This incident happened approximately eight years ago when my youngest son was eight. I also have another daughter and son who are two and four years older respectively.
It was a beautiful summer's day and we had just finished eating lunch. The children carried their dishes through to our kitchen and as I filled the sink with water ready to wash the dishes, the children went to play in the back yard.
My kitchen is extremely small measuring approximately 3m x 2.5m and has a door exiting to the yard and another leading into the living room. I began washing the dishes and almost as soon as I started, the children came running in asking for a drink of pop each. Now, my youngest child had recently been informed that he was not allowed pop that contained sugar because of the decay that had been discovered on his teeth. As young children are so compliant, I knew he would take pop containing sugar (just because he couldn't have it) so I asked my eldest son to sort the drinks out - making sure that the bottle contents were sugar free.
I was at the sink washing dishes, my youngest was facing in from the back door, my daughter facing in from the living room door and my eldest was taking the pop bottle out of the fridge behind me. Putting the bottle on the bench above the fridge, my eldest asked me if it was sugar free (I replied yes) and this drew the attention of the other two children. What happened next was astonishing.
As my eldest unscrewed the bottle top, it fell from his hands and rolled under the fridge. We all saw this happen, prompting my daughter to ask him if he could reach it. My eldest got on his knees and looked under the fridge. Just as he said, "I can't see it", I looked to see that the top was back on the bottle. At the same time, my daughter exclaimed, "Look at the bottle! The top's back on." My eldest got to his feet, looked at the bottle, asking, "How did...? Dad, you couldn't have..." My youngest looked a little frightened but was quickly reassured by the other two who, though bemused, showed amazing calmness and maturity.
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You ask if there have been any other instances in my house and I must tell you that there have been many. The only reason I shared the two stories published on this site was because there was at least two people witnessing the event as it happened, and therefore gives the story more credibility.
My youngest son and daughter (individually and on separate occasions) have heard footsteps walking across the bedroom floor and down the stairs when they have been alone in the house.
My eldest son wanted to borrow a DVD movie and I was sure that I had left it on top of the DVD player only the night before when I watched it. It took two weeks of hunting high and low before I eventually gave up and telephoned him to say that I could not find it. During this conversation, I turned around and whilst still on the landline, saw the DVD a metre away from me lying on the dining room table. Now this may not seem unusual, but at this time I lived alone and had no visitors whilst looking for the DVD. The dining room table was large and covered with a white lace table cloth meaning that anything lying on it stood out and would easily be seen. The land line was right next to the table and I had made numerous phone calls to my children over the previous weeks. I also passed the table each time I left the house or returned - there was no way that I would not have noticed the DVD had it been there during the time I was looking!
My most unusual experience occurred in either 2008 or 2009 and was a series of events spanning a few weeks. Whilst lying in bed one evening, I was woken by the sound of scratching in my loft space and I could hear this through my bedroom ceiling. The noise returned the following evening only this time I heard something run diagonally across the ceiling/ loft space floor; I assumed the noise was a small animal such as a rat or bird because there were thumps as it hopped the ceiling joists. I contacted the local authority pest control and they investigated but could not find evidence of any animal presence or any entry or exit holes. I mentioned the situation to my adjacent neighbours (I live in a terrace) and they both stated that they had heard nothing. The noises got progressively louder and more "deliberate" over the following few nights and I was becoming so annoyed and angry that I ended up venting my frustrations to one of my friends when she called around for a cup of tea. This seemed to be a turning point; almost as if whatever was making the noise was listening and thinking "he's confusing me with an animal - I'll try something different"
The following evening I was woken with the sound of my vertical blinds tapping/ rattling against my bedroom window - I soon went back to sleep because this sometimes happens when I leave the bedroom door and bedroom window open. The blinds rattled again during the following night so I got out of bed to make sure that all doors and windows were closed and returned to sleep. For the following few nights, I was woken by these blinds and they were getting louder and louder. I even found myself having a discussion with myself in my head, challenging me to provide a rational explanation to what was actually happening - the loft noises had stopped, but they were nothing compared to this. I always slept facing away from the bedroom window/ blinds and I don't mind saying that I was a little afraid to look towards the window when the noise was being made. After at least a week, I had enough. This night I was woken with the blinds knocking and rattling so loudly that I was convinced something was physically grabbing the blinds and throwing them against my UPVC window behind me. I remember thinking to myself that if it was single pane glass, the force could break it! I work as a teacher and a carer of people with mental health problems. I have experience of working with people diagnosed with schizophrenia and fully understand that when they say that they are listening to things that are not audible to me, to them, the voices and sounds are real - was I suffering from some mental breakdown?
Eventually that evening, I exhausted all my possible explanations and quite frightened, I decided that I would turn around quickly and just confront what was behind me. My heart was pounding and I had never felt more awake - I flung the duvet off me at the same time turning swiftly to look at the window... There was nothing. It is difficult to describe how I felt at the time - relief, fear, shock confused, but I do remember saying out loud - "come on, what are you trying to do?".
I never heard any more noises but do feel that they were warnings that preceded an event which occurred four weeks later when my employer falsified criteria to make me redundant (I eventually won my case for unfair dismissal).