We Lived in A “Haunted” House
Sooo… you’re either going to think I’m crazy for sharing this post- or maybe you had a similar experience yourself and can relate. In the spirit of Halloween and the spooky month of October, I thought I’d share our experience living in a “haunted” house. That’s right- Emmett and I lived in a house where weird things occurred. You can click through to read about, if you’re into that sort of thing! I talk about all things home here… and this is kind of a crazy story, perfect for Halloween this week.
Just a quick heads up- I’m not going to share any photos of the house I’m referring to in this post, for the privacy of our family (they still live there). Therefore, the images throughout are random photos from our formal living room. They are not at all connected or correlated with our experience in the home I’m discussing.
We lived with my parents for about a year while renovating our first home. Emmett and I were newly married, excited to be working on our first place together (after our regular 9-5 jobs), and were very happy to come home to a clean house with dinner on the table afterwards. It’s honestly the ideal way to tackle a renovation- don’t live amongst the mess and crash with family who will feed you, in an effort to maintain your sanity. Ha! Halfway joking. We were very lucky and thankful to have had a place to stay while we were working and renovating our house. My step dad joked that it would be “interesting” moving into his home and we could expect some abnormalities. I had no idea what he was talking about, laughed it off, and Emmett & I moved in shortly after.
We had our own bedroom, a bath, and it felt like living in luxury compared to what we were used to. The foreclosed home we had just purchased was an utter disaster. It was pretty neglected, to say the least. A hoarder had lived there, and while we had cleared out most of the junk, it wasn’t livable. Moving in with our parents for a short stint while we renovated felt like the right move. Fast forward to unboxing, moving in, and talk of ghosts (that I didn’t believe in), we were feeling pretty settled and focused. It didn’t take long after making ourselves at home for weird things to begin happening. I chalked it up to electrical and plumbing glitches. Lights would turn on and off, the shower also had a mind of its own, and we began to hear strange noises (footsteps, doors creaking & closing, etc). We just purchased an OLD home (our first house was built in the early 1900s), so I assumed this was familiar “old house sounds”. However, this house wasn’t old… in fact, it was pretty new.
Let’s rewind, so you can get the full story. Before my step father built his new home (the one we were living in), there was a very old farmhouse on the land that had been in his family for many generations. He raised his daughter there and she would often see things- or rather, people. As a toddler, she pointed to a photo and identified her late grandfather, and said “him.” Long story short, she would see him often throughout the home and identify “him” as the man in the photo, despite never having met him. These types of occurrences happened throughout their time living in the home. A couple decades later, my step dad decided to build a new house. The family farmhouse was in bad shape, so he decided to tear it down completely and build a new home in the same spot. Knowing that “family members” (I’m not quite sure what to call them- spirits, ghosts, grandpas?) inhabited the home, he “had a chat” with them (his words, not mine) and invited them to move into the house he was about to build. I mean- I guess it’s smart to inform your family what’s going on, so you don’t make any spirits mad? I don’t know.
He built his new home, moved in, continued experiencing weird encounters in the house, married my mother, and then she moved into the home with him. My mom is a special kind of human who likes things to be a certain way- SUPER tidy, organized, and extremely clean (which is probably why I am the way I am). Her moving into the home and reorganizing didn’t go super well with the spirits or ghosts. When moving in, my step dad put all of his utensils and kitchenware in the same location as his old house (think utensils to the left of sink, tupperware in the lower cabinet by the fridge, etc.) A week or so later, my mom spent a day rearranging the contents of the kitchen cabinetry, and they awoke to every single cabinet door and drawer wide open. My mom also likes to organize her toiletries in a certain way on the bathroom counter and shower niche. That wasn’t well received either, as her toiletries were pushed into the bathroom floor and adjacent hall. They were laying in bed and could hear the products being “thrown” off the counter, as my step dad describes it. Sure enough- everything was scattered across the floor. Eventually, she learned what was triggering, settled in, and things started to clam down, but her move-in initially caused some crazy occurrences.
So- our parents are telling us this before we move in, and I absolutely don’t believe it. It sounds crazy. My step dad is also a bit of a prankster, so I assumed he was trying to freak me out. He has been known to swap art in my room for creepy portraits. Part of me was also a little concerned that weird stuff would happen immediately after we moved in, if any of this were true. I think you can guess what happened… we moved in, weird stuff happened, I now believe in this sort of stuff. I had to see it with my own two eyes, I suppose? Please don’t think I’m nuts. Yikes! Remind me again why I’m telling you this story?! Oh yes- Halloween. I do love a good ghost story.
At first, I noticed noises… footsteps when nobody was home, the stairs creaking, and lights turned on or doors opened that I thought I had closed or switched off. I assumed this was in my head because I was freaked out from hearing previous stories. No big deal. Then larger things started happening. I was late for work on multiple occasions because of the garage doors. I was always the last person to leave the house for work. I would pull out of the garage, click the button on my garage remote, the door would shut, I would start to pull out of the driveway, and then the door would open again. The garage is pretty large- it has three bay doors, and they would all open and close on their own, as I was leaving for work- like musical garage doors.
This happened a handful of times right after we moved in, and I couldn’t get my remote or the manual button INSIDE the garage to solve the problem. I called my step dad the first time this happened and he told me to, “tell them to stop messing with me.” I probably looked insane yelling “I’m going to work- please stop messing with me and SHUT THE GARAGE DOORS!” in the driveway (luckily there wasn’t close neighbors as I was surrounded by farmland). Sometimes in addition to the garage doors, a giant fan would also turn on and off. Coming from a construction family, there was a large, round construction fan on wheels in the garage- like you’d see in a high school gymnasium without A/C… it would also turn on and off as I was leaving for work.
A few times, I had to get up in the middle of the night to turn off the shower, which had turned on by itself. On one occasion, I walked in to turn off the water, and I watched the lever rotate and turn off on its own. Emmett and I both heard and watched cabinetry & interior doors open and close on their own, which felt mild in comparison to other things we witnessed.
One night, Emmett was having a whiskey with my step dad. They each had their heavy rocks glass sitting on a wide banister near the stairs, as they were standing and talking. I wasn’t there, but they both confirmed… they watched one of the glasses slide across the ledge (on its own), and spill & break onto the floor. Can you imagine watching a glass slide on its own? I’m kind of glad I didn’t witness that one.
I could always sense when someone or something was close. However, my step dad told us not to be afraid- that these spirits were his family. While I did have moments of fear, confusion, and even panic, I was never fearful that they would do anything to me. Believe it or not- we lived in a “haunted” house. It was an interesting year of life, experiencing some strange things, and working tirelessly on our first home renovation, but I wouldn’t trade it! We made wonderful memories living in that home. I still enjoy spending time in that house with our family and visiting is always nice- especially now that I know what to expect.
Only our close friends & family know about these instances and this part of our life, so I hope you enjoyed reading about something different on the blog today… yet still home-related! Can you tell when a house has positive or negative energy? I absolutely can! I was working on a client project back in my interior design days, and a drywall contractor walked into a client’s historic house and refused to work there because it had “very bad energy”. I’m serious! I also believe that just because a house is haunted doesn’t mean it has negative energy. Maybe haunted isn’t even the right word to use? Do you have any spooky, haunted, or ghost stories? Do you think I’m totally crazy now? Haha! Maybe don’t answer that last one. I won’t share our other crazy stories- maybe I’ll save them for next Halloween (as you might imagine, we have quite a few).