Haunted Farmhouse

In the Summer of 1979, my mother was asked to babysit for one of my grandmother's coworkers who had made plans to see a movie with her husband. She had recently given birth to a baby girl and needed someone to watch over her for the evening. Because it was a Friday night and my mother had already made plans with her friends, my grandmother offered to babysit in her place.

Their farmhouse was located within a rural community outside a small town in southeastern Ontario called Brockville. The house was undergoing expansion renovations and by the time my grandmother arrived, she anticipated an uneventful evening alone with the baby.

While the baby was sleeping, my grandmother watched television in the upstairs master bedroom when she suddenly heard the sound of movement downstairs in the kitchen. Thinking that her coworker had returned home early, she went downstairs to speak to her. The entire downstairs area was completely unoccupied.

My grandmother was obviously perplexed by the discovery, but she immediately assured herself that it was merely her imagination. She went back upstairs to check on the baby and continue watching television. She had barely made it back to the bedroom when she began hearing the sound of footsteps slowly ascending the staircase. I had often inquired about her experience and one important detail she always mentioned was that the footsteps were so loud, they drowned out the sounds of the television.

Upon investigating, she discovered that nobody was present on the stairs, though the sounds of footsteps were still present. Apparently, they were so coherent, she could adamantly distinguish which exact step the invisible feet stood upon. Terror-stricken, she instinctively stood at the base of the staircase and held out her arms in an attempt to prevent the spectre from reaching the baby. What followed was an extremely damp, freezing sensation which, up until then, had been completely foreign to her.

As the footsteps descended back down the stairs and immediately ceased, my grandmother's attention was turned to the downstairs living room, as she thought she heard the sound of a large dog scratching on the walls. She became confused, as dogs typically tend to scratch on doors rather than walls. She went downstairs to examine these new mysterious noises and entered the living room, a major portion of the house undergoing renovation. She glanced in the corner to discover a single pine wood door leaning against the wall.

The homeowners returned at around eleven that night. By the time they reached the front door, my grandmother frantically threw the door open and hastily departed after receiving her payment. She had never been so relieved to finally leave for home. Though more than four decades have passed since that night, memories of the encounter remain fresh in her mind. Needless to say, she never went back.