basement

The House Next Door

~ Tara Theresa Hill ~ Leave a comment

Thanks to Stacia from Pennsylvania for sharing this story with me!

Stacia comes from a psychically gifted family.  They always knew that the house next door was haunted.  Former occupants had suffered from drug abuse and suicide, among other trials.  After it was abandoned, Stacia and her family would sit on their front porch and listen to the echo of the doors banging opened and closed throughout the empty house.  Their dogs refused to go anywhere near it and growling could be heard coming from inside the house.  Despite these occurrences, Stacia’s family bought the place so that they could knock it down and extend their property.

After the house had been stripped, Stacia and her three siblings went into the front room to see if they could make contact with whomever was in the house.  Standing shoulder to shoulder, they took each other’s hands.  Almost immediately, the closet doors started repeatedly slamming open and shut.  It was then that they knew that they weren’t dealing with a trapped or sad ghost, but some sort of dark presence.  They quickly exited the house.

Sometime later, Stacia returned with one of her sisters.  They brought along a cat ball toy that had a little bell inside of it to see if they could get the spirit to interact with them.  Stacia took the ball and threw it at the top of the stairs.  The laws of physics should have caused it to fall down and roll around.  Instead, the ball looked as if it was caught in mid-air by something unseen and then it dropped straight down to the ground without any movement at all.  Realizing that they must have found the entity’s location, they went upstairs to investigate.  Once again, the upstairs closet door began rapidly opening and closing of its own volition.  Stacia and her sister ran out of the house.

Stacia was in the house one more time before it was torn down.  She and her sister went down into the basement to start the demolition.  Lying on the floor was an old Maxwell House coffee can that had been cut out on both ends so that you could actually see through it.  Picking up a hammer, they started taking down a wall when a cat-like shriek sounded from their right hand side, followed by punching and banging to their left.  Whipping around, they saw the coffee can rolling along the floor by itself, as if it was being pushed by an invisible hand.

After the house was taken down, Stacia and her family had the ground blessed in an attempt to calm any remaining restless spirits.  Whatever was in the house has apparently moved into the tree that still stands on the former house’s site.  Sometimes at night, if Stacia goes too close to the tree, it will come out and chase her back to her house.  Stacia told me this story while standing by what she calls “the damn tree.”

If you have a real ghost story that you would like to share with The Ghost Post, send an email with your contact information to Tara Theresa Hill at theghostpostreporter@gmail.com to set up an interview. 

I’m always in the mood for a good ghost story! 

If you enjoyed this article and would be interested in supporting my work, please check out my Patreon page. 

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Ghostly Vibrations: A Change in Hauntings

~ Tara Theresa Hill ~ Leave a comment

Thanks to Paula from Nassau County, Long Island for this story!

Paula grew up in an old farmhouse that was built in the 1900s.  It has four floors including a basement, the first and second floor, and an attic.  Paula is more sensitive to psychic impressions than most of her family members.  She could always tell that her house was haunted.

Most of the paranormal activity happened on the first floor when there wasn’t anyone else down there.  Paula would hear chairs move, as if someone had just scraped them along the floor to get up.  Or there would be the vibrations of footsteps walking along the hallway between the main hall and the kitchen.  Sitting in her room and hearing these noises coming from downstairs, Paula would think, “As long as whatever it is doesn’t come upstairs, I’m okay.”

Some of the sounds were so commonplace that they literally became a part of the background noise of the house.  She’d hear dishes rattling in the cupboards and chalk it up to “old house sounds.”  It was only as she got older and started talking to other people about this, that Paula discovered that those things generally don’t happen in houses.

The house has a tragic past that the residents are familiar with.  Somewhere between 1915 and 1920, a young woman committed suicide in the master bedroom.  When Paula was growing up, her family did some remodeling of the house and found a box of love letters and old-fashioned clothes from 1906.  Apparently, the woman was unhappy in her marriage and had possibly planned to run away, but never found the opportunity to do so.

Another sad event took place in the house in the late 1990s.  A young man died in the basement from complications related to alcohol poisoning.  Paula states that up until this moment, the ghostly activities in the house were almost peaceful or non-intrusive in nature.  After the sudden death, odd things started happening in the house.

There is an apartment in the basement that family members use on and off.  Paula’s brother, Max, and his girlfriend, Michelle, were living there with their baby girl for a while.  Electronics would behave abnormally.  Sometimes, the ceiling fan would turn itself on and spin much faster than it was supposed to on the normal setting.

One evening, Max was in the shower and Michelle was lying down in bed.  Someone called out to her.  Thinking it was Max trying to get her attention, Michelle sat up in bed.  As she did so, she both heard and saw the light switch turn itself off.  Freaked out, she went and asked Max why he had played that trick on her, but he was still in the shower and there was no one else in the basement with them.

About a month later, Michelle was asleep in the basement apartment.  Max was upstairs, keeping watch over their child through the baby monitor.  Suddenly, he saw a pair of legs kicking as if someone was in distress.  He hurried downstairs to find that Michelle was completely fine.  He roused her, told her what he saw, and they both went upstairs to check the baby monitor.

Staring at the screen, they watched something invisible move on the bed.  Then a brilliant, zigzagging light started zooming around the room.  Fearful that whatever that was might mean the baby harm, Michelle went and got their daughter and took her back upstairs with them.  They have felt an uncomfortable energy in that apartment ever since.  Even the family dogs absolutely refuse to go down into the basement.

Paula definitely believes that there is more than one energy in the house now.  The change in the ways the hauntings demonstrated themselves makes me think that the first one that she grew up with is more of a residual haunting.  The second one with the electronics turning themselves on and off and the partial human-like apparition followed by a fast moving light, sounds more like an active haunting.  What do you think?  Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below.

If you have a real ghost story that you would like to share with The Ghost Post, send an email with your contact information to Tara Theresa Hill at theghostpostreporter@gmail.com to set up an interview. 

I’m always in the mood for a good ghost story! 

If you enjoyed this article and would be interested in supporting my work, please check out my Patreon page. 

Sharing Space with The Dead: Life in a Historic Masonic Home

~ Tara Theresa Hill ~ Leave a comment

Thanks to my friend, Jeanine, for this story about her old college dorm!

Jeanine went to Dominican College in the 1990s.  At one point, she lived in a dormitory that was actually a former German Masonic residence.  Built in 1909, the building functioned as a place for retired Masons and their family members until 1983.  If a Mason was too sick or old to work, he could live there rent free.  Also, if a Mason left behind a widow and young children, this institute made sure that they were provided for after his death.  The building was converted into a dorm when Dominican College took it over in the early 1980s.

One of the rooms that Jeanine stayed in was the site of a double suicide that occurred in 1933.  As the story goes, John Ellich and Marie Kiefer had secretly eloped while living on site at the residence.  When the board found out, they decided to separate the couple by sending one of them away to live in another Masonic home.  Already in their golden years, John and Marie locked themselves in her room and committed suicide together.  Jeanine saw a male ghost in her room whom she believes might have been John Ellich.  Other friends have reported seeing Marie’s ghost.

Jeanine and her friends had numerous paranormal experiences during their time in the historical building.  Every weekend, one would smell rose-scented perfume wafting down the hallway that had no known source.  Students would hear knocking on their dorm doors, but answer them to find no one standing there.  Thinking it was their classmates trying to play a trick on them, they’d step outside to investigate, only to hear the ghostly sound of children’s laughter receding down the hall.  The building was especially creepy at night when the paranormal activity was at its height.  Even if you didn’t have a roommate, most people tried to find someone to bunk with so that they wouldn’t be alone.

Some of the creepiest areas of the building and its surrounding grounds were the porch area, the campus cemetery, the elevator, the laundry room and the basement.  At the front of the building was a screened in porch that was always uncomfortable.  It could be ninety degrees outside, but the temperature would drop sharply to freezing once you were inside the porch enclosure.  As if the place needed anything else to add to the spooky atmosphere, there’s even an old graveyard dating from around the 1900s located somewhere on the property.

Jeanine told me that no matter what button you pushed for some unknown reason, the Masonic Hall’s elevator always went automatically to the basement.  Jeanine and her friends used to do their laundry in pairs because you would often get the sense that you were being watched.  Strange banging noises and screaming would ensue only to cease as quickly as they began.

There was a section of the basement that was closed off, but still accessible if one tried hard enough.  One time, Jeanine and a friend thought it would be fun to explore it.  They saw what looked like morgue slots lining the wall and decided to each take a turn climbing inside.  Jeanine says she has no idea what possessed her to do that, nor would she ever do something that crazy now.  She could have gotten stuck or worse, but she was young and it seemed adventurous at the time.

As soon as her friend closed the door on her, she heard loud wailing and scratching noises coming from all around.  Banging on the door behind her head, she started screaming for her friend to let her out.  Thankfully, the slot popped open and she and her friend ran back upstairs.  Jeanine avoided that area of the basement after that incident.

If you have a real ghost story that you would like to share with The Ghost Post, send an email to Tara Theresa Hill at theghostpostreporter@gmail.com to set up an interview. 

I’m always in the mood for a good ghost story! 

 

 

Footsteps after Dark

~ Tara Theresa Hill ~ 2 Comments

Thanks to my mother, Lady Rhea of Magickal Realms from Bronx, NY for this story.

Lady Rhea is a third degree, Wiccan high priestess.  For over forty years, she has held circles, crafted candle magick, and has performed various types of psychic readings.  She has done Ouija board readings and done other types of oracle-based rituals.  However, in this case, she did not try to make contact.  Her New Age store was located in the Bronx’s City Island at the time of this ghostly encounter.

It was February 2013.  Lady Rhea was alone in the basement glittering candles.  It was 8:30pm and the store was closed.  Rhea was the only one in the store at this time.  She paused in her work as she heard loud, heavy footsteps walking across the floor upstairs.  They went down the aisle, turned the corner to the basement stairs, came down three steps and stopped.  From the angle of her work table, Rhea could not see who was standing on the staircase.  Picking up her Exacto knife and a pan of glitter, she crept up to surprise the intruder.

Only, she didn’t see anyone there.  Cautiously, she went up the steps to investigate the store.  The front door was still secure.  She turned on all the lights, checked the two bathrooms, and any other possible hiding places, but again she found the place empty.  Rhea called one of her friends to come pick her up and take her home early.  After this unnerving incident, she refused to stay in the store by herself at night again.

Later in 2014, a photographer was interested in filming the store for a potential show.  He took two pictures of the basement area to show where Lady Rhea created her candles and manufactured other products.  After the photoshoot was done, Rhea received a call from him saying that she might be interested in seeing what his camera had captured in the basement.  Rhea’s heart thudded when she viewed the photos.  One picture was a normal shot, but the very next shows the shadowy outline of a tall man.

Another time, someone who was doing psychic readings at the store took a picture of the entrance to the basement along with other pictures of the store.  The picture of the basement showed the area shrouded in fathomless, dark, grey smoke.  This was when the lights had been turned on and there was no one smoking nearby.  They had not left any incense burning either.  Between these and other problems, the store was relocated to Westchester Square in the summer of 2014.