UPDATE:

Hi all - it seems like lots of people were interested in my post last week. As I mentioned, I’m quarantining here for the foreseeable future. Since I’ve been home, we’ve already had three incidents and things seem to be picking up pace, because two happened last night. I’m thinking that, since I’m home for the first time in ~5 years and I brought my cat with me, maybe I’ve irritated or stirred something up. Either way, here’s what has happened:

• I’m currently sleeping in my brother’s old room, which used to house our family’s computer and now roughly doubles as an office. (My cat is a total nut at night, so she sleeps alone in my old room, where we keep her litter box, food, etc.) As you’ll recall, this room tends to be a hot spot for funny business. A few days ago, at 4 am, the printer whirred to life. We haven’t used the printer in a year or so, nobody has even touched it in ages. It is plugged into a surge-protected power bar (as are most of our electronics). It did a full restart and started to print out what appears to be a blank page, but I was half asleep and wasn’t having it, so I just unplugged the thing. This on its own wasn’t enough for me to get too concerned.

• Cut to last night, also at 4 am. I was awoken by a feeling of pressure on the bed. I initially thought it was my cat, because it felt almost like alternating steps coming toward me, but the weight was heavy enough that the bed springs made a bit of noise. I also realized that my door was closed and the cat was asleep in my bedroom. Just as this thought occurred to me, the weight started to shift. It felt like a large person had laid down, directly behind me. Again, it sounded like the bed springs groaned/shifted around as the weight settled down. I was absolutely frozen, but I eventually was able to turn on the light and check things out - as expected, nothing/nobody was there. I mentioned in my last post that I used to have bad sleep paralysis, but haven’t experienced it in years since leaving home. I’m hoping this was just a sleep paralysis incident.

• But here’s where things get weirder. I ended up sitting up til around 5 am, trying to calm down and get into a headspace where I could fall back asleep. Around 4:30, I heard my dad get up to use the bathroom. This morning, he asked why my light was on and I mentioned my sleep paralysis. Then he told me what happened to him...apparently he had also woken up shortly after 4 am. He wasn’t sure what woke him up, but as he was trying to get back to sleep, around 4:15, he heard my mom whisper his name: “Daaaaave.” He turned around and my mom was fast asleep. She has sleep apnea and sleeps with a CPAP machine, aka a mask that fits tightly against her face, through which she’s unable to speak. It definitely wasn’t my mom. My dad is a skeptic and maintains he must have imagined it, but I could tell he was unsettled.

I will keep updating as spooky things keep happening! Have to admit I’m a little bit uneasy at this point.

PREVIOUS POST:

As a young couple in the 1980s, my parents moved into an unassuming, semi-detached house built in the 1920s. In the ~40 years they’ve spent in this house, they’ve raised my brother and I, seen many neighbors come and go, and are now comfortably retired here. I’ve moved back in to quarantine for the foreseeable future, and I figured I would share some of the hauntings we’ve experienced over the years.

Context: our house is next door to the oldest home in the area, a historical home (250 years old, give or take). The land that our entire neighborhood is built on belonged to the owner of this house, who is believed to have died in his barn (some sources say he was murdered for his land, others say mental illness/suicide). The barn is still standing, and is directly beside our backyard. Our house is ~100 years old, and the previous owners let my parents know that their tenant had died of a heart attack in what is now my bedroom.

We think we may have two ghosts, a protective ghost (which we’ve only experienced once, in such an unbelievable way that I don’t typically tell the story) and a more malicious/mischievous ghost. A shortlist of things we’ve experienced (some of which were told to me, as they occurred before I was born):

• When my parents first moved in, neither my brother nor I had been born, and my room was used as a TV room. The TV was an old, black and white model. On Sunday mornings, the TV would turn on by itself. The volume was cranked up, and on the screen a church service would play. My parents have said that the service was difficult to discern; it appeared fuzzy and the audio was a bit broken. If they turned the TV to a different channel, they couldn’t turn it back to the service - it seemed like it was playing on a channel we didn’t receive. Turning the TV off wasn’t always an option; occasionally it would turn itself back on, louder than before.

• In the early 1980s, before my brother or I were born, my dad worked full-time and my mom stayed at home studying for her CPA exam. On several occasions, hours after my dad left for work (out of back door, the one we use most frequently), my mom would come down from her office/study space on the second floor to find our old, front door wide open. This door locked with a deadbolt that was heavy and difficult to negotiate, which is why we preferred the back door.

• The relatives who house sat for us often had bad experiences. Two of my mom’s younger brothers once stayed in our house while my parents went on an extended vacation. One slept in what is now my brother’s room, the other in my room. In the middle of the night, the uncle in my brother’s room was awoken by the sound of his toiletry bag, which he had left on a shelf in the room, crashing against the opposite wall. (Generally, things have a habit of being thrown around in my brother’s room - years later the same event would repeat itself, this time with a prized LEGO that my brother displayed on his bookshelf. Always against the opposite wall, and with enough force to shatter the thing.)

• Before we renovated the house in the early 2000s, we had one bathroom in the house that was straight up unsettling to use. As a kid, I actually thought it was normal to hear the noise of footsteps approaching down the hall and hands banging on the door - I told myself it was air pressure. We were once having a dinner party and one of my uncles (not either of the ones who house sat) excused himself to the bathroom just as we were sitting down. We had begun to serve the food when we heard him yell: “I’m in here...I’m IN HERE!! HELLOOO I SAID IM IN HERE!” He came downstairs annoyed, demanding to know who had been slamming their hands on the door and rattling the door knob. All of us were seated around the table.

• Our piano once played on its own. We were all seated at the dinner table, when a single note played in the living room. We looked around at one another, not quite believing what we heard. I can remember my mom saying “did the piano just play on its own?” My dad immediately brushed it off, “it’s just a mouse, nothing to worry about.” As soon as he said that, a single note played clearly, loudly, almost angrily. There was no scattering of notes, which you might expect if a mouse had actually gotten inside. Just two, clear notes.

• When I was 5 or 6 years old I experienced my only close proximity haunting. I was drifting off to sleep one night when I heard the distinct noise of my metal blinds, at the head of my bed, being pulled all the way upwards and slowly lowering themselves back down. Imagine a protracted, gentle, creaking noise. I looked upwards and could clearly see my blinds slowly moving upwards until they were all the way open, and then all the way back down, completely on their own. My window was closed, and the blinds could only be controlled with a pull cord. I SCREAMED for my mother. She came running down the hall, and as soon as she came in my room, the blinds froze in place. She calmed me down, assured me it was a dream, checked under/around my bed “for monsters,” and left. But as soon as she was back in her own room, it started again. All the way up, and all the way down. I screamed for her again. As soon as she entered the room, they were perfectly still. She was annoyed at this point - asked me not to call her again, to get some sleep. When she was back in her room, I could hear the sound again but was too afraid to look up. I knew they were creeping upwards and then downward. I remember pulling my blanket over my head and falling asleep to the noise.

There have been TONS of other things. All of us have experienced a feeling of heaviness, or of someone watching us, in the house. Electronics turn on and off on their own (hilariously, as a teen I would sometimes blast rap while home alone, and the speaker would just click off by itself).

We actually entertained the idea that our family (or just one of us) was haunted after we experienced 2 other hauntings in places where we briefly stayed when our house was under construction. Also worth noting I used to babysit in the house next door and have had some seriously unsettling experiences there.

Happy to share more if there’s interest!