me.

For a while, I had a very gentle woman hanging out here. She was very polite and seemed respectful of privacy. She was with me pretty much everywhere I went, except my bedroom or the bathroom. It was as if she knew those were my two spaces that it would be inappropriate to intrude upon. I so appreciated that and wish all ghosts adhered to this philosophy. I hate taking a shower knowing that someone is right on the other side of the curtain. Or changing my clothes in my bedroom with an unseen (or seen as the case may be) audience.

Minou was our cat. For quite some time after she died, I would “trip” over her being underfoot, just as she did in her lifetime. I would see her tail wrap around my legs and almost fall to avoid stepping on her. But when I looked around to catch a glimpse, she was always gone. I haven’t seen her in quite some time. I’m guessing the new cat ran her off. Minou was definitely an only cat type of pet. I believe animals have spirits just as we do and there is no limitations on what kind of spirits can become ghosts.

With each ghost I encounter, I learn a little bit more. Some I can’t wait to be rid of, some I am intrigued by and some have become friends in a strange way. Whatever the case, I’m appreciating the lessons.

Shannon (my cousin-in-law) and I were waiting for Chris (my friend and PROOV member who always gets my frantic ‘what-do-I-do-now’ phone calls) and the priest to arrive. The kids were out of the house, as requested by the priest, since we didn’t really know what we were up against here.

I answered the knock at the door and in walks Chris, the priest and his back-up. He showed up with a Catholic arsenal! At this point I became a little nervous…I mean, seriously, what was about to take place here?

Maybe I’ve seen too many horror movies.

He immediately opens his case of Catholic gear (that I obviously know very little about) and hands me a large crucifix on a chain. I looked down at it, then looked back at him and told him that, to me, this was nothing more than a piece of metal and I wanted to make sure that small detail wasn’t going to impede his process in any way. He told me that I didn’t need to believe in it, just keep it with me for the entirety of their visit anyway.

So I did.

After he was here for a few minutes, he told me that he didn’t think we were dealing with anything demonic here. I’m not really sure if I believe in demons anyway. You know me, I need proof of existence and I’ve never run into a demon, that I know of anyway, and I assume I would know. Hopefully, if they are real, I never have that fact proven to me. I’m good just not knowing for sure. He said he knew because if there were a demon present, he would have known straight away. You know, due to him being a priest and all, I suppose.

Shannon and I followed the Catholic team around and Chris followed all of us with the camera shooting the whole time.

It wasn’t long before we were chasing what had been tormenting us for the past few weeks. The priest mentioned he had felt like someone was “pushing” him on the stairs. We backed him in a corner in my bedroom. Chris walked right through him and backed up with a “Whoa…that was weird!”. Then a few of us began to feel pretty nauseous while in the room. He knew what we were trying to accomplish and didn’t seem too happy about it.

There is a room upstairs that I hate to be in. I never feel alone in that room. So the priest wanted me to sit in there alone in the dark (still with crucifix in hand). I didn’t want to do that, but he was persuasive in an odd way. So I went in and sat in the desk chair in the dark. He assured me they would be right outside the door at all times and would come to my aide should I request it. I sat for several uneventful minutes.

Suddenly, he burst into the room and asked if everything was OK. Confused by the urgency of his question, I told him I was fine and asked why he had asked.

I was told that as I was sitting alone in the dark, the night light in the baby’s room began to brighten much more than it should and the digital alarm clock began to change time rapidly then stopped on 12:23 AM. He explained the Catholic significance of that time, but I just can’t recall what it was (sorry! I’m sure you can google it…). All of them witnessed these events while I sat nervously by myself.

He then blessed each room upstairs and we all started back down. He mentioned on the way down that the upstairs seemed lighter than when we first went up. Maybe my aggressor was gone.

As we entered the kitchen he requested to visit the cellar. I said, “Have a good time! I’ll be up here when you’re done.”

I overheard him telling Chris while down there that I needed to be present for whatever it was he was planning down there. Chris told him that there was no way he’d get me to do that. I hate the basement. Even during tornadoes, I only sit at the top of the stairs and if I hear the house being ripped from it’s foundation, only then will I go the rest of the way down. From the moment I moved in here, I have always had the feeling someone is buried down there. I don’t know why. Just a gut feeling.

But somehow, that persuasive priest managed to get me to go down. I only went as far as the bottom step though. He’s not a miracle worker or anything!

Here’s what unfolded in the cellar:

Before you watch the conclusion of this video, some pretty amazing things happened while we were down there. In an attempt to make communication and to announce our intentions as well as gauge the spirit’s intentions, we asked it to do a few things. You saw the meter lights (it was measuring EMF), but we also asked for it to change the temperature of the room to a very specific temperature. I was even surprised by how quickly our temp readers fell almost 20 degrees to comply with the request and stopped exactly where we asked it to.

I am certain that the spirit that moved on that night was that of the Blonde Girl. I haven’t seen her since that evening. I hope that she is no longer sad and lonely the way she seemed while she was staying with me. I hope she has found her home and her loved ones. I didn’t mind her being here with us, but am happy she has moved on to a better place.

I am extraordinarily grateful to Bishop James Long for helping this little girl move on and ridding our family of the nasty ghost that felt the need to aggravate us.

Most of the time, the activity around here is only experienced by me, so I have a moment of joy when something happens for another to experience. Even better, when multiple people witness unexplainable events.

For example, we had my sisters and another friend over to hang out one night recently. Around 1:00 AM, we all went to the kitchen for a snack. Our friend had poured the final bowl of Cocoa Krispies (precious commodity around here) and set the bowl on a stool while waiting for my husband to retrieve milk from the fridge. While waiting, she turned her back to the stool and cereal bowl to engage in conversation with me. My husband was in the fridge with his back to the cereal bowl as well. Me and one of my sisters were the only ones who actually had the stool in our line of sight.

The bowl suddenly flipped off the stool resulting in a large scattering of the highly valued chocolaty cereal all over the kitchen floor. My sister didn’t say anything. The widening of her eyes said enough. My friend immediately blamed my husband for the tragedy, and an argument ensued over who must have hit the stool to cause the spillage. It was especially charged due to it being the last quantity of the delicious snack in the house! They both denied touching the stool. They were both truthful as well, since each of them were a few feet away from the bowl at the moment on question.

I just left the room giggling while they continued to figure out what actually happened. I knew what happened.

However, all the experiences here are not always that benign or entertaining. Every now and then, the revolving ghost door here lets in a nasty one. Most of our ‘friends’ only stay a few weeks at most, so we usually just ride it out knowing it won’t be long before they vacate. But we picked up one recently that was a little too aggressive to wait it out. I had to make some calls.

This particular spirit had been pretty aggressive with me in the way of hair pulling, pinching and pushing. I was annoyed for a while, but then it went too far.

My husband came to me one day, irate with the vein in his forehead throbbing. He asked me why I would slap our five year old across the face! Of course, I did not do such a thing and asked why he would ask me that. Our son had told him I did. Why would he say that? Later that night, I asked him at bed time why he told Daddy I did that.

His response was, “Because you did.”

I thought maybe he had dreamed this happening or there was some sort of other reasonable explanation. He said he couldn’t see me do it, but he was slapped on his face and since I was the only one home with him at the time, it must have been me (he still tries hard to logically explain things that happen around here in his own little five year old way). Although he was still trying to figure out how and why I did it.

I assured him it wasn’t me, but I would take care of it so that it didn’t happen again.

On another occasion during our aggressive guest’s stay, my husband’s cousin was over watching some TV with me. I was lounging on my right side on the far right of the couch while she was sitting on the floor leaning back against the front of the left side of the couch. My attention was diverted from the television screen when I saw her head quickly jerk back against the couch in a very unnatural way. She then jumped up in fight mode certain that I had done the yanking. She quickly realized that it was against the laws of physics for me to have possibly pulled her hair with that kind of force and still be completely relaxed in the same location.

She then got a concerned look about her and asked, “Did that really just happen?!?”

All I could say was, “Welcome to my world.”

Phone calls were made and the date was set for a priest to visit the house. I’m not Catholic, but I’m game for anything we can do to solve the problem. My husband’s cousin requested to be present when we evicted the SOB that yanked her ponytail.

I’ve had a lot of crazy nights living in this house, but the night the priest was here ranks right up at the top.

(Stay tuned for details and vids…)

I have mentioned before that I have been a tour guide for The Spirits of La Grange ghost tours. In preparation for these tours, a local paranormal research team (PROOV) was called out to investigate some locations on the tour to gather additional information. As a tour guide, I was invited to tag along during the initial investigation of the various stops. The team was comprised of 5 or 6 investigators as well as the group’s clairvoyant.

The walk through finished up earlier than expected and someone, knowing what life was like at my house, recommended we use the extra time doing a walk through of my house. So that’s what we did.

The group entered my house loaded up with cameras, digital recorders and a clairvoyant. This was about five years ago, so I was not as comfortable with my abilities as I am now. I remember the clairvoyant asking me why I didn’t “embrace what I had”.

I wanted to flip her the bird.

However, I simply said, “No, I would rather you just talk them and let me know what I need to know.”

I had never experienced a clairvoyant personally, so I was a bit skeptical. But this woman blew me away. She gave us so much information about the history of my house, that she didn’t even know she was coming to by the way, that it took me weeks of research at the courthouse to verify all she had said. She knew names, dates and personal information about previous families here that I eventually verified through community members that have occupied my house in the past or at least knew who did (very small town).

Here’s the short list of some things she told us:

• Switch the baby to another room. What she didn’t know was that he was waking up all night terrified. He would wake up screaming and when we got to him he seemed genuinely frightened. He would scratch and pull at us to get as close as he possibly could and hold on with all he had. This had been going on since his birth. After we took the advice and switched him to another bedroom, his the night terrors significantly decreased. I don’t think we’ll ever know what the poor little guy was going through to cause such a reaction.

• She had drawn a “floor plan” of our house the night before she came over. Except, not as it is now, but how it was originally when I purchased it. She had no idea we had done the remodeling ourselves, so she was showing me the picture and explaining to what it used to look like as if I didn’t know already. And she was dead on.

• It was explained to us that there was an older couple where the man was “trapped” in the room where our bed was. And that he loved having the children around. What I found out was, through my mother’s electrician, is that when he lived in the house with his aunt and uncle, his uncle was confined to a recliner in that room due to the effects of diabetes making it unavailable for him to move around much. And he always kept candy in his pocket for the kids when they visited.

Those are just a few of the things she told us. I remember her stopping and looking at me to say “I don’t know how you live here”. Sometimes I feel the same way. She requested to not be brought back to my house for the full all-nighter investigation, or for any other reason for that matter.

We got some interesting pictures during that couple of hours.

During the investigation, books were being tossed off the shelves in the baby’s room while the clairvoyant was in the room.

This is me freaking out a little because as I went to enter the room with the clairvoyant, I was grabbed by something around my waist and pulled back out.

Damn startle factor! I was not expecting that right then! Look closely for the couple of possible orbs, especially the one by my head. I don’t usually put much stock in people’s “orb” photos because most of them are moisture, bugs or dust. However, on this particular day, they only show up in the pictures (3 different cameras by the way) when there was activity. There were hundreds of digital shots taken throughout the investigation, most of them had no “orbs”. I do find it intriguing that the orbs only showed up this day during moments of activity. Dust doesn’t do that.

This is immediately afterward. Look closely…there is a possible orb at my knees.

Because of the evidence the group collected in the short preliminary visit, they did decide to come out for a full scale all nighter. Here are a few more pics collected during the second investigation.

Find more photos like this on The Reluctant Medium

Not everything in this house is all that uncommon. There isn’t always a goat in the house or things flying across the room.

We experience fairly common phenomena around here that I’ve heard others claim happens with their hauntings as well. Footsteps during the night, the dogs barking at “nothing”, cold spots, you know, things like that. And the kids toys are always playing on their own. We do live about 50 yards from a very active train track, so at first we thought it was just the vibrations setting them off. However, that just simply isn’t the case. After living here over 10 years, we are pretty familiar with the train and it’s effects, and I’m sure the train has set off a toy or two, but sometimes we know it isn’t the train or toy malfunction.

Case and point: I had a friend over on a night that was particularly active. This is the same friend that found the change stacked in the fridge, so she’s aware of our little situation over here. But she is not so interested in being present for our ghosts mischievousness. This was one of those nights when the toys kept going on “by themselves” and each time she got more and more jumpy. Trying to accommodate my guest, I got up and actually turned them all to the ‘off‘ position. I knew it wouldn’t help, but it seemed to make her feel better. Shortly after I sat back down on the couch, sure enough, the toys started singing little songs and lighting up. I giggled. She, very seriously, looked at me and said, “You might think this shit is funny, but I’m not laughing! I’m out!” And with that she up and left.

Now, I know that she’ll come back over, but sometimes our friends will experience something here at the house that keeps them from ever setting foot back in our house.

My sister-in-law was over one evening and was sitting on the floor with my husband in front of me sitting on the couch. She is Iranian and has long, very thick hair that she had in a braided ponytail. I watched as her hair was slowly lifted in the air and then quickly slammed onto her back hard enough to send the rubber band flying across the room and a welt left on her back from the impact.

That was the last time she was here.

There are others who think my house is a novelty and try to provoke things to happen. This behavior annoys me because I’m always the one left here alone when they go home. My sister is one of these people. My favorite experience was when she was clearly asked to leave by one of our ghosts. Here’s how it went down…

One morning I was making coffee as my husband showered. I set a spoon down next to the coffee maker and walked away for roughly two minutes. When I returned, I found the spoon bent in half. Truthfully, my heart almost jumped out of my chest. That startle factor gets me every time! I picked up the spoon and took it into the shower and showed my husband asking, “What do you make of this?”.

His response was, “Should we call somebody?”

So, my sister heard this story and decided next time she was over that she would get them to do it again for her. I try to explain to her over and over that they aren’t performance artists and don’t seem to appreciate being treated as such. She ignores me.

Next thing I know, she’s laying out spoons on the counter and demanding an encore. Which she obviously did not get. So the rest of the evening, against my wishes and advice, she was taunting and provoking to get a response. I guess they got sick of her after a while because during one of her taunting sessions, the front door to my house flew open! She got up to close it and as she was placing her butt back on the couch, it happened again. And then again, and maybe another time. After several attempts to get her to exit the front door, she finally got the message and shut up. When she stopped with the taunts, the front door remained closed and she was once again welcome to stay as a guest in our home.

Occasionally, I take a step back and look at the life I have and wonder how I have gotten used to it. I remember the first time this thought occurred to me. I was sitting on the couch watching TV early in the morning when an empty cup flew off a chair, went through the air across my field of vision and hit the wall to my right.

The odd part was when I realized that I didn’t even glance to my right to take note of the cup laying on the floor after it bounced off the wall. That’s the moment I realized how strange it is that that sort of event can happen without note being taken in this house.

Every now and then something just inexplicable happens around here. Although, daily life around here would be pretty baffling for most, but sometimes it’s just stranger than the usual activity for us.

It was a regular weekday. I followed the usual routine of feeding the goat in the back yard, putting the dogs in the crates, locking up and heading out to the studio just a short time before my husband, Devo, was due home. The only thing that was out of the ordinary was UPS had delivered a 40 lb bag of dog food that I had left sitting in the living room since it was too heavy for me to take to the dogs’ room. That’s why we have husbands right?

Right on schedule, Devo arrived home shortly after I left. The curious part is what he came home to.

He had trouble opening the front door. He claimed it felt like he was pushing something heavy out of the way to enter the house. We only use the front door since the other doors in the house have slide locks as opposed to keyed entries. After a great deal of struggle, he gained entry and found it was the box containing the 40 lb bag of dog food against the door causing his trouble. For those of you saying to yourselves, “couldn’t it have just tipped over to block the door?”, I say, the box was at least six feet away from the door and would have had to have moved quite a way to get to it’s current location. This was just the beginning of the weirdness.

The next step of his routine was to let the dogs out of the crates I had stored them in while they were alone. When he opened the door to the dogs’ room, he did not find either of the dogs in their crates, but a miniature pygmy goat in the house instead! Luckily, she hadn’t caused any damage or mess so he guided her back out the back door. What confused him at this point was that he assumed I had left the door ajar when doing the pet duties, but the door was securely locked when he went to let her back out. And there were the dogs enjoying the freedom of the back yard.

You may remember that my husband hasn’t always been so accepting that the ghosts are the cause of our perplexing issues. I wasn’t due home for a few hours, so he had some time to contemplate a logical explanation for how this scenario had unfolded.

His rational and logical explanation : An elaborate prank had been pulled by an unknown person using the following steps:

• Scale the six foot privacy fence to enter the back yard

• Find an unlocked window, which are all at least 8-10 feet above the ground, and enter the house

• Move the 40 lb bag of food so that it blocks entry via the front door

• Stop to laugh at the thought of Devo pushing and pushing the front door to get in

• Let the dogs out of their latched crates into the back yard

• Allow the goat to come in as the dogs are going out

• Relock all doors

• Climb back out the window, somehow reclosing screens and storm windows and jump the 8-10 feet down

• Again, scale the fence to leave the yard

• Laugh all night about the joke played on us while putting away the ladders that were necessary to complete this job

OK, so this was the only explanation he could come up with and even he acknowledged that it was a little far-fetched and probably was indeed, not what took place.

My simple explanation: The ghosts did it.

My house is pretty crowded. Not just because of the four of us living here, but everywhere I turn I seem to be bumping into someone. I’ve managed to let go of the fear associated with seeing ghosts, but the startle factor is still a big issue for me. I just can’t seem to get used to walking into a room and finding a stranger looking at me and then disappear, or just hang out, depending on the day.

The first ghost I actually saw with my eyes in this house was a little girl. She looked about 5 years old, but I knew she was actually 8. Again, I don’t really know the ins and outs of how this ability works, so you’re just going to have to take my word for it. She was skinny with long stringy blonde hair. She never said a word to me. Just watched my every move when she was around. She would follow me from room to room on some days. I remember one day, my husband was rewiring the entertainment center and she was standing right behind him watching with great interest. My husband doesn’t experience the activity at the level I do, so he was completely unaware of her proximity, but me constantly looking over his shoulder finally prompted a “What?” out of him. I explained to him that she was right behind him watching. I’m sure he rolled his eyes (at least on the inside) and went about his business.

There was nothing scary about her. She seemed sad. Lonely, maybe? I have no idea to this day who she was, or why she hung around. I do believe we helped her move on and I’ll be posting more about that experience later on (we even captured that on video), but for now, I’ll share a little more about daily life in this house.

I used to keep all of our change separated in glass cups in the bedroom. You know, pennies in one, nickels in another and so on. My husband was working at a restaurant that evening and a friend of mine and I decided to go there for dinner to see him. No one was left in the house while we were gone. When we got back, we went to the fridge to put the leftovers away and both gasped when I opened the door…

Stacked up neatly in the refrigerator, was all the change from those cups from the bedroom. Today, I wouldn’t think twice about something like that happening, but at the time the house was still new and I was getting used to all the daily weirdness.

You may have guessed by my sorting change, that I like things to be a certain way. This trait was not just with my extra coins. It pretty much applies to everything. My organization may not make sense to most, but it’s my organization and I liked it to remain untouched (I use past tense because after 2 kids, that pretty much went out the window for my sanity’s sake). My husband liked to mess with me a bit from time to time regarding this obsession of mine, so when the medicine cabinet was arranged differently often when I opened it, I would gripe at him to stop doing that. He would always deny it. I would always think he was lying and the fight continued the next time I opened the medicine cabinet to find it rearranged. He swore he didn’t do it, but I know he secretly enjoyed my discomfort about it. Then after he had not been in the house for several days and it happened again, I figured it out. I had to apologize for the accusations.

I wonder if that ghost was laughing every time I accused him.

Another phenomenon we have around here, I simply refer to as “The Chatter”. There will be a very small space that when you move into it, you can hear what sounds like crowd noise. Many people talking, but I am always unable to make anything out. The fact that I almost can make out words sometimes sucks me in and I listen really hard for a long time. I’ve yet to hear anything intelligible. It’s very frustrating.

The weird thing is (because that’s not weird enough, right?) the sound comes from a very small location seemingly floating at various heights and locations throughout the house. I’d say it’s an area about the size of tennis ball. If you find The Chatter, and move an inch away, you can no longer hear it. But move your ear back into it’s current location, and there it is again!

Unlike most happenings here, I’m not the only one to experience this. I remember the first time my husband heard it. He was laying on the couch and must have moved into it’s space because he got a strange look on his face. When I asked him what was up, he gave a quick, “shh!”.

“What is that?”, he asked.

After he described what he was hearing, I explained about The Chatter and that I hear it frequently.

After knowing all I know about the history and location of my house, I’ve got a little theory cooked up about what’s going on with that. My house seems to be a crossroads of sorts for spirits and I think every now and then that it just translates into something audible.

I’ve gotten used to it, but I still stop to listen every time, just to see if maybe, just maybe, I can make out something this time. I’ll let you know if I ever do.

I’ve mentioned before that I live in an extremely haunted house. You may think either a house is haunted or it isn’t. Not so! I’ve lived in a few haunted houses in my day, and this house is extremely haunted.

Here’s how the truth unraveled:

When I looked at the house before deciding to purchase it, the realtor seemed reluctant to even take me to the dilapidated second floor, referring to it as an “attic”. Yet it had a large sitting room and two bedrooms. It was in a bad state of disrepair though, and the vibe wasn’t so pleasant. I assumed it was the water damaged ceiling and walls falling down that was causing it the icky feeling. It was an icky space. I thought this would be a good project and fixing it up would make all the bad vibes feel so much better.