The Wood Street Years

This may be a little long and oddly written as I had to write it all down quickly. It's not exactly a single story, but more of a collection of experiences from my old house that I wanted to discuss with you all to see what ideas and theories you all had.

My family moved into the house in 1987. It was a 1950's council owned property that they were renting. The village was an old place that housed a lot of miners that would go to and from the local coal pits and also had mines under most of the streets. It was an odd, but lovely place, but there were always stories of hauntings throughout the village. It was as if the whole place was a hotbed of activity.

Ever since the move to this new house, my family experienced odd things. My sister would complain of 'people' sitting on the edge of her bed during the night, my father was followed by a hooded figure (even outside in the streets) and my mother had personal items vanish.

Over the years, the activity became more and more intense. In 1995 my father moved out and went to live elsewhere, but we (my mother, sister and brother) stayed in the house.

My sister complained of activity in the house when we were out. Banging and scraping from the kitchen, items being shuffled, plates clattered. She got so scared at times that she would run into my mother's bedroom and sleep in there.

The stairs and landing area always held some nasty element to it and on the whole the entire family hated it without any reason to. It was just something we all felt and never really voiced to each other until many years later. If we had to turn off the light in the hall, we'd run out and run back in. If we had to turn off the landing light at night, we'd do the same. We'd run out of the bedroom and quickly turn it off, only to hurl ourselves back into bed as fast as we could. And heaven forbid we needed the toilet during the night.

My sister eventually moved out and got married and so did my brother. This left myself and my mother alone in the house. My mother got a job after years of being unemployed, so I would often be on my own from 5AM to 12PM. It was then I began to really notice things.

One morning I had decided that instead of staying awake from 5AM, I would get some more rest. I settled back down into bed and closed my eyes. The next thing I knew, I heard a banging sound followed by hurried footsteps coming up the stairs. The thing was, I knew it was our stairs, as they had a unique and distinct squeak to them. The top step would creak and the next two steps up would make a lighter squeak then a thud. It was definitely them.

I thought Mom had come back due to forgetting something like keys or her purse. But there was silence. We had had a break in a couple of years previous, so I was naturally on edge. It was actually my first thought, so I grabbed my phone and called my mother who was almost at work so it couldn't have been her. She had also assured me that she had locked the door as normal. I was on the phone when I heard the exact same footsteps again. I have no idea how I did it, but I got back to sleep about half an hour later.

A couple of years passed where nothing much happened. Just the odd thing. Like items vanishing and reappearing, noises from the attic and odd smells. Then we started noticing it again.

My mother and myself went to the shops one day to pick up a snack from the local deli. When we returned, there was dripping coming from the ceiling just above the back door. We could hear whooshing from the pipes too. We bolted upstairs to find the bathroom taps fully on and the plug in. The bathroom was flooded. To this day, we have no idea what the hell happened there.

This happened again about 2 years after when we returned from an outing with my brother. This time, the plug was not in thankfully.

It was from that point it began to get more and more frequent. I would see things at night that I couldn't explain. I first put it down to lucid dreaming, but I was not the only one seeing them. I would see strange insect-like creatures crawling up the curtains and on the ceiling. I'd stare at them and they would vanish after about 15 seconds.

There was one time that I was not sleepy and I was looking out the bedroom window at the street. It was about 1AM at the time and I saw something very strange on the hedge that surrounded the house. The only way to describe it was a spider. But it had ridiculously long legs and it was gliding effortlessly across the top of the hedge. My fiance also saw this for himself back in 2009 and he sat there staring in amazement. And he's a sceptic too!

Other things I would see were a man in my room. He would be halfway through the floor of the room. (The stairs were directly under my room.) Sometimes I would open my eyes and see a face looking back at me in close proximity, only to fade in a second or two. I admit, that was very unwelcome.

The last few years of living in the house had more physical things happen. Objects would be thrown across the room, things would stop working, or randomly activate by themselves (IE: My laptop which, by the way, does not do it anymore now I live elsewhere) and we (my mother and myself) would have our covers pulled from us when in bed. I remember one night literally having to battle to keep the cover on me. There were also random and vile smells almost like rotting meat and an invasion of flies. Thankfully, this only happened once and only lasted 3 weeks or so. We even checked for dead animals, but we found nothing.

My fiance moved in with me in the house not long before we moved out. He was the type that didn't believe in ghosts. He had been taught from an early age that when you die, that is it. My mother began to date again and was out of the house frequently, leaving myself and my fiance alone. We decided to clean the house up a little, as we wanted to make my mother feel happier. (She had been suffering from severe depression.) I don't think it was approved of, as things kept going wrong. The vacuum would randomly overheat (even though in this new house it never has!), things would fall on us, items would vanish. I even had the unit of our old computer literally fling out from under the desk and hit me square on my shin, even though there was no way it could have. I also had the vacuum cleaner itself chucked at me. We could also hear loud thumps from inside the wardrobe as if someone was punching it from inside. We'd joke and say "Oi, enough of that." Probably not the best of ideas, but we didn't intend to be scared by it whatever it was.

Another thing we noted was that when the door to my brother's old room (which had been used for storage over the previous few years) was left open, the toilet light would turn itself on. We would be out during the day, return at night and it would be on. Or we'd wake up in the morning and it would be on. But, it didn't happen when the door was shut.

One day, I recall the door being left open and I saw a stack of my drawings get lifted and flipped through right in front of my eyes. This was in the dead of winter with no doors or windows open. Needless to say, I was not impressed and slept with the covers over my head that night.

One night, my fiance was upstairs shaving while I was amusing myself playing a Facebook game. It was midnight, so naturally I was hungry. (I always get hungry for some reason after midnight.) So, I went to the kitchen and started making myself a snack. I was addicted to omelet and cheese bagels at the time, so I started making one. After it had finished cooking, I took it into the living room and continued messing about on the game I was playing. I had almost finished it when I heard Lee shout from on the landing. (We had no bathroom light at that time, as the bulb had gone and we couldn't get the light cover off to replace it, so Lee was having to use a mirror on the landing.) I went up to see what he wanted and he said that he had seen a man in the mirror looking back at him. I was naturally confused, but my gut did flip flops. I asked what kind of man and he said it was a short, bald man. He even said that he stared at him and could see him out of the corner of his eye looking over his shoulder as if it was a real person present.

I admit, I was a touch unnerved. The door to my mother's room (which we had taken as our own by that point) was open a little way and for some reason I daren't look in. I also felt a horrible cold feeling that felt as if it wrapped around my ankles. I didn't want to stay up there at all.

I went downstairs and called my mother up to see if there was anyone in the family who had died that fit the description. She said there was none. I rang off, tried to shrug it off and finished the last bit of my bagel... Only for my fiance to shout again. He came running down the stairs with foam still on his face saying that he'd seen him again, only this time it was as if he was screaming at him but he couldn't hear any sound. It had freaked him out and he was incredibly uncomfortable. I said for him to finish shaving quickly and come down. Reluctantly, he went back up and tried to shave... But, for some reason the razor was not cutting anymore no matter how hard he pressed. Also, the cold tap was chugging out scalding hot water which burned his hand.

During this time, I had gotten onto my mother again and told her he had seen this man again in the mirror. While I was on the phone I could hear odd noises coming from upstairs. My fiance finished shaving and ran downstairs again, only to pause and stare into the kitchen with an absolutely horrified look on his face. I stopped talking to Mom to ask him what was wrong. He said that he had seen the man again outside the kitchen window walking past with an unearthly grin on his face and his was very skinny and looked like he had no arm on one side. I told him to get into the living room and while I was still talking to my mother, I could hear loud footsteps coming from above me. (My mother's old room.) My bones were also cold and the atmosphere was horrific. She suggested I get in touch with my brother so I could stay the night at his, but while she was talking I felt the atmosphere lift suddenly. It was instantly warmer again and I felt oddly happy. I actually mentioned it to her, as it was so sudden and drastic. But, then it dropped again. The feeling of dread and the cold returned and it felt as if something was circling us. I got off the phone with her and called my brother. In a state of panic I explained what was happening and the fact that we just couldn't stay in the house. We ended up at his that night sleeping in his living room. And now my fiance is more open minded about the paranormal...

The house was never right from the start. I would love to know just what was going on there, but I guess I will never truly know.

The day we moved out was interesting too. During the move, my mother had experienced a couple of little things while alone. (IE: A piece of paper scooting across the bedroom floor.) But, it was when the house was totally empty and the power had been turned off... Myself and my brother's Mrs went to check the rooms to be sure we hadn't left anything. All was well and clear... Then we got to my brother's old room. We opened the door and were hit in the face by the most intense cold breeze. It was bone chilling. It made our eyes water! We turned to each other, nodded and said that it was fine and we should go. We legged it down the stairs, said goodbye to the house and left to live in the new house we are in now.