The year was 2007. We had just moved into our home. It was a beautiful manor by the sea, built in 1906. It is the kind of house that takes your breath away; a stately white Victorian with a 75' long front porch. The previous owners had told us the house was haunted (after we bought it) but we didn't believe it. They seemed a little odd for saying that. But they did say that the spirits were respectful. We giggled and moved on.
The house had been neglected for quite some time and so with my redesign skills and an itch to create something beautiful I immediately got to work.
The house had a small staircase to the third floor that led to a very odd, small door marking the entrance. You would imagine opening the door to find a cramped attic space but there was actually an enormous room up there; an entire third story.
The room was dark and dank with dated paneling that had been applied to the walls circa 1950 and a green linoleum floor that was cracked and well, a not so pleasing shade of avocado. There were remnants of an old billiards table (stains and dents on the floor) and some creepy dangling fluorescent light fixtures, a giant cast iron radiator and a steel storage closet. We were thinking of turning the space into a playroom for our daughter. To go from creepy to cheerful would take some effort. This was going to be a project!
The first step was getting heat up there. The old clunker of a radiator didn't work anymore. We opted for a gas fireplace to supply heat which then led us to creating a theater area with a retractable movie screen over the fireplace.
The previous owners didn't touch the house in the 17 years they were living there. Everything was left exactly the same as the way they found it. We, on the other hand, wanted to update the house a bit and make it more functional, not knowing, of course, what was in store.
The steel storage closet had to be removed in order to fit the new bathroom, wet bar and office area. Once the closet was gone, we realized that the ceiling could be vaulted. When the ceiling was removed, a 15' high roofline was revealed and evidence of a previous fire was obvious with burnt shingles and missing and damaged support beams. My uncle, a master plumber, also uncovered an old abandoned gas pipe that had been coming up from the floor. It had been cut for some reason.
The next time they were up there she said that she saw a little girl in the room and the girl was telling her that she wasn't allowed to play there. The girl said, "This was my pretty play closet and now it's your bathroom and I don't like it! You can't play up here. LEAVE!" Now, my daughter was 18 months old when that closet was there and now she was two. Could she really be making this stuff up? I didn't believe it so I ignored it.
My daughter continued to be scared of the third floor. She would wake up every morning at exactly 3:30 AM on the dot (Did I say "on the dot?" So creepy!) and she would be screaming that someone was in her room being mean to her and scaring her. She also heard children running and playing upstairs very frequently when no one else was in the house. It became worse and worse to the point that none of us could function on a healthy level but I didn't know what to do.
A few months had gone by and out of desperation we sought the help and advice of a Ghost Hunter. Really? I couldn't even believe what we were doing but we had to do something to help our child or go to an asylum. The ghost hunter, a lovely medium named Joe Giaquinto, came over with a team of investigators and they took pictures, videos and audio recordings. It was to no avail. There was no concrete evidence. They held a seance and asked the spirit of the house to leave.
The next day stranger things started happening. And over the course of the next couple of months we experienced unexplained noises, countless things in the house were breaking, power outages, electrical problems, floods, sparks, you name it. And my daughter was getting worse. She was now seeing a little girl AND a little boy. Their names were Kimberly and Aidan and they apparently had been burned because she told me that their faces were black and looked melted. Oh, my! We had evidence of a fire and an abandoned gas pipe and here my almost 3 year old is telling me that two little burned children are living up there and are angry that we changed the room. I called Joe back. Joe explained to me that sometimes things get worse after a medium speaks to the spirits and he should come back for a second seance so we scheduled it immediately.
This time a woman named Mary joined Joe and his team. Mary is also a medium and she acted as the team leader that day. Fourteen of us gathered around the dining room table and held hands as Mary spoke to the spirit. Mary asked the spirit to use the chandelier above us as a form of communication. "Blink the lights twice for yes and once for no," she said. And fourteen of us sat back and watched in amazement as Mary asked the spirits of the house questions and they "answered" us with blinking the chandelier. The spirit who came forth was Aidan, the little boy. He said he lived in the house a long time ago and he was angry that we were there and made changes to the house. Mary told Aidan that he didn't have to leave but he had to respect that my daughter was frightened of him and this house was now her physical home so, "Aidan?" She asked. "Please do not show yourself to the family who lives in this house. Let them dwell here in peace." And from that day on nothing strange ever happened in that house ever again.
Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteWe lived in that house in the late 1980's. My parents bought it from the Hyatt's (we always referred to it as the Hyatt House). My name is Rodney Sterbenz (we probably sold it to the owner's you bought the house from). I lived in the room directly beneath the attic (Come up the main stairs, walk directly forward and a little left). Every night I would hear footsteps, stomping, furniture sliding and banging. I heard typing on an old typewriter, doors would slam closed on their own, a ton of stuff would happen (that no one would believe). My older sister saw a young girl (circa Little House on the Prairie) appear in the attic right before the "girl" slid the guest bed away from the wall.
I'm 37. I still don't sleep right. And my daughter is 19 months, so when I heard about what was happening to you it really freaked me out.
Strangely enough, the apartment I live in now is haunted as well, but not with anything as sinister as what I felt in the house on Harbour Hill.
Anyway, if you feel like talking about it more (which I understand if you don't), you are welcome to write me back.
If not, maybe someday I'll ask you for the contact info for those Ghost Hunters...
Rodney
Rodney,
ReplyDeleteWow. That is so powerful. Thank you for sharing that. I never saw anything myself except for lights constantly flickering; going dim and getting brighter. We replaced all of the electricity and many of the fixtures so it really was strange. My daughter stopped seeing the spirits and became comfortable in the house. I always felt the most peaceful on the porch. :-)
Jenn