This is not a personal experience but that of my girlfriends cousin and his family who have given me permission to post details of strange incidents that have happened in their flat in the hope of getting some advice.
(Lee's girlfriend posted some of this on the site back in November but I can't find it so thought it would be best to start from the beginning, apologies if some of you have already read some of this)
Lee (my girlfriend's cousin), Hayley (Lee's girlfriend) and their daughter Mia moved into a ground floor flat around 18 months ago with the first series of incidents beginning a few months after they had moved in. Hayley told us that on numerous occasions there would be a very strong smell of tobacco in the flat, Lee and Hayley are both smokers however neither of them will smoke inside due to their little girl. As a smoker myself I know how the smell can sometimes linger on you however when I suggested this Hayley stated that the smell was 'fresher', as if someone was in the flat smoking right there and then. She also mentioned that the smell would appear at random times throughout the day and not just after they themselves had come back in from having a cigarette.
The temperature of their fridge was constantly being tampered with and up until then the strangest thing to have happened was on one occasion Hayley went to the fridge to get some milk and the milk bottle was completely crushed.
Towards the end of November last year Hayley told us that it was as if Mia had been engaging with someone (pointing at, smiling at, talking to, waving to etc) who Hayley couldn't see. It would mainly happen in the front room or if she was stood in the hallway looking into the front room and had been going on for a few weeks. Hayley attempted to take pictures and also video Mia doing this using her digital camera however as she tried to do this the camera kept turning off. She replaced the batteries however the camera would still turn off every time she tried to photograph or video Mia. I mentioned that the camera could be faulty however Hayley said that when she took pictures of anything else in the flat the camera worked but would then turn off again when she went to photograph Mia.
Mia was around 18 months old when this happened so when I say 'talk' it was more along the lines of one or two word sentences and unfortunately nothing that could provide Hayley with concrete evidence of whom, if anyone, she was conversing with.
Hayley did think there was the possibility that it could be Lee's Nan, Mia's great Nan, who had passed away a few months earlier. She had a few reasons for believing this. On the first occasion she asked Mia what she waving and laughing at and she apparently walked over to and pointed at the picture of her great Nan which they have on the TV stand next to the TV. Lee's Mum and Dad were babysitting one evening and witnessed Mia standing in the door way looking into the front room and waving, they too asked Mia what she was waving at and she apparently went to the same picture, picked it up and kissed and cuddled it. Also Hayley said that Mia was acting like she knew the 'person' she was conversing with, Mia wasn't frightened or wary and when she was finished would go straight to the picture that sat beside the TV of her Nan and pick it up and cuddle it.
Hayley visits a medium from time to time and did so shortly after the thing with Mia began. The medium told Hayley that Lee's Nan was looking over the family and would do so until the problems they were having were sorted out which would be within the year. This confirmed for Hayley that Mia was seeing her Great Nan and that there was nothing to worry about.
Everything seemed to die down for a while. Mia was still doing her 'thing' although not as often and due to the reasons above Hayley didn't see any reason to be concerned when she did. The smell of tobacco would still appear randomly but this wasn't exactly frightening, more strange and slightly frustrating that they had no conclusive answer as to what could be the cause.
This changed recently with three new and separate incidents within the space of two weeks.
Thursday 29th March, Jo, my girlfriend, forwarded on to me an email which Hayley had sent her. Hayley emailed Jo asking if she could explain any of the following.
Around two weeks prior to the email Hayley sent to Jo Mia's Minnie Mouse cutlery set went missing. Hayley searched high and low for them but to no avail. A couple of days later, believing they had been lost, she went to the Disney store to buy Mia a new set but they had sold out. When she got home the knife and fork were sitting in the sink and the spoon was in the cutlery drawer.
The second thing happened a few days later. Lee had already left for work. Hayley had gotten herself ready for work and Mia ready to go to the childminders. Mia was watching cartoons on BBC 2 while Hayley got everything together that Mia needed for the day. Hayley switched the TV off, it was still on BBC 2 and they left the flat. When they got home later that day and Hayley turned the TV on the channel had been switched to the Disney channel. They were the last ones to leave the flat that morning and the first to return that afternoon.
Wednesday 28th March Hayley got up to get ready for work, she was the first one up, Lee and Mia was still asleep. When she went to the kitchen there was milk all over the kitchen sides and milk had been splattered up the cupboards and over the kettle.
Jo and Hayley have done some research on the history of the property and the land. The flats are relatively new, the majority of them built within the last twenty years. The land the flats are built on was part of the site of The Joyce Green Hospital although at the moment they are unsure as to whether the land the flat stands on was just part of the grounds or used to be where one the hospital buildings once stood. There is also a cemetery/burial ground around about a mile from the flat, now called the Enchanted Woodland and looked after by Temple Hill Trust, which once belonged to the hospital. This area was the hospital cemetery from around 1901 - 1951 when the hospital stopped using this area of the land. 80% of the burials between 1901 and 1951 took place in 1902 when London and the surrounding areas were hit by a severe smallpox epidemic.
I don't know if this is or should be of any significance however it has gone a long way to convincing the others that they are dealing with a haunting.
I don't believe in ghosts myself and personally believe that they are yet to exhaust all natural explanations (however am struggling to think of natural causes for all the incidents which weakens my argument somewhat when we discuss this).
I would be grateful to hear others thoughts and opinions on what has been happening, hopefully ways to debunk some of the occurrences or measures they can take if this truly is a haunting.
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