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Living in a haunted house.

Julia

Muse
J
Joined
Mar 10, 2002
Messages
517
About 25 years ago I bought a house. It was a house with a history. Not only had it been built in the 1800's, but also was the site of a well documented, brutal murder.

The murder had taken place about two years before I purchased the house. A couple had been living here. They were known for selling heroin, stolen motorcycle parts, and for throwing parties that went on for days. It was at one of these parties that the couple started arguing. The man started beating his wife. Three or four other men jumped into the frenzy and also started beating her. When they finally realized she was dead, they shot her a few times just to make sure.

Time passes. The house is put on the market at an unheard of low price. I bought it. Bullet holes and blood still marking the walls. Friends and family kept asking, "WHY?"

Well, why not? Perhaps a perk of being a skeptic is that I got a house that I normally couldn't have afforded. Still, after all these years, I am still asked if I have ever felt anything, seen or heard anything. And I must answer, in all honesty, no. Nothing. Not once.

Has anyone else here lived in, or spent time in, a house that others felt was haunted? Do you know anyone who has?
 
Wow.

I sure hope you got those blood stains taken care of BEFORE you moved in. Skeptic or no, I can't imagine that would create a cozy atmosphere! To answer your question, while I, personally, have never lived in a place with a supernatural reputation, I have visited the Tower of London. I remember that as a kid I read all kinds of "true" ghost stories about that place, leaving the reader with the impression the it was packed full of ghosts.

What did I see there? Nothing. Well, okay, lots of tourists, but no ghosts. Of course, I'd outgrown my interest in ghosts by that point, so I wasn't disappointed. As you say, being a skeptic has its perks. By the way, how do you like the house now?
 
I lived in a really old, creepy house in Southampton, NY for about three years. It was right across the street from Southampton Hospital, and the house was the original hospital before the current hospital was founded in 1909. People had died in the house... lots of people. That isn't just legend, it's fact, and I saw the records to prove it. Matter of fact, the living room where I used to sprawl on the couch, drink my beer, and scratch my butt, was where the operating room had been. The mounting fixtures for the old gas OR lamps were still attached to the ceiling. Some people who visited would get very creeped out when I told them the history. My sister-in-law refused to sleep in the house... dingy broad ;) .

The house was rickety, and drafty, and it creaked and groaned an awful lot on windy nights, but I never saw anything "paranormal"... unless, of course, you count that one time I came home loaded one night and forgot about the leftover meatloaf, and creamed corn I had put in the microwave. When I discoverd it a week later it was covered in a somewhat otherworldly ectoplasmic green fuzz.

Other than that, I never saw anything weird, and I never felt scared, or even uncomfortable in the whole three years I spent in the house.

Behold! The power of skepticism! :D
 
Scott Wheeler said:
I would love to get my hands on a nice piece of property here in LA that has a haunted discount!
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Round this neck of the woods this would command a premium price and the buyer would market the reputation.

Rolfe.
 
Scott Wheeler said:
I would love to get my hands on a nice piece of property here in LA that has a haunted discount!
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Dang... same here on Long Island. I'd gladly move into a house that still had bodies stacked up in it like cordwood if I could get a break on the price. Home prices are out of control. I heard the Amityville Horror house is assessed at over 2 mil. these days.
 
I worked on a movie years ago that entailed shooting a crypt in Eastern Europe that was built from the sculls and leg bones of 20,000 monks. Some crew members couldn't go into the crypt it bothered them so much. Being a fan of the genre, I loved it.

I hear about real estate being priced way down because of hauntings and murders on the premises. I really would love to get in on a sweet deal like that. To me it would be added value if nothing else. I love a good ghost story. I would be tempted to "haunt" such a place myself.
 
The house I grew up in was previously owned by a medium. Madam Pepper, I believe her name was. If she really was contacting the dead, she apparently remembered to fill out her change of address card for the spirit world, because none of them ever came 'round looking for her.
 
Rolfe said:
Round this neck of the woods this would command a premium price and the buyer would market the reputation.

Rolfe.
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I suppose in England (but probably in other places as well) there is a huge difference in whether the murder was a 19th century crime of passion, with the "ghost" of the troubled young beautiful lady haunting the house, or whether the crime was a recent murder including a pedophile. In first case I can see the price of the house go up as it gives it "a bit of history", in the second case the house would most probably be torn down as noone would buy it.
 
I could never work out why people get nervous, just because someone has died in a house.
I used to live in an old mill cottage, with the original building dating from around early 18th century. I think it is a fair bet that someone died in the house at some point in it's history. I don't know that for sure but I think it's more than likely.
Now what about before the cottage was built. The site would have been a field, probably a farm. If we go back in history around 10,000 years we could probably reasonably guess that a handful of people had died in the immediate vicinity of the site (quite a large site).

We can speculate that maybe one of these deaths was unnatural/unusual in some way.

Let's go crazy and go back 500million years. Now, allowing for tectonic shift and sedimentary layers, the likelihood is that thousands of living creatures died in the vicinity of my cottage. Don't tell me only humans have ghosts, after all the headless horseman needs a horse, right?

So was my cottage haunted by the ghosts of a thousand entities?

Boll**ks.
 
In my town years ago, a teenager woke up one night and killed his family with an axe. The person who bought the house threw a big halloween party. There was a minor uproar about it, whether or not this was poor taste.

My gut reaction is the party was a funny idea. What are they going to do? Stop having parties in the house forever? And it poked fun at the whole "haunting" concept.


This reminds me of an unrelated rumor. The father worked where I work, and the rumor is if you can find his old office, it is one foot lower then all the other offices in the building. You have to step down to get into his office, they say. This makes absolutely no sense, as far as why the office would be lower and what that would have to do with anything. But it lacks just enough sense so it gets repeated.
 
Re: Wow.

Quester_X said:
I sure hope you got those blood stains taken care of BEFORE you moved in. Skeptic or no, I can't imagine that would create a cozy atmosphere! To answer your question, while I, personally, have never lived in a place with a supernatural reputation, I have visited the Tower of London. I remember that as a kid I read all kinds of "true" ghost stories about that place, leaving the reader with the impression the it was packed full of ghosts.

What did I see there? Nothing. Well, okay, lots of tourists, but no ghosts. Of course, I'd outgrown my interest in ghosts by that point, so I wasn't disappointed. As you say, being a skeptic has its perks. By the way, how do you like the house now?
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Actually I didn't tackle the blood stains until I moved in. I discovered that they are difficult to remove, so instead I just repainted. Even that took a few coats after some good prep work.

How do I like the house now? I like it. It is in a beautiful, secluded area, and the price was so good that I was able to pay off the mortgage years ago.

So far I have only had one person refuse to stay here. She was the girlfiend of my friend Bruce, who lived out of the area. They made a 4 hour drive to spend the weekend. However, after many dramatic gestures (she kept running outside crossing herself because of the "dark spirit" she felt in the house), he had to turn around and drive her back home because she refused to spend the night in my "house of evil". She insisted that she had been told nothing about the history of the house, but had always been able to pick up the "vibes" of murder victims.

Right.
 
I think Tanja is right. Particularly thinking of serial killings where the police have come along years after the event and dug up the garden and basement hunting another corpse. Can't say I would like living with that prospect hanging over me. Ghosts are one thing, but the Polis bearing pickaxes? Sends shivers down the spine.
 
Depends, dunnit? If you reckon it's time your potato patch was turned over, phone the coppers and tell them you've found another bit of bone.
 
Tanja said:
in the second case the house would most probably be torn down as noone would buy it.
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Especially in the more notorious cases. I know the house John Wayne Gacy lived (and killed and buried) in was torn down several years ago. I don't know if anything else was built in its place or not. Maybe someone on the boards knows and can let us know.
 
uneasy said:
In my town years ago, a teenager woke up one night and killed his family with an axe. The person who bought the house threw a big halloween party. There was a minor uproar about it, whether or not this was poor taste.
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Sounds similar to something that happened here not too long ago.

Granted, the party was thrown by the teenager who had killed his parents earlier that day with an axe, and no one knew until later that they were locked up in the bedroom the whole time.

I think time is the big thing. I don't think I would want to live in a house where someone I knew had been killed, or if friends of the victim still lived nearby. 100 years ago, great. 10 years ago, not so much.
 
Soapy Sam said:
I think Tanja is right. Particularly thinking of serial killings where the police have come along years after the event and dug up the garden and basement hunting another corpse. Can't say I would like living with that prospect hanging over me. Ghosts are one thing, but the Polis bearing pickaxes? Sends shivers down the spine.
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All you would have to do is tell them that those bodies weren't from the OLD serial killer.
 
I'd LOVE to meet the ghost of an 18th century lord in a Scottish castle. Sigh.

I too wouldn't be afraid in the least. I'd jump at the opportunity to buy a cheaper home for what superstitious people would regard as "creepy".

I used to work in a historical building, which went through a few months of restoration, after having been closed for decades. As I entered those huge 19th c. salons, with vitrals depicting tropical birds and chief indians, I said out loud - wow, such a wonderful place, it must at least have one ghost! So, in a bar with my coworkers, we exchanged ideas on what should be an adequate ghost for the place. :D At some point I realized that we might very be creating a legend and, as a skeptic, I shouldn't be proud of it. I just dropped the subject. Sigh.

In another workplace, there was a night watchsman who, despite having been unemployed for months and having a severely mental disabled kid, said he would quit his job if he was not transferred for the day shift. He begged me and everybody else to insist with the Boss. That's because he heard ghost walking around the building every nitght, the whole time! He was completely scared. I tried to reassure him, but he was beyond convincing. I was the fool who wouldn't see the danger lying in there. I'm afraid I changed jobs and never heard what happened to him. Another sigh.
 
When I was much younger, and dumber, I used to think that I could never spend time in a house where someone had died. It seemed too creepy or something. My grandmother died in her bed 13 years ago. She lived with my aunt who still lives in the same home. For some reason, over the years, my grandmother's room has become my appointed guest room. I don't sleep in the other guest room anymore. I sleep in my grandmother's bed, on the same linen, even the same spot where she was lying when she died because it's next to the door. I must be a true nonbeliever because I sleep just fine. I don't even feel the "closeness" to my grandmother that I think would be normal. That is probably because the room has been stripped of her possessions after all this time. It is just another bedroom and bed to me now. I guess we do grow up after all.:)

On the subjects of ghosts, I agree with Oleron. Why is it that ghosts are all the same bill of goods. Never hear of prehistoric ghosts, unless they're Native American. And if they're Native American, they are always vengeful spirits because your house is built on a sacred burial ground. There is never the gentle maiden Native American woman who pines away because her lover never returned from a hunting party. I've never heard of a ghost in England who hails from the period of the Roman occupation. That would be interesting to see.;)
 
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