My Mother's house as I explained in my previous story is quite old. This story is about the cellar of the old house.
My Mother's cellar can't be accessed from inside the house. There's an old wooden sliding door at the back of the barn house that enters into the dirt floor cob webbed walls of her basement. At the very back of this room is what I like to describe as a little hobbit door. That door leads into the second half of the basement in which you have to crouch down into the doorway and then step down into the first room of the second half. This room is filled with antique old original parts that had been removed from the house over time and revamps (ie... Wood stove, old organ, desks...etc...). Directly on your left is another room which contains the furnace and hot water tank. I have only been in these rooms not even a hand full of times.
The basement has always freaked me out. Even just going through the sliding door has always given me the chills. When my Mother and I originally moved in one of the men from the moving company we hired actually told me he wasn't going in there to put away our storage. When questioned he replied "they don't pay me enough to go in there." (lol) Luckily enough the two other men didn't feel the same way.
There have been strange happenings with the cellar that have happened in the time that my Mother has lived in this house. All can be explained away with reasonable explanations. But the freakiest happening was the time when my ex, my Mother and I were at her place chilling with a movie about a year after the move. My ex, Christian, had gone to the bathroom and came out with a question mark look on his face. He explained that while in the bathroom he could hear what sounded like a cat faintly yowling from under the floor boards. (The Bathroom is located above the furnace room) About an hour later my Mother after going to the bathroom claimed the same. We all gathered into the small closet sized bathroom to listen. They both could still hear it but I could not. I never heard anything.
Chopping this up to me being hearing impaired I sent Christian to investigate. On our way to the back of the house we could see the lamp in the furnace room was on. Now there is NO way this lamp could have been left or turned on. My mother and I never go down there EVER because we are both big chickens when it comes to dirty little spooky places. In order to even turn the lamp on you have to fumble around in the blacker the black dark to find the extension cord and plug it in. Noticing the light freaked me out. Before that I just assumed a cat was stuck in the basement but how can a cat plug in the light?
Now I, having watched way too many scary movies, told my ex if he goes in there and something happens to him I was NOT going in to save him. I knew too well that in the movies that is how the murderer lures the unsuspecting second victim in for the kill. (I really need to stop watching those movies)
All worked up for nothing Christian went into the cellar and came out with nothing. He turned the lamp off and we went about our night never hearing the "cat" again. Not knowing how the lamp had been some how turned on and figuring someone might have been snooping around our spooky basement.
Christian didn't find a cat but there are many places to hide in the first room so I thought maybe I should put a can of tuna just on the other side of the sliding door to lure it out. I did so the next morning. That evening the can had been mangled beyond recognition. NO normal cat could have done that so I booked it out of there.
Even the night we heard the cat can be explained away with reasonable explanations. The tuna could have been eaten by a larger animal. Someone snooping around where they shouldn't in our cellar...etc...
My mother nor I or anyone else has ever heard the a cat again but to this day years later the lamp in the furnace room can be found randomly turned on.
I don't think the rats in our area get very big. I can't say for sure cause I have never seen a rat in my neck of the woods but my mom's house does get cute little field mice and she has to keep mouse traps out all year round to keep them from soiling everywhere and getting into her food storage. She had a cat that helped keep the mice at bay but unfortunately has been killed by the coyote we have discovered lives in her barn. So I'm 100% sure the can probably was eaten by something much bigger.
The only problem with the lamp is that it has to be plugged in so I don't think a rat or a mouse can do that. It's not possible.
I do think a camera or some kind of security system is needed to see if someone or something is snooping around my Mother's basement. I'm just not technically inclined to install a video camera and we don't have the money to buy one. I can't even afford to buy myself a digital camera let alone anything for my Mom's scary creepy basement...lol
We could have can's set up but the way her house is positioned there is a big cow field that stretches from the back to the side of the house and on gusty days hear the wooded doors to the basement banging in the wind so the can's would most likely be set off every two seconds by the breeze.
I think it's easier just not to think about the lamp. It's just too freaky to think of what or who is turning it on a few times a year. My Mom as been there for 7 years now and who ever is doing it has never harmed her in any way which is good. So ignoring it calms our nerves.