My House
My mom bought the house in the Summer of 1993. The former resident Alice had recently passed just a few months prior, and her husband Ralph (yeah, I know...Ralph and Alice) passed back in the 1980's. If I remember correctly, Ralph died in the house and Alice died at a local hospital. Both lived to be about 90 years old and both lived in the house since it was built in the mid-1950's. In 1993, I was fresh out of the Marine Corps and lived with Mom for a year or so. During this time and for the next few years, she was battling cancer. That was until 1997 when after surgery, she was placed back here at the house and put in Hospice care. She passed away July 1997 and I moved into the house shortly thereafter.
I do not recall anything weird happening until after September 2001 when I got my dog Bob. I would be watching television and Bob would be sleeping on the floor. Every now and again, his ears would perk up, he would get up, and start growling down the hallway. The first couple of times, it was odd. After the first couple times it was unsettling. What was he seeing? What was he hearing? It is true that animals can hear and see things beyond human senses, but can they really see those things that we cannot? Another time, I was doing something on my computer and the furnace/AC unit was on. The cold air return is right outside the room I was in and down the hallway so I could hear the sound of the unit downstairs running. To my left, where the door to the room I was in is, I hear the sound of the furnace/AC drop out as if someone was standing in front of the door and blocked or muffled the sound. Even though I was by myself, I did look and obviously did not see anything. At the same time, Bob was in lying on the bed and started growling and barking like he sensed something was there as well.
In 2004 a couple experiences were a bit interesting. Before I mention them, let me just say that I am aware of sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming, and I do not have a history of sleepwalking. I woke up with Bob on the bed barking at the front window of the master bedroom. I look over and the curtains were blowing in the breeze. I'm thinking it is due to the heater blowing up air because the register is below the window. However, the curtains were blowing out because the window was open about 6". Anyone who knows me, knows I don't open my windows, and this would be especially true because this happened in January. Nobody lived with me at the time so I have no explanation why the window would be unlocked and open. The latch to keep the window locked when shut was metal and was the type that you would rotate in a circle to lock and unlock. Even if it was turned to the unlocked position, the window just doesn't open 6". It would take a significant amount of force to lift the window.
A few months later, I woke up thinking I heard the ice cream truck in the neighborhood playing it's little ditty, but it was actually Mom's music box playing. I got out of bed and recognized the tune of her music box mirror and when I walked into the room where it was on a shelf, it stopped. I wasn't imagining this because the face of the mirror was dusty and when it plays the song "Somewhere Over The Rainbow", a magnetic bird goes around in a circle around the face of the mirror, and there was a clear circular path where the bird went around in the dust. The last time I played this music box was after my Mom's funeral in July 1997, so for whatever reason 7 years later it decides to start playing.
We all have seen the occasion where opening a door will make another door open or close depending on the vacuum created. That happens all the time when I let the dogs out. I open the back door and the door from the garage to the dining room opens or closes. Not a big deal. However, one night I'm seeing some friends off and when I am walking down the hall to the living room, the bathroom door closes behind me. There is no airflow from the bathroom to the front door. It was not one of the dogs, which has been known to happen, so I checked if one got in the bathroom and bumped the door closed. No dogs. When walking from the computer room to the hallway, I obviously saw the door open because if it was closed, that would be out of place and I would have noticed. Plus walking down the hall, I heard the door close. No explanation.
Because I work nights, I generally keep that schedule on my days off. So while my wife is still sleeping, I will be sitting on the couch listening to stuff on my iPhone with the lights off so I don't wake her up. The couch is along the west wall (front of house) and faces east (back of house). I will have the kitchen light on though. Sitting on the couch, I can see into the kitchen via the reflection in the glass cabinet which is at a 45 degree angle in the dining room. A few times, I have seen something like appears to be a black figure move across the kitchen in that reflection. As much as I despise the whole "shadow person" claims, that is what I have seen.
I have had clock radios turn on at weird times in the morning. Lights have turned on. Some chess pieces were knocked over when one of my wife's best friends passed away. They would play long distance chess and she texted me a picture while I am at work of one of the chess pieces knocked over on the board that she had out in the garage. The table the board was on was too high for the dogs to knock over, so that was just weird. Her chess buddy dies in Kentucky, and a chess piece here is knocked over.
Speaking of my wife, she has mentioned that after we got back from our anniversary trip where we stayed at Lemp Mansion in Saint Louis, she would see what she described as a black human figure in the hallway when she was in bed trying to go to sleep. She thinks something followed her home but I doubt it. I have tried to recreate this with her. She lays in the bed, and I stand at the entrance to the bedroom and she said that's exactly what it looked like. In the living room we have a light for ambience and it does shine a little light down the hallways toward the bedroom so that is how she can see light in the hallway, and apparently a black figure. While I am at work, she says that every now and then she will hear a knocking on the coat closet door right next to her. No explanation.
I have my heard my name whispered out loud when I walked into the garage from the dining room. A few months ago, I was walking back into the dining room from the garage and I heard someone/something say, "Hello?". It was a bit faint, but loud enough for me to hear it, so I called downstairs to my wife who was in the basement with her friend who was staying with us for a bit. It wasn't either of them, and sure enough her friend did freak out a little when I told her this, but she was brave for the next couple weeks. Nothing else happened while they were here.
Maybe a month ago, Spring 2020, in the garage, the piece of cardboard covering the hole that leads to the attic was askew. It was like someone climbed up the ladder and pushed up on a corner, leaving it no longer flush with the lip of the opening. It is a sturdy cardboard square, probably 2' X 2' in size. To get to that opening, you need to climb a ladder that was obviously made for this opening. Unless we're sleepwalking and climbing ladders, nobody in the house is doing that. My wife and I both noticed this, and maybe a week later, it is flat on the entrance again like it should be. I have been up in the attic and there's nothing really up there. There are no old boxes of personal items from former owners, Ralph and Alice. The wife thinks garage activity may be my Mom, because I do have her original grave marker out there, the metal sign the cemetery puts out there before I got her a headstone. I also have her old car keys and license plates also out there. She loved her 1977 Chevette.
So my house just has weird things occurring. Nothing to the extent that it is bothersome, scary, or frightening though. People have asked me why I'm not scared, to which I respond because there is nothing to be scared of. It's our house we are going nowhere so when odd things happen, we just go with it.
