Unexplained Happenings
My husband and Ipurchased our first home in October of 1994. It is situated abouta mile from Purdue University. The previous owner was a woman inher 80's who moved to a retirement complex. The house is a small,3 bedroom cottage that is just over 60 years old. On the day wemoved in various family members and friends came from Ohio tohelp us. My best friend, who is not prone to supernaturalexperiences, kept seeing a movement out of the corner of her eye.As we continued to move items over the course of the day shestarted asking everyone if they had seen the cat that was hangingout by the back door. She thought it had wandered into the house.We kept teasing her about "seeing things" but didn'ttake it seriously. We have two cats of our own, who were back atthe apartment, and just thought she was "projecting"their image into the new environment or was seeing "spots"because it was a very sunny day. You know, when you go in and outof bright light you sometimes see dark spots.
As we began the task of going through items and cleaning thehouse more thoroughly, I noticed past traces of a cat in the 3/4finished basement; pieces of old food, cat hair around thebasement windows. I remember laughing and thinking my friend hadbeen right, but really didn't think too much more about it. Inthe course of our cleaning up we moved an old steel desk that hadbeen left in the basement. As I pulled out the drawers to moveit, a packet of papers fell out the back. It was a detailedaccount of all renovations done on the home by the previousowner's husband. We also found packets of insurance letterheadpaper and envelopes. It seems he was an insurance agent who ranthe business out of the basement. I guessed, and I found outcorrectly, that he must have died around 1979 because all thepaperwork stopped that year.
Time passed, and we began doing projects around our house, i.e.painting, wallpapering, carpeting, landscaping. My parents cameand helped us on a number of our projects because, although myhusband is a hardworker, he isn't very comfortable doing thosetypes of "projects".
Anyway, our first child, Katie, was born last October. As most ofyou past and present parents know, we both were surviving on lesssleep and more stress then normal. I kept seeing little movementsout of the corner of my eye on different occasions but dismissedit all as a by-product of our new lifestyle. One afternoon, about2 months ago, I went out to run some errands leaving my husbandto watch the baby. He put her down for her afternoon nap, set upthe baby monitor, and headed to the basement to do some work onthe computer. About 45 minutes to an hour later he heardfootsteps upstairs coming from the front bedroom (we had turnedthis room into our dining room.) He went upstairs, thinking I hadreturned only to find a sleeping baby and no one else around. Hesaid he was a little spooked by the incident, but not wanting togive the situation any more "power" by acknowledgingit, didn't say anything to me about it.
Well, four days ago, I had my own experience. Saturday night, myhusband ran to the grocery while I gave the baby her bottlebefore going to bed. I had just put her down for the night andwas sitting in the living room reading when I heard a noise onthe basement stairs. We have metal handrails on the basementstairs that make a distinct groaning sound when you use them. Icalled out my husband's name, rationalizing that he must havequietly returned, and I missed hearing him come in. It's amazingto me how our mind's rationalize unexplained things! I got up andchecked the stairs, and of course, he wasn't there. I went to thebaby's room, again rationalizing that she must have donesomething to cause the noise, because I knew it wasn't me! Shewas asleep.
After my husband came home, I told him about my experience andthat's when he told me about the footsteps. As we continued totalk, we both admitted we had seen movement out of the corner ofour eyes, heard what sounded like inaudible whispers last fall,at night, when the attic fan was running (he mentioned this to mebefore, but I wouldn't admit that I had heard the whispering too),and also had the sensation that someone else was in the house atvarious times. We also both concluded that the feeling was notnegative. The funny thing is, we both thought it was the sameperson...the previous owner's husband. We think he probably isn'ttoo happy with some of my husband's "half _ssed" fix-itjobs!
So, that's my story. Not as exciting as some of the one's I'veread. I still don't know how I feel about the various unexplainedhappenings. I'm a firm believer in a Heaven and Hell, and Ireally don't think our spirits hang around...but I can't explainwhat's happened in our home either! I can't dismiss them as thecreaking and groaning of an old house because our house has asteel post foundation and very firm floor boards.