Subject: Re: Poltergiest Story
From: Judith319@webtv.net (Judith)
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 12:51:09 -0700 (PDT)

My husband and I bought our third house in August. It was built in 1908. It was a huge house with two full stories, and full basement a 12 foot long mantle, built in bookshelves, built in china hutch, built in pocket doors, and a living room huge enough to dwarf a grand piano. I loved all the great old woodwork and the house!

From the beginning, I felt something strange. I always picked the houses, and used the way they felt as one of the deciding factors. This house felt different than the usually warm memory type house that we had bought before. I let my love of old architecture cloud my feelings and we bought it anyways. We started by painting everything as it was a rental and was filthy. Then I wallpapered and removed all the old ugly gold long shag carpet! I was getting read for Thanksgiving. Our huge house could accommodate all the relatives (65) will loads of room to spare!

We have 3 children, then ages 12, 8, and 7. When they were at school, I would get most of my work done on the house. But it was also when I noticed the uneasy feelings that I was not alone. I would catch glimpses out of the corner of my eye of someone moving inside the house. I was constantly jerking to see what it was (half expecting one of the kids to have been there) even though they were at school.

There were also the feelings of someone either watching you from behind or being behind you. I stared at first, half unconsciously, sitting with my back towards walls and corners, never towards on open space. Then I was doing it consciously keeping an eye open all the times (and feeling like a big baby not wanting to stay in the house alone)

Thanksgiving was a big success and I was getting excited about Christmas. I was planning a HUGE tree for the first time. I started buying decorations and purchased an extension cord for the lights. I put the new cord on a huge island in the kitchen after putting away groceries, and hurried out the door to pickup the kids at school. We all returned about twenty minutes later. After we got all the backpacks and coats taken care of I headed for the extension cord. GONE! I looked and rethought and looked and started retracing in my thoughts. NO I HAD left it there! My first thought after that was THOSE DAMN KIDS! Called them all in the kitchen asked and yelled and screamed. Denying the whole time that any of them had taken it, I started tearing the entire house apart. I wasn't going to put up with lying! Four hours later and with the entire house in a wreck NO EXTENTION CORD! I searched every nook! Ran to the store and bought another.

That night, Mike and I had stayed up late to hear the news and had just turned off the TV. We heard loud noises coming from outside. Teenagers were loafing out in the street, flirting with each other. After about five minutes of the laughing and teasing, Mike finally got out of bed and yelled at them to go home, got back in bed, twisted and turned a couple of times and quieted down. Out of total quiet a woman's voice from the foot of our bed said about two sentences calmly, in what sounded like French. We were both still awake! I was so scared I couldn't move! I was afraid to look! We both sleep on our stomachs and we would have had to turn over to look at the foot of the bed!

Not even saying a whisper for what seemed like the longest time, I finally whispered to Mike "Did you hear that?" He whispered back, "Yup." Then a shiver ran up my spine and I asked again" A woman's voice?" He said "Yup" I said, "OH Shit!" and turned over very quickly! Looked at he foot of the bed, NOTHING! I expected to find maybe a woman standing in OUR bedroom! But nothing!

Then Mike told me he had heard it the night before while downstairs late watching TV. He was afraid to tell me, partly because he thought he might have imagined it, and partly that my 260 lbs, football looking, construction worker, husband was afraid I might think he was nuts! That’s when I got a little worried. He was as stable as anyone I could think of. What in the world did we hear? ....A GHOST!

I started listening and watching by back even more! Couldn't sleep for two days. Nothing happened. A week passed with nothing! Just when I was starting to feel better, on a Wed. night, about 12:30am we were startled awake by what sounded like those pocket doors downstairs, (which must have weighed about 500lbs) being slammed together three times! The windows in our bedroom rattled along with the pictures on the walls! I immediately assumed that someone was in the house! I told Mike to shut the door at the top of the stairs and hold it shut! I ran for the closet, got the rifle, and starting shoving bullets in the gun as fast as I could! Went to the stairway door, where Mike was still holding the door, loaded gun in hand, leaned on the door and had Mike check on the kids! They were all in their beds and amazingly still asleep! Then huddled together we opened the door and crept down the stairs, me first, with the gun aimed in front of us! Nothing, nothing anywhere! Except that the dog was locked in the basement! (First of many times for that.) All the deadbolts were still locked. We looked in every cupboard, every niche! Nothing! Kind of relieved, we went back to bed and barely slept. Then something happened! The pictures were still askew!

On edge for about a week, I again calmed about the incident. I went to the basement to do laundry. The kids were at school. One switch turns on 3 lights; one in each of three rooms that you walk through to get to the laundry. I always hated the basement. I walked through the first room until I was just past the lit light bulb when it just exploded, for some unknown reason. I hurried into the next room (instead of going back) and the second bulb burst! I was really scared then, and ran into the last room (the laundry room) and the bulb burst in there too.

Shaking so bad my knees were about to buckle, I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid to go back through those dark rooms to get to the stairs. At least the laundry room had a small window and some light crept in there!

I finally started yelling at thin air that it was my house now and no matter what it did I wasn't leaving! I told it we had every penny of our money in THAT house and it was my HOME! Then I tried to act NOT scared while yelling and ran for the stairs, I could feel it behind me breathing down my neck, and feeling like it would grab me from behind at any minute. I ran up the stairs grabbed my purse and ran out of the house shaking uncontrollably!

The other times, I was scared but did not feel like I was in any real harm, but that time I felt I was going to be harmed! I was afraid to go in the basement alone after that and didn't! Again about a week passed and nothing! At this time Mike and I were both feeling uneasy about staying in the house alone, especially at night, and we found a lot of excuses to all go out together.

We were all out at dinner, when we came in the dog was locked in the basement again (which happened a lot) and was whining at us, so I went in the kitchen to get her a snack. There on the kitchen island, right where I had laid it weeks earlier, still in the wrapper, was the extension cord! Nothing on the island BUT the cord!

I was getting tired of the up and down emotions involved with living with a ghost! This didn't seem to upset me as much. I might have been getting use to it even but I wasn't ready for what happened next.

My daughter ,who was one of the quietest, sweetest, little girls that I have known to this day, also had a stubborn streak. It was a rare occasion when she had one of these streaks but was bad when she did! She got up one morning insisting on wearing this gawd awful outfit she had put together. We went around and around until I got a migraine and she was made to stay home or change the outfit! In her mood, she stayed home.

I went to lay down with the migraine and she was supposed to stay in her room. Before Thanksgiving, I had spent two weeks on my hands and knees, hand sanding and refinishing our upstairs hallway, which was about 15 feet long. I was just calming down from the confrontation with my daughter when I heard what can only be described, as the sound of a very LARGE piece of furniture on metal wheels, being pushed down the hall. The sound was so distinct that I swear I could hear the crunch of the wood of the hallway under the wheels.

I yelled at Jesse, thinking she was moving furniture over all my hard work and ruining the floor. She at the same time yelled at ME, and asked what I WAS doing, but she was downstairs! The sound got louder and louder and was echoing throughout entire house and was ear deafening. Jesse was in tears and I was scared wittless. I grabbed my purse, Jesse and ran out of the house and didn't come home until Mike got off work! That was enough ! I was through with the ghost! I made Mike put the house up for sale! It sold in 2 days and we MOVED in a hurry!

Judith Cook
Judith319@webtv.net