OhCripes.com

The old saying goes “Things that go bump in the night” however that saying only partially applies to my old house. Like most people who have occupants that came with the purchase of their home; I had always been skeptical when it came to ghost stories and hauntings.
Within months of buying and moving in to our 100+ year old house we started experiencing some rather unusual sounds and activities.
I will be using this page as my online reverse chronological log of events as they occur.

11-9-08 Sunday Morning we were both awaken to the sound of a door slamming in our house.  After asking each other if we had heard it I got up to see if there was anything visible or moved.  The walk in closet door off the foyer was closed.  Neither of us had recalled closing it the night before.  A short while later after I had climbed back into bed we again heard the same sound.  I again got up but couldn’t find anything.
10/18/08 7:47pm

My Buddy Erik & I were on out way back from hunting when my wife called, but since we were only a few blocks from my house I didn’t answer.  Within 1 minute my mother-in-law then called.  By this point we were already pulling into my driveway.  So when I got inside I asked what was going on?  My wife said she had heard what sounded like boxes being dropped in the basement much like on another occasion where she had called her Mom to come over and her Mom saw someone in our basement.  I went into the basement and yelled if anyone was down here.  Nothing. All of the animals were upstairs at the time this happened.

11/11/07 8:39am
I was sound asleep. Stephanie wakes me up asking if I heard that. I reply, heard what? She said “I think our friendly ghost is back, I just heard something walking around upstairs in your office.” My office is upstairs directly above our bedroom. I went upstairs and noticed nothing.

12/29/06 2pm
The stereo in the living room turned on to an FM radio station by itself. Neither my wife nor I had been listening to the radio through it previously. The last it was used we had watched a dvd. The remote was sitting on a side table and the stereo was shut off.

12/16/06 About 10pm
My wife was watching the news when she heard what sounded like someone moving boxes, picking them up and dropping them in our basement. A little unnerved after the very similar incident that last Spring she again called her Mother to stop by and check things out Her Mom went down in the basement only to find nothing. There wasn’t anything out of place. We don’t have the furnace on due to having a pellet stove on the main floor. The washer and dryer were not being used and the dehumidfier was shut off. I was again at work and was told of this today. It is interesting that both basement noises happened around the same time.

4/6/06 10:05pm

I received a call from my wife while at work, she described the following to me.
9:30
Heard loud sounds in basement
Sounded like someone was dropping boxes on the floor

9:45
My wife called her Mom.

10pm My mother-in-law arrived and immediately called my wife from her cell phone and told her to come outside because she saw someone walking around in the basement. They both went into the basement and couldn’t find anyone nor had any of the windows been broken into.

3/21/06 about 5:15pm
This was an email that my wife sent me about yet another encounter she experienced last night. In her words:
“Hey Matty-
I wanted to tell you on the phone that I had another run in with our ghosts yesterday. After I got home from work I was washing my hands and the girls were in the bathroom with me, Petey was squaking (yeah, shocking, I know) and Raja was sitting on the rug by the stairs. All of a sudden I heard people talking and it sounded like it was coming from in the house. Petey immediately stopped squaking and all three furry animals stood completely still looking for where the noise was coming from. I walked into the living room, thinking you left the tv on but it was off. I went back into the bathroom to change my clothes and I heard the voices again and then I heard the baby crying again. The entire time all three animals just stood still…it was rather creepy. It made me uneasy all night. It’s creeping me out just typing about it.”

A personal note: I swore that I also had heard people talking throughout the day but could not pinpoint where the sounds were coming from. Until I received that email from my wife I passed it off as my ears playing tricks on me.
In case you are wondering “the girls” are our dogs Sassy and Poochie, Petey is our Cockatiel and Raja is our cat.

3/20/06 4:40pm

My wife and I were in the dining room eating dinner when we heard a loud crash sound from our side entrance. I got up to see what it was. The inside wood door had opened fully and slammed against the concrete ledge where the stairs to the basement begin. I told my wife what it was and asked if she had fully closed the door so that it was latched when she got home. She was insistant that she had.

2/10/06 10pm
I was at work when I received a call from my wife who seemed rather upset by the fact that she heard my office chair rolling around upstairs. Now, my office is directly above our bedroom and I have an area rug on the old linoleum floor upon which sits my chair and computer desk. The only way upstairs is via a single set of stairs located in the middle of our foyer. My wife was home alone with our two dogs and cat all of whom were in the bedroom with her. The sounds continued the entire time that I was talking to my wife on the phone. Later when I returned home I went upstairs to my office to check things out and found that my chair had been moved against the wall from its normal location at my desk.

12/26/05 3:50pm
My wife and I were sitting in the living room watching tv. All of a sudden we heard the sound of footsteps coming from the second upstairs bedroom which was directly above us. I did a quick survey to verify that our two dogs and cat were all down stairs and that none of them had snuck upstairs when I carried a few boxes up. They were all downstairs. I am now upstairs in my office directly across the hall from the second bedroom typing this. Nothing was in the room when I came upstairs and I noticed nothing out of the ordinary.
12/21/05 7:30pm
I had gone down to the basement to check on a load of laundry. I distinctly recall turning th lights off on my way upstairs. About 10 minutes later I was vacuuming the steps leading to the basement and had glanced over my shoulder looking down toward the Cat door which is always unobstructed. The lights were off and the basement completely dark. Seconds later When I turned around again while stepping down with the vacuum I noticed that the basement lights were on.

12/23/05 7:30am
I went to say goodby to my wife this morning before leaving for work. As soon as I walked into the bedroom she asked me if I wanted to hear something creepy. Of course I said sure. She then said that minutes earlier she awoke because she heard the sounds of someone running back and forth from room to room upstairs. The door to the stairway is always closed and the two dogs and cat were on the bed with my wife. I went up to see if I anything moved but noticed nothing.

12/19/05 5pm
I was walking toward the kitchen through the foyer. Just after walking pas our pellet stove I felt a very strong tug on my jeans at about mid-thigh height on my left leg. There was absolutely nothing nearby that I could have brushed up against nor snag my jeans on.

12/12/05 1am
I was sound asleep in bed when My wife woke me up because she heard loud crashing sounds coming from the basement. I went down to the basement, turned on the lights to discover nothing.

12/11/05 Apprx: 8pm

My Wife, my Mother-In-Law and Me were sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and talking. Suddenly we heard a very loud crash in the basement. I said: “It was probably just Raja (our cat).” My wife pointed out that Raja was laying in front of our pellet stove. So, I went downstairs into the basement to check it out. Along one of the basement walls I have a plastic 3 shelf unit that I store tools and parts in. On top of this unit I keep a heavy plastic electric drill case which also contains sockets and bits. The drill was not in the case. When I got down in the basement the plastic drill case was about 3-4 feet in front of the shelf unit wide open, face up with the bits scattered all over the floor. This is the type of case that has the hard plastic clasps which you have to push/pull on very hard to open and close. When I had been in the basement minutes earlier the case was at the back of the shelf unit and securely closed.

All events prior to this point I do not have specific dates for as I was not recording them at that time. The months and times listed are those that both my wife, me and others remember.

August 2005
When we moved into our house the west facing wall in our dining room had wood paneling nailed on it with the 70’s style swirled mirror tiles glued to it. Thinking that the paneling was put up due to the plaster behind it being in rough shape we simply removed the mirror tiles and placed new drywall over the top and added a thin texture. We had little time to make basic improvements before moving in so we thought this would be an easy quick fix. So this August we decided to tear the drywall off as well as the wood paneling to see what shape the original wall was in. Upon tearing it off we found that it was actually in pretty good condition so I decided that I would touch up the nail and screw holes with joint compound and repaint it to match the rest of the walls. There were however some bright red splatters/streaks on the wall which we are pretty sure were paint. (That’s what we choose to believe anyway.) One day I had finished a good deal of touch up work with the joint compound. My wife was away at her Belly dance goups Hafla party. I had finished for the night so I decided to go upstairs to check my email. I usually don’t turn the stairway lights on as my office is directly to the right at the top of the stairway landing. While climbing the stairs I couldn’t help but notice a Very bright white glow at the top of the stairs near the ceiling. No lights were on. I paused a second and continued up the stairs to my office. The light disappeared as I got closer to the top. The next morning when I woke up my wife yelled for me to come look at the wall we had been working on. It was completely covered with flies. After my wife had left for work I proceeded to suck up the flies using my spider rifle. It took quite a while but I finally got rid of all the flies. I really wish I had taken a picture. That day I painted the wall. There is a walk-in closet directly on the opposite side of the wall that we had been working on. That night I went into the closet to get my clothes for the next day. The second I walked into the closet I noticed that it was freezing cold . I had goosebumps all over and the hairs on my arms and back of my neck stood on end. Mind you, this was August and it was still pretty warm and humid out. We didn’t have the central air on. So logically I walked out of the room. As soon as I was out of the closet the goosebumps disappeared and I felt warm again. Now, being the curious guy that I am I walked in and out of the closet several times noticing the immediate change in temperature each time I walked in and out of the room. I wanted further verification so I asked my wife to come into the closet not telling her why. As soon as she walked through the door she noticed the same things I had. I then demonstrated the drastic difference in temperature by walking in and out of the room several more times. She really didn’t need any further proof. The next day I explained to her about the glowing light I saw as I was going upstairs. She said she had seen a very similar light the previous night near the wall we were working on when she had got up to go to the bathroom.

June 2004 About 5pm
Our friend Brendan had come up for a visit. We were sitting in the dining room eating dinner-of course. I was explaining to Brendan all the unusual things that had been happening throughout the house such as noise, moving objects etc. I went on to explain that whenever I can’t find something I just blame it on that dam ghost. I had no sooner finished that sentance when the door to our North facing entrance violently slammed shut. The basement windows and door were closed. The entrance door closes from the inside and has a screen door on the outside with glass window panes. Also, the entrance door closes very hard due to weather stripping which I had placed around the door frame. Later that evening Brendan and I went out to rent a few movies to watch. When we left the door was wide open. Upon our return the door was again completely shut. My wife said she had not closed the door when we left.

May 2004 About Noon

I took several pictures of our cat Raja on top of his Kitty platform during bright daylight hours in our living room. I noticed he was acting rather odd while taking the pictures, at one point hissing for no apparent reason. When we got the pictures back from the film developer they turned out as follows:
Normal

Not normal, and mind you I wasn’t using a flash on my camera as it was during the daytime.

Raja Stood up

Ah, that’s why

All of the above pictures were taken with a few minutes of each other and the images you see are exact scans of the actual photos.

November 2003 After 11pm

We again were awoke by the loud sound of a baby crying in our upstairs second bedroom.

July 2002 Early Morning

We had the central air running, all windows and doors were closed and we were again woke up by what sounded like a baby crying upstairs.

June 2002 Evening around 6pm
We were in the living room watching tv when for no apparent reason both of the dogs jumped off the couch ran toward the NorthEast corner of the room and started barking hysterically. Shortly after we had calmed the dogs down we heard our cat Raja (he has a collar with a small bell) run incredibly fast up the basement steps, into the kitchen, then foyer, slam into the bottom step of our stairway leading upstairs and then he ran into the living room where we were sitting. All the hair on his tail and back was standing on end and he had a look on his face like I had never seen. I should include that our living room appears to have been the parlor at one time as the frame from the old larger doorframe is still visible. Also there are the lines of an old doorframe in the NorthEast corner of the room where the dogs had been barking at.

May 2002 Sometime after 12am

At this point we had owned the house for about 5 months. My wife and I were both sound asleep. I am a Very deep sleeper. All of a sudden we both woke up due to what sounded like a very loud crying upstairs. It sounded like a baby. At that point we turned to each other and confirmed what the other had heard. None of our neighbors have babies, the windows were closed as it was still cool outside.