A True Ghost Story! (Are Some Homes Haunted?)

As a REALTOR, I see all kinds of things when showing homes.  I thought that I would share a couple of spooky stories in honor of Halloween.  Honest...these are true!

About 30 years ago, while I was still living in Los Angeles area, I was happy to be assigned a development of new homes close to home.  However, I was a little distressed to know that these homes were being built on ancient Indian Ceremonial Grounds. We were told that  many of the religious ceremonies were held there while the Chumash Indians gathered for the Summer Solstice. Among those ceremonies were sacrifices made at the foot of the mountain we all knew was a favorite hiking area for adventurous residents.  Our son told us that he and his friends often heard strange sounds and saw weird things up there when they went hiking.  I chalked it up to overactive imaginations.  However, when the sales trailer rolled in, and I sat there day after day, I began to experience strange fluctuations in power as our lights would flicker and computers turned off and on.  Then the music system would turn on without anyone touching the controls.  Still, I attributed it to faulty wiring and spoke to the foreman who had it checked. He reported that everything appeared to be fine.

I would find that at the end of the day, when I was finishing up my work and things were really quiet, I felt strangely like I was being watched. I remember how uncomfortable I felt, particularly when I would go to lock up the models.  There was one home in particular.  I would walk inside to make sure that all of the doors were locked and nothing was out of place.  I'd get chills as I would walk through and always hurry to exit.

One morning, our cleaning lady who came in early to clean the models, was sitting in my office when I arrived.  She looked terrified.  She told me that she couldn't work there anymore.  When I asked her why, she told me that she was in the third model home (the one I always got chills in) and opened a closet door to vacuum.  To her shock and horror there was a terrifying figure of a man in dark robes standing in front of her.  She slammed the door and ran out of the house.  She claims that it wasn't a living person and certianly no one came in or out of that house.  However, there were also reports of noises in the attic of that house.  We sent some workmen in to investigate and while they found no evidence of a living human they all reported hearing unusual sounds all over the house.

This is not the only time I heard stories or experienced strange things.  I have cetainly seen my share of doors opening on their own and then closing again.  But there was one house I recall that was particularly uncomfortable.  As I showed it to potential buyers, they stood in the living room discussing just how perfect the floorplan was but how there was something...just something that was wrong.  They couldn't figure out what they didn't like.  I stood there biting my tongue because I didn't want to bring it up.  (They were such conservative people! I didn't want them to think me strange.)  Finally, when we left, I couldn't remain silent any longer.  I told them that it felt like someone had died in that house and the whole home felt sad.  Checking on the listing later, I found out that I was right.  Yes, an old lady had died there.  My clients immediately told me about an old home that they stayed in where the grandfather had died. Every morning when he was alive he would turn on the hot water heater early so that there would be hot water for the family.  (It was not a continuous hot water system.)  The pipes would make loud noises as the system groaned and worked to bring the hot water through it.)  After his death, the system continued to get turned on at the same time in the morning.  Just like he had always done, the grandfather made sure that everyone had hot water for their showers.

Happy Halloween!