Haunted House

     We believe the house was built around the turn of the century and sits in a rather old part of town. We know that of the people that owned the house before my grandparents, one is alive and one is passed on (which possibly occurred in this house). Overall, there is no overwhelmingly odd feeling about the house. There were times, especially after we first moved in that I felt I was being watched, but dismissed this feeling as paranoia. As a child the basement always terrified me and the rest of my sisters, but we were young and excitable. I also avoided the back bedrooms as they had the same feeling. We do not know the previous owners nor have we found the year that the house was built (despite research from the title company that processed the title for the home).

There are only two incidents to speak of. Not including the regular turning off and on of our touch lamp. There are three levels of light, and it always goes through each level and turns off. We at first thought it was just the vibrations of trucks passing by or a bad outlet, but it happens where ever we move it and there usually isn't anyone around it. As if something is trying to tell us it is here but doesn't want to bother us. The first convincing event happened when our toilet overflowed (clean water) onto a rug in the bathroom. I hung it up on the shower curtain rod to drip off for a while. Every time I entered the bathroom throughout the rest of the evening I found the rug in the bathtub. The first time I assumed it had just fallen off as I may have hung it crooked. I replaced it making sure that it was even and would not fall again. Later when I returned it was in the bath tub. Each time, the rug was in a different spot in the bathtub. Once it was two feet to the left of where I had hung it on the rod. This happened 2 or three more times until I went downstairs to yell at my boyfriend for throwing it in the bathtub. He said he had not even used the bathroom for the last few hours. We both found the incident a little disturbing but not frightening.

The next incident was a little spookier. I was home alone late at night. My boyfriend works third shift, so he was gone. My dog was following me from task to task and barked and constantly wanted to play as I was doing my chores in the kitchen. The helium balloon my boyfriend had gotten floated lazily in the corner. there was not much air movement in the room. Our ceilings are taller than usual so the balloon was pretty high up. My dog had never paid much attention besides us trying to get him to play with it and him paying no interest to the idea. It was around for about a week and he hadn't paid much attention to it.

Moving on, I finally sat down at the kitchen table to relax and have a smoke when the dog started barking madly at the balloon. I was trying to calm him but he wouldn't have it. Then, slowly the balloon started to move away from the ceiling towards the dog. This made me laugh a little as I expected a small draft (although all of the windows were closed). My laughter changed quickly when the balloon followed my dog (who was barking madly and slowly moving back) through the length of the kitchen, down a few feet through the doorway, then glided back up towards the ceiling, through the dining room, around the ceiling light, back down a few feet through the doorway into the living room and back up, still moving towards the dog. By the time it had gotten to the living room I was pretty spooked. I quickly grabbed the balloon and threw it in the spare bedroom. I then yelled "Don't ever do that again!!" and slammed the door.

A couple of days later, a friend and I decided to pull out the old ouija (I know. stupid. I only did it once as I learned my lesson about them a long time ago. Maybe I'll tell you all that story sometime, but right now it's still a little too scary to think about). The spirit said it was female. It said that it did not like the dog. Here's the really spooky part. It kept saying "the rug". It took me a few tries till I figured out what it was talking about. I then asked it if it had thrown it in the bathtub. It said yes, and "it was dirty". After I learned what I wanted to know I threw it to the side and haven't attempted it again since then. A week ago we went to South Carolina for a vacation and had a friend watch the house. I had told him a couple of things had happened, but not to worry. It wasn't a mean spirit. Anyway, he and three of his friends were watching a movie. The CD player and receiver (set to CD) were on but turned all the way down. All of a sudden, the TV got fuzzy, the touch lamp kept switching off and on and the stereo started making weird noises of people talking. Expecting a weird electrical disturbance or a surge, my friend got up to flip off the stereo and unplug the light. In that instant, it all stopped. Sitting back down... it started again! He cursed and stood up and sure enough it stopped and didn't happen again for the day. This happened 2 more times during his stay and each time there were several witnesses who verified his story. The guys went for a beer run after the first time and the girls refused to stay around claiming that they had a bad feeling about the house. Pansies. (The same thing has happened to us quite frequently since I originally wrote the story. It has now also begun to come through on my computer speakers. It's just static, and sometimes a strange, low voice.) Way weird. I have a few questions about this:

1. how did the stereo pick up signals if the receiver was on "CD" and turned all the way down??

2. why would it stop precisely when he got up and persist when he sat?

3. why would a movie flip out like that? rewinding the movie shortly after, they found the tape to be fine with no glitches or tracking problems??

Weird. Well, those are my experiences. I haven't used the ouija since then and we have seen no activity except the occasional closing door. I think they may be remnants of our ghostly roommate. What do you think?  Side note....we have two tenants upstairs who have not reported anything strange to us so far. They have lived in the house for eight years. Maybe someday I will ask them.

Submitted By: Lisa Carr

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