Spirits Haunting Our Home

From: Joseph Horan (joesmonter@hotmail.com)
Story type: Ghost
Location: Family home in Pennsylvania
Source: Form Submission

From: Joseph
Story type: Haunting
Location: Family home
Source: From submission

I grew up in a small village in Northeast Pennsylvania. Being a coal mining area, the land seemed dark and fairly bleak. This area had its share of ghost stories and local folklore, but my family knew the reality of living in a haunted house. My parents bought our house from the original owners daughter. The original owner had built the house himself but died from a fall he suffered on the property.

Growing up I remember hearing footsteps around my bed with nobody present to make them. They would start at the left post of my headboard and stop at the foot of my bed. Then they would continue to the right post of my headboard. I would have the sheets pulled over my head but could feel someone watching me. Sometimes I would run downstairs to my parents and tell them that someone was in my room. "It's just the house settling" was their response.

As time passed I heard footsteps not only in my room, but in the attic as well. At first the footsteps were the only thing out of the ordinary. One night I couldn't fall asleep after seeing that my parents and sister had gone to bed. The house was dark and I lay on my left side looking into the hallway. Suddenly, I saw a small white apparition like a little girl in a First Communion dress and vail run past my room down the hallway. After that I slept with my door closed.

Physical activities starting happening around the age of 6. I would take a bath and leave my new eyeglasses on the bathroom sink. When I got out of the bathtub the glasses would be gone. My mother would find them in the medicine cabinet. Sometimes I would watch TV in my parents' room and leave my bedroom slippers on the floor as I lay on their bed. When I got up my slippers would be gone. My parents found them stuffed behind their headboard. At this time I thought that I was having memory problems. Small items would get lost and I would later find them in odd places throughout the house.

Time went by and it seemed I was the only one who saw or heard strange things. I would see a featureless black shadow enter my room through my closed door. It would stand at the side of my bed. When I was alone in the house my sister's piano would sometimes play a single low note as I sat with my back to it wathcing TV. One night I sat alone in the living room watching The "A" Team. It felt like someone was in the piano room behind me. I was about to turn around when out of the corner of my eye one of my shoes did a barrel role, tumbling to the left. I sat there speachless until my family got home. Things of this nature went on for years. Sometimes friends of mine would stay overnight and see that things in my room would be moved the next morning.

My sister never saw anything unusual, but one night she had a nightmare that the house was dark and she walked up to the window in the dining room door. The face of a bearded man in a checkered flanel shirt appeared on the other side saying "boo!". This figures in to the end of my story.

My senior year of high school I was studying for exams by lounging in the upstairs bathtub and reading notes. No one else was home. As I lay in the tub reading I heard the kitchen door open and slam shut downstairs. Footsteps traveled through the downstairs and up the stairs, stopping before the bathroom door. I didn't recognize the footsteps and heard no breathing, but someone was there. Who's there? I shouted, but no answer. The footsteps turned around and went to my sister's room. I heard her door open and someone go inside. Then they turned around again. My sister's door slammed shut and the footsteps returned, stopping at the bathroom door. Again I asked "Who's there? Mom, dad, Jenn?" No answer. The footsteps turned around and went downstairs, exiting the house by slamming the kitchen door. I got out of the tub and looked out the window at the front yard and road going past our house. No one was there. I had never heard the screen door open and shut on the enclosed porch. Wrapping myself in a towel I grabbed a pistol and loaded it. A clean sweep of the house revealed nothing.

I called my parents and told them what had occured. They arrived home ten minutes later. We sat in the living room and I recounted my tale. When I was done my father looked at my mom and asked "Should we tell him?". "He's old enough." she said.

My father said that the house was haunted. Before my sister and I were born my parents worked the same shifts. My father would get home an hour after my mother. One day my mother passed the dining room and saw a bearded man in a checkered flanel reading a newspaper at the head of the dining room table. She ran across the street to our neighbors house and told them about the man. Our neighbor Nicholas said that it was the previous owner who enjoyed reading the paper in that room before he had died. My mom couldn't believe it, but when the two of them checked out our house the man was gone. One time my dad was in the basement at his work bench when the upstairs door opened and footsteps came down. He looked back into the corner of the basement but no one was there. The footsteps went back upstairs and the door slammed shut.

In closing, I must say that after joining the military, things in the house quited down for my family. When I go home to visit it is thankfully quiet and I see and hear nothing out of the ordinary.