My Son's Story - Houses

After a string of odd encounters/occurrences, I moved in with a classmate of mine with my three kids. At that time my daughter Mary was seven, my son Ty was five and my youngest son Adam was just over three. My classmate was living with her two-year-old son Max in a giant four-bedroom house and was relieved to have help paying the bills. It was a perfect arrangement for all of us.

My classmate was now able to go back to work at a local club while I kept Max with us.

We all soon fell into a good routine of dinner, bath time, story time and bedtime. After dinner, I would bathe all four kids, settle them down for some quiet play and then I would go down to the main floor and do a sweep/wash. I would then go back up, read stories and get everyone settled in their beds. Once all the kids were asleep I would go into my own room and work on my laptop, usually until I was ready for bed.

One night, I was going about my usual routine. When you came in the front door, there is a foyer area, with the stairs right in front. It was an open staircase, curving to the right, with banisters running left and right across the top floor. To the left of the stairs was a laundry room, bathroom, and den. The kitchen ran across the back of the house, with the dining and living rooms on the opposite side of the other rooms. It was very easy to start at the foyer, sweep through all the rooms to the left of the stairs, through the kitchen, then back through the dining/living rooms, ending back up at the foyer. I did just that, replaced the broom, mop and bucket in the laundry room where we kept it away from Max. When I was done, I turned off all the lights and went upstairs.

It was several hours later when I heard a crashing noise from below. I was scared, and I called a friend that lived nearby. On the phone, I crept down the stairs but saw nothing. At the bottom of the stairs, I went left and looked at the side door, between the laundry and bathrooms. Nothing. When I looked towards the den and, further down, the kitchen, I noticed objects all over the ground. I found nail clippers, scissors, tweezers and nail files all over the ground. I also found the plastic container it was all kept in broken all over the place. I didn't understand how it could be out in the hall when it was kept on the windowsill in the kitchen. It appeared that the container was thrown at the far wall of the kitchen, causing its contents to scatter all over the floor, including out into the hall. Confused, I flipped on the light and stepped into the kitchen and was met by a sight that served me up yet another terrifying heart attack.

On the kitchen table were the four chairs. They were placed on top of it, facing each other as if four people were sitting in a circle. In the middle of the circle was my mop bucket and mop. The mop handle was wedged against the ceiling. On the counter was every dish, cup, mug and utensils. A feeling of dread came over me, and that feeling was recognition. I was feeling the same terror I had felt at the old house. I fixed the chairs and put away the mop and bucket. I left the rest until morning, the feeling of being watched too much for me to bear.

A few weeks later, my classmate was sleeping off a hard night at work. My children were gone with my mother to see a musical, and wouldn't be back until the next day. I was making dinner, chatting with my classmate's boyfriend. He noticed what seemed to be a small bubble appearing on the ceiling above the table and showed me. Over the next twenty minutes we watched it grow from the size of a penny to the size of a large grapefruit. We thought there must be a leak somewhere, so we searched the upper bathrooms but found nothing. It was the end of November. When it got bigger, we decided to pop it. We drained it into a bucket and dumped it down the sink. Shortly after my landlord arrived, and could find nothing anywhere that could have leaked. He also didn't believe me when I showed him the small mark and told him how big it had been when we popped it. At least that time I had a grownup witness.

This next incident is the first in a series that eventually led to my moving out once again. Christmas was coming, and we set out to decorate. We came up with the idea of buying the long pieces of bendable tree-like garland to wrap the banisters. This turned out to be a very time consuming and expensive. In the end it looked gorgeous, and we topped it off with small red bows here and there. All together it probably took us about three hours to do up the stairs and across the left and right. A few nights later, we decided to take the kids to a play-place to burn off some energy. We weren't even gone for two hours. When we got home, it was freezing inside. We turned up the heat, but nothing happened. The furnace wouldn't work, so we called the landlord. Getting no answer from him, we decided to rough it out, sleep with our own kids in our own beds and deal with it in the morning. We layered our beds with tons of blankets, got everyone settled and went to sleep.

The next morning we woke up and the house was still frigid. I still don't understand how with us two grown women and four kids between us we didn't hear a thing. Every single piece of the decorations up the banister was taken off. It was all over the main floor. We had wound it between the poles, so there is no way it could have come undone. Plus, it had the bendable metal inside it, so its not like it could have sprung off and unwound itself. My classmate was in absolute shock, completely ticked off. She called me silly for thinking that "something" had taken it all off, but I refused to help put it back up. After that, every time we came home our Christmas tree, which was brand new and on a perfectly flat floor would be knocked over.

Adam began to complain of his closet. He shared a bedroom with Ty, who never at this point saw or heard anything. I began to worry why after nearly four months the closet would scare him, but I was too afraid to ask him why, and instead left a lamp on. The lamp was a basic table lamp. It had the knob that would push, and it would pop out the other side when it turned on. The lamp began to go off, and Adam would wake up screaming. I was beginning to loose my nerves. I was afraid to be alone in the house at night, especially after putting the kids to bed.

The semester ended, and an opportunity to move 45 minutes west came up. I decided to go visit and see what the smaller city was like. It was a nice smaller city, with a college where I could finish my degree, so we decided to go. To myself, I thanked god that my kids wanted to go... I wanted to get as far away from where we had lived as we could. I thought an hour's drive would be enough... But it was nowhere near it, because the "friend" and his mother were right there with us on moving day...

Next story will be House 3, and the beginning of House 4 from where we just moved... This is 7 years now and something seems to follow us no matter where we go...