My mom is a single parent who doesn't earn much money, so she was thrilled to be able to finally afford a new house for the three of us. We did notice some odd things about the house as we moved in. The third bedroom, my younger sister's room, had four different locks inside its door and glow-in-the-dark stars on its ceiling. It must have been a little kid's room, but why would a little kid be so paranoid as to feel they needed so many locks inside their bedroom door? That's kind of sad. Plus we found a pair of handcuffs on a shelf in the pantry. Real police handcuffs. An unusual item to keep next to your breakfast cereal, to say the least. Hmm. I was nearing my twenties and had never lived in a real house, it was such a change from the series of crummy apartments we had always lived in before. We were pleased with it. Things went pretty smoothly for a few years.
One night during dinner I decided to share something that had been bothering me. I sometimes get a "feeling" shortly before someone passes away, as though I can't savor them enough. Even if I don't really know the person I start to focus on them irresistibly, as if I have to hurry up and absorb as much of their essence as I can before they disappear. Within a few days of my feeling, the person will have a heart attack, or overdose on drugs, or get run over, and the event will usually kill them. I realize it's kind of creepy, sorry. This time I told my mom and sister that I had started experiencing that same feeling, except what I was now cherishing was our peace as a family. I felt like a storm was coming, and there certainly was. My mom soon received a death threat from her ex-boyfriend!
This ex-boyfriend is a true sociopath. He had been a terror to us during my childhood, but we were hoping he was finally in our past. My mom has warned me several times that he is literally possessed. She is soft-hearted though, so when his elderly mother asked for help in arranging her living will, my mom unwisely agreed. He decided in his twisted way that it was because she was trying to somehow steal his inheritance. He threatened to kill my mom, and I now believe that this was when he also did something to curse our home. We had to get a restraining order against him, buy a new car he didn't recognize, and we even ask a strong friend of mine to act as our temporary bodyguard.
I think that all of the dormant freaky things hidden in our home really let loose at that point. Spiritual or physical, if it could create havoc, it did. Shortly after the death threat, all three of us got sick with a pneumonia that we could not fully recover from. I moaned so horribly in my sleep while sick that we joked that I "put the moan in pneumonia". The cause of our sickness was revealed when my mom noticed a sunbeam coming in the window that was thick with sparkling particles of fiberglass insulation. We had breathed a great deal of fiberglass into our lungs! All of the air conditioning ducts in our home had to be replaced, along with the air conditioner. Needless to say all of this happening at once was extremely stressful to our poor mother, and was putting her into quite a bit of debt as well.
Mom had started sleeping on the couch downstairs so she could see both the front and back doors in case her ex-boyfriend tried to break in. One night she dreamed that she was in the grip of a demon, being crushed to death. Even after waking herself up and going back to sleep a few times, she kept having this same highly realistic dream. In the morning, she felt as much pain as if she had actually been in a physical fight. I told her it was probably just something caused by all the stress, but then I started having strange dreams, too.
The dream I had took place in the bed where I was actually sleeping, so it was very difficult to distinguish from real life even after waking up. I was aware that I was in bed asleep, yet at the same time, I could see a blonde man with a goatee coming up the stairs towards me. I felt he was a construction worker, in his forties, who was connected with the building of our house. His purpose in coming up to my bedroom was to rape someone. He made it as far as my doorway before I woke up on the verge of a panic attack.
Interestingly, prior to this dream, my sister and I had already realized that we were both scared to climb that stairway at night. We would secretly try to go to bed before each other, because coming up the stairs at night alone always gave one the feeling that someone nasty was right behind your shoulder chasing you. After my nightmare, I associated the threatening feeling on the stairs with the rapist I had seen in my dream. We found out later on from a neighbor that somebody was indeed raped by an intruder inside our house at one point in its history.
We had two dogs and two cats while all of this was going on. One of the cats, our friendly cream-colored male, seemed driven mad by the chaos. First we noticed that as you pet him he would look over your shoulder at the wall behind you like he was following movement although there was nothing visible. Then he began spending all of his time clawing obsessively at the front door, yowling to be let out of the house. He ended up making his front paws bleed from all the scratching, and we felt we had no choice but to find him a new home. My sister loved that cat, it was a sad day. We visited him once at the new home, and there he seemed like a normal cat again.
Our two dogs also began to pee in the house. The smaller dog, an adorable scruffy terrier, developed "separation anxiety" which means every time we left the house, she would become a yapping wreck. Our larger dog, who was my best friend in the world, developed inoperable cancer. I very much hope their problems were not related to the problems going on in our house. I brought home a stuffed toy for them, a frog that croaks when squeezed. Of course the first time they played with it they chewed the croak mechanism to pieces. Later one day as I was sitting on the couch talking to my sister, we heard a voice underneath couch speak a full sentence that we couldn't understand, and it was the long silent frog!
One night I was on my bed kind of laying on my side, propped up on one elbow. I must have been reading a book. Just as I started to nod off, I felt someone approach behind me, near my head. I remember thinking through my fear, "So this is what evil feels like". Evil is absolutely disgusting, and it absolutely hates you. That's how evil feels. I couldn't bring myself to turn and look at the evil, but thankfully it went away as soon as I began to pray for help from God.
The house continued to have one expensive problem after another. We found feces underneath the carpets, so we had to replace the flooring. On our pantry door, the face of a bearded old man appeared in the paneling. Once when I was downstairs and my sister was upstairs, we both heard a girl shout, "Mom!" from the living room, and we both shouted to each other "Mom's upstairs!" before we realized neither one of us had called for our mom. Poor Mom fell deeper and deeper into debt, and I lost my job. We had to leave our house and move in with my grandfather. Thanks a lot, curse!
My grandfather's house is not haunted or cursed, but my sister did have an entity come after her one night, maybe I will write that story down later. We had a priest come to enthrone the Sacred Heart and bless the home (even the pets!), and we have had very few problems since then. Plus, I now have a minor exorcism that I am allowed to recite whenever things start to get unfortunate in a "distinctive" way. I have only prayed it once, but it worked very effectively.
My name is Rachel, I work for Raw TV. We are currently working on Series 5 of Paranormal Witness. Your story sounds really interesting and I would love to speak to you regarding your experience. In case you haven't seen the series, Paranormal Witness is a drama-documentary where the story is told from the perspective of multiple eyewitnesses - in their own words. It is now one of the highest rating shows on Syfy. For more information please check out syfy's website: http://www.syfy.com/paranormalwitness/
If interested, please email me at: rachel. Vaknin [at] raw.co.uk
Thanks,
Rachel