INSOMNIACS place to talk in the wee hours

PattyPeppermint

loverly. Lol. Milk in carton

Jazzygirl

Good morning friend- Santa Fe was really fun, great shopping, good visit with my friend, tapas and wine to wrap up the whole day!

On the drive home last night, the winds were really kicking up and there were a lot of tumbleweeds flying across the freeway assaulting my car as I drove along. I got home around 9 p.m. last night and just put the car in the garage and when I pulled it out today, my grill was filled with tumbleweed parts!

So the haunted house, lots of stories to tell, but here is when it started for me. I moved into the house the fall of 1990. My neighbors had a Halloween party right after I moved in and they created a haunted basement for folks to go through to entire the house and the party. The house had an earthen basement and a lot of stuff stored down there, but just had a totally creepy feeling about it. Folks would go through the cellar doors, through the basement and up the stairs into the other side of the house (the farm house was an old salt box that was divided in two and also had an addition on the other side). The house was huge, but back in the day when 1-2 families would live there. People commented they thought they saw things moving and or someone touching them when they went through the haunted basement. We were all young, and think pretty drunk at this party, and were like "oh yeah, sure, there are ghosts down there."

During that time, my brother was very sick and I was back and forth to another city an hour away to see him in the hospital, and to help with some care of his young son. I came home pretty late one night and all the cabinets in the kitchen were open. I thought "OMG, someone is in the house." The two women who lived next door were not around, so I think I grabbed something and went through the house very carefully. There were no signs of doors ajar or windows broken in to. I went upstairs to the bedrooms and found nothing. The door between each side of the house was also closed and locked. I think I slept downstairs that night as I wanted to be close to the exit area in case there was anyone still around. I thought perhaps with all the family stress, I was starting to loose my mind.......

I talked to the two women who lived next door a few days later and told them what had happened. I asked "have you been having any weird experiences here?" Then their stories came out. They had already been feeling there was something going on in the house. They had done some research on the house and original family buried in the local cemetery. They happened to notice that there was a girl who died around age 9-10 included in the family plot. As many of you probably know, many early families buried a lot of their children with all the diseases and infections there was no way to cure. I learned once the average puritanical family included about 4 children who lived to adulthood. Many women had 8-9 children (if they did not die in childbirth), and often lost man of those children very young. Men often had two or three wives throughout their lifetime due to illness and childbirth issues in those days.

My neighbors had a black lab and she was terrified to go into certain parts of the house. I had a front hallway that included the stairwell to the bedrooms upstairs (they bedrooms were one upon each other, no hallways back then). I took care of the dog a couple times for one of the owners and would bring her over to stay my part of the house. That dog would not go upstairs with me, she was terrified of that front hallway.

The funniest of the experiences a few years later was a friend who came over for the day to ride bikes. After we got organized to ride up to town, she started looking for her car keys to lock her car while we were gone. She could not find them anywhere, and I told her the car would be fine while we were away and we could look for them when we got back (they had to be there, right?) When we came back from the bike ride, the keys were sitting smack dab in the middle of the table. She looked at me and said "but, these were not here when I was looking before." She looked at me imploringly and I said "oh well, stuff like that happens in this house." She knew of the stories, but did not believe me until she saw it for herself.

The only time I saw anything was one day when I went out to an old barn/made into a garage on the property. It was an open garage so many a critter lived there from opossums to baby racoons. The trash dumpster was kept out there and I went to go take it to the curb and when I turned around, I looked up to the back windows on the porch to my side of the house. I saw a woman in period clothing (could not tell you what period though) and she was in a long dress and wearing a hat. I had looked and seen it briefly, looked back and then it was gone. Just a shadow or silhouette.

The two women who lived there moved away in time (one married and the other moved back to DC where she was from) and the boyfriend of one of them lived there until I moved away in 1996. He never said a word about anything to me. As I was moving away, I talked to a friend who is on the more spiritual side and asked her if she would help me "smudge" the house before I left. Smudging is a native american ritual where you use sage grass to clear away energy around a person, place or thing. I somehow felt maybe it would help whomever was there to be freed of whatever was holding them. We went through the entire house but when we came into one of the back bedrooms, we both felt something in the room with us. We smudged the room and told him/her/them it was okay to go. I saw this same friend last summer and we talked about this again. We both wondered if the smudging worked?

The gals and I used to think maybe it was the girl whose parents may have originally build the house and who died young. The things that happened there were more like pranks a child would do. I won't say she was the only one there though, the grown woman was certainly another. I never felt afraid there outside of the time the cabinets were open and before I realized what was going on. It is the coolest place I will likely ever live.

Those are my ghosts stories for you today. I hope you enjoyed them!

susan3

queenie, you should have told me to take a pic, I would have. And yes, your hair was lying down......until you took your sweater off

Good to see you back posting Patty

Great pattern girl knitted baby blanket !!!

Back from Michigan ....and glad to be......stress is making those kids crazy!!!!!! Don't need anymore crazy in my life. Unfortunately I think this us just the beginning if there crazy town.

Queenie, texted them a long text when I got home about taking a deep breath, and taking things slow. Rushing into things never turns out to well. Hope what I wrote sunk in.

blondiex46

hey azzy and patty so sorry not avoindng you still in rehav....the drain is still in and the access is tstill there,,beeen here snnce supebol sunder.

Wren44

Jazzy, Our house was haunted after the previous owner died. We are the 2nd owners. He was killed in a car/pedestrian accident which my son witnessed. After that I would smell cigarette smoke (we don't smoke) and we would both hear someone going up the stairs. We thought it was the other coming home and didn't think anything about it until the other actually came home. We did the same thing. Smudged the house and explained to him that he had died in an accident and didn't belong in our house because he had sold it to us. We told him we weren't sure where he was supposed to be, but it wasn't our house. That worked.

Loveroflife

Ms. Blondie, left you a few posts on your forum.

Jazzy, thank you for sharing. You are one brave person. I have a few stories myself. The house I grew up in,back in my native country ,was also haunted. My sister and I saw and heard things. Parents and the nannies who stayed with us never mentioned any unexplained sounds or sighting. Maybe they wanted to protect us.My younger sis saw an elderly lady with long white hair (sitting by the stairs leading to the great room/attic on the second floor). She was with a younger girl around my sister's age (maybe 7-8). The girl was brushing the lady's hair. The woman then motioned for my sister to come with her index finger. Of course it freaked my sister so she tried to wake my Dad up. Dad couldn't see anything by the stairways. My sister also saw a lady with curls walked into the room where we slept trying to do something to the nightlight.

As for me, what I saw was mostly shadow of possibly a child or a short person standing near our mosquito net while everyone, except me, in deep sleep. Both my sister and I one time heard the sound of someone jumping on the bed in the great room on the second floor. We both went to investigate thinking maybe it was one of our friends whom we had over earlier. To our surprise no one was there, but the sound continued. I remember running so fast out of the house to get our parents from our next door neighbor's. They couldn't find anything or anyone in the room upstairs

PattyPeppermint

feeling goose humps for the haunted house stories.

Blondie. I am SO very happy to see you post. I miss ya and miss our texts.

Susan now your home get some rest.

Hugs to all

Jazzygirl

Blondie- girlfriend, that danged abscess is still bothering you. I hope you can get this worked out. Daisylover has kept me posted. I am sending you hugs.

Loverly and Wren- your stories are interesting too. I think people get stuck, especially if they have had a sudden passing. Sometimes they need the help to go (like with the smudging). They need someone to tell them it's okay to move on. I do believe this.

queenmomcat

Susan3 fine, ruin my tall tales. I'll blame static cling. And as for your kids, "don't rush into things" is putting it mildly. (Husband got pretty much the exact same expression as I did when I trotted the idea past him.)

Loving (for certain values of the term) the ghost stories. I've never seen any directly myself, though I know there have been deaths in the house I own.

Wren44

I agree with Jazzy that it's more likely to be someone who passed suddenly. He was a nice guy, so we weren't afraid.

magdalene51

I am back from Branson, feet swollen, but otherwise ok, had a great time with our friends. Will post more when I get the laptop up and running. But first, for our knitter, just a reminder:

PattyPeppermint

mags. Glad you are home safely and had a good time. Pics ???

Smaarty

Have we seen this before?

PattyPeppermint

smarty. Love it. ! Where is this at ?

Smaarty

don't know. I was fixing chili omelette for dinner, I wanted potatoes so decided on sweet potato fries. First batch was a lost! I hope my oven isn't going out again

PattyPeppermint

smarty. Well done indeed.

Loveroflife

Haha. Good job, Ms. Smarty!

Mags, you probably knew this already, but just in case you forget-elevate your feet.

Well, we have another spontaneous combustion without the fire. Came home from church and found this mess in Mitzy's crate.

Pillow and sleeping bag (used to cover her crate) destroyed. Her separation anxiety has come back. She was doing quite well while she was on Prozac (30 days), so I took her off of it. Oops. This is her after we had a "talk" with her:

Looks like we need to put her back on Prozac. DH, who takes her to his office when I am at work, will be traveling to Nepal in about 3 weeks. She will need to be in the crate for eight hours on my work days when he is away :-( No way she can last that long without help.

feelingfeline

ascinating experiences of haunted houses. Thank you.

Patty Smaarty's floral owls aere from a park in Nantou County, Taiwan.

Also for you PAtty - DH and I are both prone to forgetting the last item cooked in in the microwave for dinner. Invariably it gets discovered following morning when DH goes to microwave his oatmeal. Last night's cold steamed spinach or mushrooms is never very appealing for breakfast food.

feelingfeline

Lover that is so wierd about the avatars.

PattyPeppermint

feelingfeline. Too funny. Thanks for sharing

Loverly. Ohh she looks guilty and ashamed. She is so pretty. I never heard of a dog on Prozac but hey if it works then why not. Will keep your dh in my prayers for his nepal trip. Sounds both exciting and scary.

Good morning all. I am getting motivated. Officially day 1 of spring break. Me and dss gonna hit the matinee movie today. That will be easy on me and enjoyed by all. Any suggestions on a movie ? I looked at previews but really hadn't heard of them. Yes. I live under a rock, lol.

Hugs all around

Hootie hoo

sas-schatzi

Morning Owlies, Patty, I'm with you under the rock. Only movie I saw last year was '13hours' and I think a StarTrek movie, but that could have been the year before.

Here's my ghost story. I was a new Real Estate, Realtor in 1988. I was explaining to a client about disclosure laws. They looked at each other. "Do we have to tell them about the ghost?". I cringed, that wasn't in our training manual. Went back to the office and asked around. Everyone laughed at me, like I was nuts. The new kid on the block not knowing what she was doing.

These folks had this woman that was in the upstairs. Misty white in a long dress. She didn't like the son and was menacing enough he no longer would stay at the house. She was quite friendly to them. I said they had to disclose. Wasn't going to be an easy listing. They were quite sure the ghost would go with them. They decided to auction the house. I didn't have to worry about disclosing it.

Shortly after that there was a news report of a suit in new England against a Realtor and seller for nondisclosure of a ghost. I passed it around the office with a I told you so comment LOL. About a year, later I caught the follow up article. The New England case was settled in favor of the buyer. The realtors comment was "We received hundreds of inquiries if the house was available, most asking if they could guarantee that the ghost was there. If we had known this would have created such interest, we would have marketed the house with mention of the ghost". Did another I told you so around the office.

feelingfeline

Fabulous story(ies) !

Thankful not to have any personal experience. However in the late 70's a colleague of my Mum's, who was a clergyman, moved with his wife and child to take up a rector's position in Polstead, Suffolk (in England). Within days of moving into the rectory they had fled to a neighbour's house. They experienced the absolute stuff of horror films.Completely unknown to them that there had been several previous occupants who had had similar experiences, some of whom had also fled the house. An exorcism had also been attempted several years earlier - apparently unsuccessfully. They were the second clergy family to have come from Ireland to take up the position only to leave. It was widely covered in the press at the time. Thankfully it worked out for the family, they moved to another parish. He celebrated the 40th anniversary of his ordination last year in Belfast where he now lives. Don't know if the rectory is still haunted but certainly wouldn't care to find out.

sas-schatzi

Blondie, so happy to see you here MUAH!

Smarrty, don't remember seeing those owls--love them

Loverly, I'm asking for Prozac for Schatzi at next yearly exam. Her storm fear has gotten worse each year. The thunder shirt works, but storms come so fast we're not always home. The other day just a simple rainstorm had her all messed up. It's nice to know that Mitsy responded so well to the med. Way better than not having a solution.

Loveroflife

Good morning Patty! May He sustain you today and this spring break week. Sorry, I don't go to the movies much. Have fun with the boys!

Loveroflife

Poor Schatzi . At least we have a solution for Mitz, but I really don't like to have her on it too long. Wish she could understand that we come back for her and that she is not abandoned. Oops, work is starting soon. Have a good day ladies.

Jazzygirl

Loving the ghost stories. Well, except for the one Feelingfeline shared. I have been in places in Europe that felt haunted to me. The last time I was in Italy, we stayed in a cool old Tuscany farm house that was about 800 years old and would be afraid to go to the bathroom at night, for concerns of what I might run into.

Feeling- that story is the kind that makes people afraid of spirits for sure. I do think there are kind and malevolent things from the other side, just like there are good and evil folks on this side. It sounds like there may have been a lot of violence on that property. Sometimes it is not just with the house but was ever there before?

Wishing everyone a good week, and be safe folks back east in what I hear is a pretty good sized spring snow storm!

Wren44

Loverly, They use prozac for cats also. I hear it can be a real miracle worker.

Smaarty

Patty, see if the Good Dinasaur is still playing.

magdalene51

Never did get to the computer last night, so tired. Still taking it easy, feet up, swelling down.

We really only had one full day to do things, as we didn't get settled in until after 8 Friday night. Saturday we went to Ripley's, which is always fun, then went to a production of Moses which was amazing, incredible, huge, awesome and excellently presented. That night we went to see Legends, which is impersonations: Johnny Cash, Tina Turner, the Blues Brothers, Michael Jackson, and Elvis. Johnny Cash, Michael Jackson, and Elvis impersonators were spot on: physically uncanny resemblances, expressions, and voices all nearly perfect - so much so that they had the originals on the side screens synced to the performers, and mostly hard to tell which was which. The Elvis did the 50's version, black leather and the curlicue of hair down his forehead.

We ate a lot but since it was spring break every restaurant was packed so it wasn't the best dining experiences. But good to spend time with friends even if I will be paying for it for a week.

I have a ghost story of my own. During my first marriage, we lived on a farm in Maine. It had been in a family since 1869, and before that had been a schoolhouse. The last member of the family but one had died, and the last one lived in Boston, so he sold it to us. We never really settled there, we tried different rooms as a bedroom and nothing ever really worked. The original schoolhouse was two rooms downstairs and two up; when the family bought it they added on a big country kitchen with enough room for a big dining table, and above a large room heated by a floor vent from the kitchen, and next to that a bathroom. Not exactly modern. The front stairs were narrow and steep, opening right into the middle of the upstairs room. We knew it had been a bedroom, because the bed had been left, made up, when we bought the house. We didn't think much about it.

One time, we were sleeping in the second downstairs room in the schoolhouse portion, and I had to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. I trotted up the front stairs, and when I got into that room I felt a presence. Spooked me bad. Never went that way again, always through the kitchen.

Anyway, one day I was visiting my next door neighbor. Arlene had actually grown up in the house across the road, and was such a good friend that the owners of our house gave her a quarter acre next to the house to put a mobile home on, and she and her husband had been there for years. So I asked Arlene if there was any chance there was a ghost (pointed to the window) there, and she said, matter of factly, "Oh, that would be Addie." Addie was one of the younger girls who was I guess a little deficient mentally, lived out her life and died in that room.

Well she never gave us any trouble, and when we divorced, he got to keep the house, and the ghost.

sas-schatzi

Jwoo, your package is on the way. The urn, the Duncan Miller teardrop spilt bowl, and a little plate I picked up today. The plate isn't recognizable to me. It's pressed glass. Fun pattern. It could be used for chocolates, cookies.

Mags, glad your visit went so nicely. Only saw an impersonators show one time. Uncanny how they can look like the people they are impersonating.

I'm a falls disaster always waiting to happen. So, why was I in my favorite junk store that every step has to be watched with care in light, and the store was dark b/c the lights were off. We were going through it by the light of the cell phone.