In the early 1970s my parents bought their first home, a split level entry home in a new neighborhood outside of Boston. The basement was unfinished and there was a small room my Dad called the Mud Room to the left of the staircase. The other side opposite the staircase was larger and used for storage. I recall at 5 years old sitting at my kids table coloring by myself in the Mud Room and hearing noises like someone was moving boxes in the other side of the basement. We did indeed have boxes in there that my parents had not gotten around to unpacking. As a child I knew something was in there, however, I wasn't scared of it really. I said out loud, "I can hear you. I know you are in there." The noises of boxes being pushed around would stop for a few minutes and then start right back up again. I was more curious by it than frightened.
My parents had hired a sitter on a weekend and my sister and I were jumping on my parent's bed; something they would never allow if home. We had shut the door to their bedroom and were jumping away when all of the sudden the door knob started to turn and release. It was if someone was going to open the door but didn't. We ran out of the room expecting to find the sitter trying to scare us but she was at the other end of the house sitting on the sofa reading a magazine. She insisted she hadn't moved since my parents left. Unfortunately my sister does not remember this event.
One night while in bed, a giant crashing sound came from the basement. My father went down to inspect and absolutely nothing was out of place. Another time I had been asleep when I woke to what sounded like someone sawing a piece of wood with a handsaw. Our dog was asleep on my bed and he was now growling with the hair on the back of his neck standing up. I was convinced someone was breaking into our house. I called out to my father and of course as soon as the words began to leave my mouth, the noise stopped. He went to inspect and again nothing. I never heard it again.
I slept with the foot of my bed near the door. The hall light would always be on at night and like most children it provided comfort to see it shining in the doorway. One night I woke up suddenly and was frightened. I'm not sure why but something didn't feel 'right' if that makes sense. The door was partially closed obscuring the light from the hallway. I somehow mustered up the courage to crawl down to the end of the bed and open the door so that I may better see the hall light. I reached my arm out for the door (man, I'm getting chills just writing this & it happened over 30 years ago) and the door was stuck. It wasn't budging. This had never happened before. I placed my hand down on the floor expecting to find a toy or some other object preventing the door from opening and... There was nothing there! I scrambled back into bed and pulled the covers over my head. In the morning I checked the door and it moved freely like always. Nothing was in the way that would have prevented it from moving.
Whatever it was, it seem to like to mess with anything electronic. As I got older, I got to move into my own room and out of the room I shared with a younger sibling. One morning I woke up and the little lamp on the dresser was on. I asked my parents if anyone had turned it on during the night and they both said that they hadn't. Another time I had been in my room getting ready for bed. My Dad had given me a tape recorder which at the time I thought was the coolest thing ever (cable tv hadn't been invented yet). I had it plugged into the wall to charge. I no sooner got into bed when I heard a strange sound. I turned on the light and upon inspection it was the tape recorder almost set to record but the buttons weren't pushed down all the way. This was what was creating the sound. It appeared to be jammed.
Months later I had taken a book from the shelf in the room my sisters now shared (the one with the door incident). I read the book and went to return it a little bit later that afternoon. Once in the room I heard a strange noise behind me. We had a small record player that sat in its own little case. We could play only 45 or 78 rpm records on it (remember those?). The needle had been placed on the bare turn table and the noise I was hearing was the scratching sound of the needle on plastic. The speed had also been set on 78 rpm which was odd because we only had 45 rpm records. I went to go tell my Mom about it but she brushed it off as something one of my sisters had done earlier in the day. Well why was it that the first time in there I didn't hear it? Also, my sisters weren't home when it happened.
Another night we had returned late from a party in New Hampshire. I got into bed and could hear slow deliberate footsteps outside as if someone were walking in gravel. As it was summer the windows were open. I got up to check outside to see if anyone was there and the sounds stopped. I closed the windows but could still hear the footsteps. In addition I could hear what I can only describe as the sound a wooden ruler makes falling onto a hard surface. I'd check outside and again nothing. It sounded like it was coming from the driveway. Even the dog knew something was going on and walked around in the kitchen whining and growling. I asked my father if I could sleep on the floor in their room and he told me no. I was frightened out of my wits and he is sending me back to my room! He tried to convince me that it was just the neighborhood kids up late and messing around in the street. I knew better.
The hallway floorboards would constantly creek at night. I figured out that I could recreate this sound by stepping in a certain area. There may not have been anything paranormal about this happening and it could have had more to do with living in a humid environment. Nonetheless it still used to scare me as a child.
During an afternoon after school, I estimate I was probably in the 3rd grade, I was heading down our stairs to the basement and saw an outline of a very tall featureless man heading towards me. I stopped abruptly and shut my eyes as the figure passed right through me. Months later I was seated outside on the front steps and saw the same figure outlined against the chimney on the house across the street. It seem to start off small and get bigger until it reached an inhumanly possible size. I ran inside and told my mother what I had seen. I don't think she believed me though.
Here's where things get a bit creepy. Now, I cannot claim that there is anything paranormal in what I'm about to say next but it is very weird. One November morning my Dad sent me downstairs to get something out of the freezer. I was probably close to 10 at this point. The freezer was kept in the back of the Mud Room. In the middle of the room there was something small and white. I picked it up and examined it. It was a human tooth. An incisor. This was not completely shocking as myself and my two younger sisters were at the age when we were losing teeth, however, when one of us did lose a tooth, it was a big deal. We believed in the tooth fairy at that time and losing a tooth only meant one thing: $! I showed my parents who knew nothing of why it would be sitting in the middle of the floor. We asked our friends if they had lost a tooth. No one had. During the same time next year this would repeat itself. Another incisor tooth in the center of the floor. I again was the one to find it. Same place. Same room. Everyone was questioned. No one had lost a tooth. Again, maybe a logical explanation could be had by this but it was something upon memory still makes me feel a bit uneasy.
As we got into our preteen years it seem that we were hearing lots more creaks and bangs around the house. One summer we were playing hide and seek with a few other of our preteen girlfriends. I hid in the closet in my sister's room and could hear footsteps in the attic above me. I hightailed it out of there and yelled to everyone to come outside. I explained what I had just heard. Everyone thought I was nuts but I knew what I had heard. There were about 5 of us girls and we tiptoed into the house, all of us listening when suddenly the footsteps started again. Everyone ran down the stairs when all of the sudden the old rotary dial phone on the wall in the kitchen came undone and fell with the line still attached from the wall. The five of us ran down the stairs practically pushing each other out of the way. My sister fell on the stairs which had the domino effect on the rest of us who were behind her. We were terrified and waited outside until my mother got home from work.
This is pretty much what I remember from that house. My Dad and I talk about it sometimes and he also has told me of his own experiences there. He would wake up in the middle of the night and hear his named being called. It was always a childhood name he had and not his full name. No one called him by that name anymore. He woke up once to a child next to his bed and thinking it was one of us kids he asked if we were okay. The figure didn't speak to him so he reached out and placed his hand on the top of this figure's head. It was ice cold. He blinked and it was gone.
I asked him once why he sent me to my own bed when I was so scared and he felt that I had to face this fear head on. I did that scary night and when I heard the footsteps on other occasions I learned to ignore them. They seem to feed off my fears. So, my question is this: could this just have been poltergeist activity given that my sisters and I were young preteens when this started?
I've checked out the history of the land. There had just been woods there before. A few arrowheads and old horseshoes were found in the area. We were right on the Assabet River that also was located next to an old dump from the early 1900s. We used to find all kinds of things there. One point to note is that there had been a huge fire in the area in the early 1900s (if I remember the date correctly - it may have been earlier). Could the experiences have had something to do with that? Some of the items we found in the dump were charred.
Anyways, thanks for reading. This is very very long I know!
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Jennifer ❤