What you can't see won't hurt you.......or will it?

I lived in a haunted house. There I said it.

My Aunt owned this home. It was a flat. Which where I grew up meant a house with another on top. Think duplex but instead of side by side on top of one another.

My Aunt lived in the bottom apartment. I rented out the top floor. I lived alone.
I had 2 bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, living room, bathroom, sunroom, a room off the living room that went up stairs to an attic type room. I used that room to store my bike, holiday things, etc. There was also a back deck and a real attic off the kitchen for the entire house.

I would go to work and come home and sometimes find things in different places or positions of how I left them. As I have said before I am anal retentive. I like everything in it’s place and I notice everything when it’s moved.

I came home one day and the photo’s on the top of my buffet were all as I had left them except my one sister’s photo. It was faced down. I picked it up. This happened several times and I figured I just needed a new frame because of the thingy in the back not being able to prop the frame up. I bought a new frame and inserted my sister’s picture. A week or so later it was faced down again. None of the others were ever moved.

I came home to find the flowers in the middle of my dining room table moved a bit to the left. It felt creepy. I shouted something fearing someone was in my house. I called my Aunt and asked if she had been in the house. I told her I didn’t mind but I would prefer she left me know because I was scared. She laughed and said she would never go in without telling me and I probably moved the flowers and didn’t even realize it or forgot. I wanted to believe her so I let it go. But I knew I had not moved them.

In my small hall bathroom the sink was very close to the hall door. I could brush my teeth and stick my left foot into the hall. That close. While brushing my teeth it always felt like someone was either behind me or walking down the hall. I felt it.
When it felt like someone was behind me I would lift my head up quickly and look in the mirror above me thinking I would see someone there. Never saw anyone. One day while my head was down in the sink brushing I felt like someone had walked by me in the hall. I felt that a lot too when showering. I lifted my head again quickly to look into the hall and of course there was no one. But I felt it all the time.

I didn’t live there long before I was transferred out of town for a career move. Rick was my friend who I had just met 2 weeks prior. He loved my apartment and since his lease was running out he asked if my place was rented out yet. I told him no and my Aunt would be thrilled to have a man above her since she was a single lady. She would tell him it made her feel safer. I never once told him any of the things that I felt in my apartment. I didn’t know him well yet and I really didn’t want him to think I was crazy.
He could figure that out on his own later.

He moved in as I moved out and a month or so later he called me in Ohio and said, “What the hell is with this apartment?”

"What do you mean?"

"I mean there are some strange things that go on here. Did any of this stuff happen to you?"
He began to share some stories – all of which I had experienced. We ended with the bathroom feeling of someone either walking down the hall or being behind you.
He worked a lot and he wasn’t there much. While it was weird it didn’t make him want to leave. He had just wished I had told him before I left. How do you tell someone you’ve just met – Hey I think I live in a house with a few others….ya just can’t seem ‘em. He would have run for the hills.

If you’ve been reading for awhile you know that I ended up back there with him a few years later. By this time my Aunt below never stayed at her own home. I think that she was from an era where she had to be in the closet and she sure was so to speak. She was always at her friend Mary’s house. I have known Mary since I was a wee little thing. Mary cooked and my Aunt didn’t. My Aunt said she didn’t like being alone in the house so she just stayed at Mary’s. wink wink.
But the point was I no longer had anyone to blame for things missing, moved, or hearing footsteps etc. If she wasn’t here who the hell was making this noise? Or moving stuff?

The house was old but full of great charm. Big moldings and wood floors. Since I had been downsized at this point Rick and I had decided to stay to save some money before we moved on to buy something. So we stayed and so did our “guests”
Here are a few of things that have happened while we lived there.

**My youngest sister had had a fight with my parents. She was still in high school. She asked if she could come stay with us for a few days. I talked to my mom and dad unbeknownst to her and asked them if it would be okay. Of course it was and I kept them informed of what was going on. One day while in the shower she swore she heard someone walking down the hall (yep I know that one!) and she yelled out for either Rick or I. She thought we were both at work. When she got out of the shower she called me at work and asked if I was there and left. I said No why? She said I will call Rick then. She asked Rick if he had come home and he said No why did you hear something? She called me back and begged me to come get her to go home. She was completed freaked out. So she ran home and apologized to my parents and couldn’t wait to get to her room and be ALONE.

**On night I woke up and saw these 2 people at the foot of the bed. I could see them, describe their clothes yet see through them and not really see a face. I screamed at them to leave me alone and go towards the light. (someone told me to do that) They dissipated. But I woke Rick up who was saying, “I’m not touching you!” Which is pretty funny now.

** We would get these horrific pockets of a smell. To me it was like rotting fish. It was so gross. It would be between the hall by the bathroom and into that entrance to the dining room. You could put your head in it and out of it. The smell was just foul. We were having a bunch of people over for dinner and the smell arrived. We never knew when it was going to be there. I was setting the table and bitching, “Oh yea now you show up when company is coming. Please give us a break and go away.” It would remain and then just before they arrived viola it was gone. This happened a lot. This would show up and be gone just like it arrived with no notice. It always varied in length but always smelled just horrible.

** One night I had a girlfriend visiting while Rick was out with his buddies. We were in the living talking and having a couple of cocktails when all of a sudden there was so much noise coming from above. (There was that room that was like a mini attic off the living room with our bike and a few other boxes and Rick’s fishing equipment.) I laughed it off thinking she knew it was nothing. Then it got really loud. It sounded like someone throwing the boxes down the steps. She looked at me and said, “your upstairs neighbors are really noisey doesn’t that bother you?” I looked at her like how much did you drink? I replied, “I have no upstairs neighbors Connie I am on the top floor remember?” Well it hit her and she freaked out. She would never come to my apartment again.

**One day when my niece was about 3 -4 years old I was taking her to the beach. It was cooler than I thought so after I picked her up I went back to my place to grab a jacket. I picked her up from her car seat and said we were going to go inside to get a jacket so I didn’t get cold. She said, I don’t want to go in your house. By this time we are inside the door and about to walk up the stairs. She grabbed me and asked to be held. She grabbed my face in her little hands and said, “Aunt Peggy I do not like those people who live with you.”
I got shivers. I told her no one lived me but Rick. She said no those other people. I told her I would not let her down she could stay in my arms. So we went inside and grabbed my coat. She said, “I can get down now because they are not here.” She continued to look around corners and I never said a thing. Wow. Out of the mouths of babes huh? That really creeped me out though. She had no prejudice on the topic. She had no preconceived notion of the topic. She floored me that day.

** We had this sticky stuff that would ooze from the bathroom walls and ceiling. It was sticky. It looked like honey. I asked my Aunt if there were bees in the attic and could an exterminator come and take a look. The exterminator found nothing. Rick and I decided to gut that bathroom. We were living there dirt cheap. (she only charged us $200/mo) and it was helping us save for a house so we decided as long as we were there let’s make it nice. So we had that bathroom down to the studs. We put in new lights and new drywall, fixtures etc and painted. We thought for sure that would stop whatever it was that oozed now. I mean we were down to studs, nothing was there. Some told us it was lead paint and that was the cause. If it were with all that was done it wouldn’t be an issue now. Within the first week of using our new bathroom it was like that again. We just gave up. There was no explaining it. So I just was forever cleaning it up – even off the ceiling.

** When we got to the dining and living room portion of the updating we ripped up the carpeting and found beautiful hardwoods that we refinished. The paint was always buckling and blistering. We decided to pay a professional painter to redo the paint in the dining room and the living room.
Within a couple of days it started to blister and there were again big areas the size of a dinner plate all over where it was happening. We called him back 3 times to fix and he would do it again. Finally he asked us quietly as though he didn’t want to say this too loud, “do you have poltergeists?” We said, “We think so” which was the first time we admitted this out loud to anyone. He said that is the only time I have ever seen this happen. I can’t come back and fix this again for free. So when it blistered and buckled we left it.

** One glorious early summer evening Rick and I were sitting in our sun room. We had finished a bottle of wine and as sometimes would happen my hands began to swell. I took off my wedding band and threw it to on the coffee table. It spun around and fell onto the area rug. I didn’t grab it just then because Rick was making me an offer I couldn’t refuse. So he grabbed my hand and as got up I went from the sofa to get my ring and he said, “It’ll be there later” and off to our room we went.
First thing the next morning I went to get my ring. My ring was not there. I went nuts looking for it. He and I tore apart this room. We took out the area rug and shook it in the living room. We moved all the furniture and we removed all cushions and put our hands down all the corners and crevices of the chairs and sofa. No Ring. I was sick about this.
A year later Rick had to fix the chair in that room because a spring was popping through it seat. He took it apart and repaired the springs and put it back together again. Then when one of my sisters was moving out they were looking for hand me downs and I told her she could have Rick’s old furniture that we kept in the sunroom. I, of course, wanted to vacuum under the cushions and give it to her in the best way I could. As I went to lift the cushion there it was, my gold wedding band sitting right smack at the tip of the front of the chair.
Do you know how many times we looked there? For how many years? When Rick took off the fabric and fixed the chair it wasn’t there. How did it get there? Rhetorical because there is no logic to this.

** One day at work someone had dropped off a copy of a book they wanted to be added to a gift basket for their friend. Their friends mom had just died and while she had sent flowers etc. She wanted this basket of goodies along with the book to arrive a few weeks later while she would be out of town. To show her friend she was still thinking of her. She wanted something not depressing and a cookie basket with coffees etc was exactly what she had in mind.
I looked at the books after she left and thought it sounded fascinating. I really wanted to read it and yet I knew I couldn’t open and bend the binding and make it look like it had been read. But one afternoon I did it anyway. I barely opened it and I read it ever so carefully. It was about a cardiologist who didn’t believe in God. He also didn’t believe in an afterlife or a near death experience. Then as time went on so did the number of stories that he couldn’t explain. He had a blind patient who died on the table who they brought back to life. She would retell him the story of what was said and what she SAW. Yes a blind woman who laughed that they were all teasing the doctor about his blue and brown socks. How could she possibly know the color of the socks? It was only mentioned that he must have gotten dressed in the dark. Then it began with children. All spoke about a peace and such a warm feeling of immense love. Whatever you believe this book was a fascinating read. I finished it and told Rick I really want to read his 1st book. He came from a different point than most because he was such a non believer and I found it so interesting.
Fastforward 2 days. I wanted to make a quiche. But since moving in with Rick I put all my boxes at the very edge of the steps of the attic. The real attic. The attic was off the back of the house. You went up the stairs and it opened on your right. There were nothing in there but a big chest at the end against the wall. I never went too far into this attic because like the basement I got the creeps. Unlike the basement this was not scary in the traditional sense like cobwebs and wires etc. It was a clean empty room. I put my boxes right on the edge by the steps so I wouldn’t have to go all the way. I faced the boxes with the contents written on it toward the step so I could grab things and run. And I mean RUN. So this day I went up to get my quiche dish in one of my boxes. I had just been up there a week or so ago and saw that box right at the top so it was going to be easy to get. As I got up there I found a book sitting on top of the box with the quiche dish. I picked it up and it was the 1st book of that cardiologist that I had wanted to read. It was from a library from a city I had never been. I ran so fast down the steps I twisted my ankle. I was screaming so Rick came running. I just threw the book at him because I couldn’t even speak. He looked at me and we both had no explanation. I wouldn’t go back up there to get my quiche dish or ever again for that matter.
I called everyone I knew. I asked my Aunt had she been to this city’s library and she laughed at me. I still have that book by the way. A little girls photo is in the book. It looks like it was taken in the 60’s or 70’s. I have no explanation for this at all.

** This one I’ll close with. We had an L shaped sofa. It was a snowy Saturday and Rick was taking a nap at one end of the sofa. I was knitting and watching TV way on the opposite end. I was sitting on the edge of the seat to be near the TV to hear it. I didn’t want it too loud due to him napping. He woke up and was stretching and I said, “Hey sleepyhead did you have a good nap?” He coiled his legs up to his chest and he began to point at me and gasp for air. I didn’t know what the hell was happening. I thought he was having a heart attack. And then all of a sudden he said, “She was sitting right next to you! Didn’t you see her?” Now I was thinking he was dreaming or still sleeping. I went over to him and sat by him and asked if he was awake. Later he told me he saw an old woman bent over sitting smack dab next to me and she was also looking at the TV. He said when he looked at her she looked at him, smiled and then poof was gone.
That’s a tough one because that could have been him half asleep. But if you ask him he’ll swear to you he was not sleeping and everything he saw was real.

So there ya go. I was never scared when living there except one time which I didn't outline here but trust me I was frightened and was ready to move.  I just found them sometimes annoying. They didn’t harm us. They didn’t bug us every day. One day when leaving I yelled, “Hey clean up the kitchen while I’m gone would ya?” And Rick laughed.
I never used to believe in any of this shit until I lived it.

Fast forward 10 years and we had just moved back east to the general area I am in now.
We decided to rent a place for a year before we bought to be sure of where we really wanted to settle down. We came home one Saturday afternoon after a day of errands and I ran into the house directly to the powder room. As I sat there I noticed the towels were askew. I came out of the powder room and said to my husband – “the towels are askew – let’s call the landlord and see if he was here.” Of course Rick laughs at me. “I’m sure they were like that” he says.
“Hello Rick? Have you just met me?  They were not uneven when we left, trust me on this.  Or something weird is happening again and I can't take that."  

So we called the landlord and sure enough he and his kids did a walk through without our permission.
So it wasn’t anything I couldn't explain, it was just a dufus of a landlord that I had to set straight  that like our lease states he can’t just come in willy nilly or at the very least leave us a note that he came by so I am not so freaked out!
He couldn’t believe I noticed something so "minor" as he put it.
Being me I had to tell him the other things too like the kids hand prints on the front of the fridge, how someone sat on our bed, and how papers were moved on our desk.
All of which he said did happen and then he was silent. I know he thought I was certifiable!

I should use this skill set to work for the FBI because I truly notice everything. It’s a sickness unless of course if I got paid for it.