Living in a Haunted House

By Kathleen Schramm

I lived in a haunted house from 1953 to 1968. Sometimes the activity was amusing, and sometimes it was downright scary. Our friends and family all experienced one thing or another over the years.There were the typical knocking, footsteps, doors opening and closing by themselves, lights going on independently, total power outages, and the appearances.

Strange things started occurring immediately before we actually moved in. For instance my Dad and his friend went to the house to sand and refinish the hardwood floors. Something inexplicable happened with the electricity. When one of them turned on the sander, the sander would not go on, but the radio would turn off. They would turn off the lights, but one light would keep burning. Then all the electricity and electrical appliances would all come on. The all the electricity would go off. This was an older home, so they would go check the fuse box. All the fuses checked out fine. They changed the fuses anyway, but the electricity did not come back on. They called the power company, and the power company worker would determine that there was nothing wrong with the power to the house. They called an electrician. The electrician came to the house. The electricity returned to normal, except this one light in the kitchen ceiling that was on, but dimly. He looked at the light and asked, "What's with that light. Turn it off." My Dad went to the switch and discovered the light was not switched on. The electrician said, "This is the craziest thing I have ever seen. You are going to have to rewire the entire house." Upon stating that all the electricity returned to normal, and the same electrical display did not occur for years,

The neighbors told my parents that they hoped we stayed in the house longer all of the other residents. The house had always been sold, never rented, but the longest any family had stayed there was 6 months. The neighbors had lived next door for over 20 years. Mom and Dad could not figure out why people would leave such a nice house, but eventually the problem with the house would make itself known.

My Dad would have to get up almost every night. Mom and Dad decided that the house was a target for burglars. They would hear doors open and close, people walking across the floors, but they could never catch them. Dad got a handgun. He would sneak through the house with the handgun certain he would find the intruders.

Our family lived in the house for about 3 years before Mom and Dad experienced their first full-fledged "visitation." At this point there was no denying the identity of the intruders. Mom and Dad were lying in bed when two heads appeared floating above the end of their bed. Just heads, no bodies. To say that this rattled my parents would be a gross understatement. They did not believe in ghosts. They went through a complete change of philosophy that night which now included ghosts.

They stayed up the entire night validating what each one of them saw. If they had not seen this together, neither would have believed their eyes. They could have denied what happened. This wasn't the case; they both saw what they saw. They saw the same thing.

After reviewing the last 3 years, they did admit that at times each one had noticed seeing "clouds" in the house, but thought it was some failing to their vision, or the lighting. Never once did they even consider ghosts.

When they finally had to admit to themselves that there were ghosts in the house was an incident in the bedroom. They were bedded down for the night when two disembodied heads appeared above the bed. They both saw these heads, now there was no more denials between them.

Over the years our friends and family members were subjected to ghostly pranks. My Aunt would never stay at our house over night. She lived quite a distance away; she would always drive home no matter how late it became.

There were a number of ghosts in the house. I saw three of them. Mom and Dad saw and experienced many more, including a dog that used to jump up on the bed with them.

Over the years when I was in the same room with my Mom, and Dad, and we heard footsteps going through the room my Mom and Dad would always tell me it was the house "settling. " Then doors slammed, it was the house "settling." When we heard heavy breathing, it was the "water heater." I often woke up with pieces of my hair cut off. Not a total haircut (thank goodness) but large patches of hair cut out. Also I used to find long strands of auburn hair in my bedroom, and on my bed. I could not figure out where these came from because I didn't know a soul that had long auburn hair.

When I had strange experiences my parents would tell me that I must have been dreaming. I would explain that I was wide awake. They would counter with I must have dreamed I was awake, but must have been asleep and dreaming. One of the worst reoccurring "dreams" was being dragged out of bed by my feet in the middle of the night.

One time I came home from school and found all of my gold fish scattered on floor of my bedroom, of course they were dead. My Mom called the pet store to see if that was normal behavior for all eight fish to jump out of the tank. The man at the pet store said that he never heard of such a thing. Reflecting on that I am certain that was one of the mean tricks the ghosts played. I was very sad, I loved my fish.

My Mom and Dad would experience someone getting into bed with them. I asked them what they did when that happened, and they said that they would just ease them off the bed. I know that it is hard for someone that has not experienced such things to imagine, but ghosts can make themselves very solid at times. Even if you can't actually see them, you can bump into them and actually feel them physically.

The first time I saw a ghost I was 15 years old. I have lived in the house since I was 8 years old. Up until that point I was convinced to believe my Mom and Dad's explanations for the entire strange goings on. Life was much simpler that way, no matter how ridiculous the explanations would be, such as a "magnetic energy anomaly" when things floated across the room. It was much simpler to buy my parent's stories explaining the strange happenings. I would become terrified at the sound of footsteps, my bedroom door slamming, and the heavy breathing in my ears before I knew for certain that our house was haunted. Once I knew without a doubt that it was haunted I can't begin to articulate how such a terror can affect a child. I remember my blood pressure going up so high that I couldn't hear anything other than the blood beating through my ears. This accelerated the terror because then I couldn't tell where they were located as they moved about.

It was the fall of 1960. I was home alone. It was late afternoon. I was sitting on my bed typing a letter to my cousin, Georgie, who had stayed for the summer. We had spent many a night during the summer going through the house with utensils from the fireplace stalking the intruders we heard stomping through the house, and slamming doors, but I digress. While I was typing this letter I had a very strong feeling that someone was staring at me. You know the feeling, when you walk into a room and feel eyes on you. You look, meet eyes with the person that is looking at you and go on. Well, let me tell you that when you feel someone staring at you and there is no one present but you, it is a little creepy. I even looked out the windows of my room to see if someone was in the yard staring at me. No one was there. Finally the feeling became so unnerving that I decided to go to the front of the house. Someone was picking me up to go to a movie, and I was beginning to hope that they would be coming very soon.

I stepped down the step from my room, and then reached around the wall to turn off the light. I was feeling so weird that I didn't want to be in my bedroom when dusk became dark. When I switched off the light I had the shock of my life. Sitting right next to where I was sitting was this young woman with long auburn hair. She did not acknowledge me. She was just sitting there looking ahead of her. My brain was racing a million miles an hour. I believed in angels, but I did not believe in ghosts. How I could tell the difference, I have no idea, but I KNEW that this was a ghost. As I raced to the bathroom in the front of the house, hundreds if not thousands of memories were running though my mind. It was like my life at this house was passing before my eyes. The auburn hair, the footsteps, the doors slamming, the heavy breathing when I was going to sleep at night, my dead fish!

I threw myself through the doorway of the bathroom, then slammed and locked the door behind me. I was leaning against the door and my chest was heaving as a result of adrenaline induced rapid breathing. Suddenly it dawned on me, if she is a ghost, and what they say about ghosts is true, she can walk through the bathroom walls and I will locked in here with her. I remember very well fighting with the old twist key lock. This was one of the times that it just did not work the first time I turned it. My panic excelled to terror.

Finally I got the door opened and ran to the living room. I pressed myself against the large pane window trying to see the end of the block, searching for my rescuer that was to take me to the movie.

I did not say a word about my experience to my friends that night. After all, how stupid is it to believe in ghosts? No one believes in ghosts. I planned on telling my Mom and Dad in the morning over breakfast, and certainly they would be able to tell me some scientific explanation about this hallucination I must have experienced. Perhaps since other strange things happened to me since I started my period, may be this is just another side effect. May be the electrical anomalies that caused flashes of light to go across the rooms were the same thing made me think I saw a ghost. There certainly had to be some sound logical explanation, and I knew that my parents would be able to straighten me out. They had an explanation for everything.

Mom made a great breakfast of her famous Norwegian pancakes. Once we were all settled in the breakfast nook, with our pancakes and bacon I took my opportunity to pull Mom and Dad's attention away from their favorite sections of the Sunday paper.

I started with a giggle, as I knew what I was about to say was pretty stupid, but I needed an answer. I said, "You know, something a little strange happened to me yesterday while I was typing a letter to Georgie. There was this woman in my room, and I could see through her. I think that some people would call her a ghost." I stopped and studied my parents' expressions. I was hoping for them to laugh this off. Tell me how young women on their menstrual cycle often have such experiences. It is due to the flood flowing out of their brains. I was certain that they would calm my fears, and then we would all share a good laugh and finish breakfast. Not so.

Mom and Dad darted a look at each other. I could see that it was a silent communication which told me that I had hit some cord. I had hit a BIG cord. In fact I could almost hear it reverberating in my head. My blood pressure rose as it dawned on me that they were not going to tell me some cool scientific explanation. Then my blood started to run cold, right to the bone. I got chills as they began from the move into the house, and all that they had experienced. They had made a pact that they would never mention the ghosts to me until I saw one myself, and then they would validate what I experienced. I can't say that the volumes of experiences settled my fears, but on the other hand what I heard rang true.

Now my parents and I had a common topic of conversation. One thing that had bothered my over the years was hearing my Mother call me when she didn't. This happened to all of us pretty often. Now we knew that somehow the ghosts did this. I guess it was kind of a fun game with them.

Things such as the footsteps, doors slamming, things floating across the room, clouds forming in a room, things like that no longer had cool scientific explanations. Now I know why my teachers thought that I came up with some really weird stuff in class. Like, "What makes clouds form in the house? How does that happen?" Of course, the teachers told me that it doesn't happen. I argued that it happened in our house. They then told me that we must have some terrible dampness problem that my parents should get a plumber right away.

My Mom and Dad, as well as neighbors participated in a séance or two with an Ouija board trying to communicate with the ghosts. Knowing what I know now, what a stupid thing for them to do. They probably invited all the rest of the ghosts in Burlingame and the greater Bay Area to come and communicate with the living at our house. We had a lot of different ghosts. I only saw a young man, and a young woman. They were probably in their early 20's. I also saw something else, but it is hard to describe so I won't go into it here. Years later I did find out that my Dad had also seen this being. I won't call it a ghost because it was really weird. Not talking "demon", just weird.

Well, back to the séances. Mom and Dad said that the main ghosts , identified themselves as Dave and Florence. The communication said that Dave had heavy gambling debts. That he owed money to organized crime. That they were killed in the house. They said that their family just thought that they disappeared. They knew that Dave owed money, and that they just must have left.

I don't really buy this story. I think that Dave killed Florence, and that someone caught Dave and killed him. The reason for this is that choking was a common theme in our house. For instance, I had a guy at the house one time and he started choking me for no reason with his belt. His brother had to pull him off.

Years later my Mom mentioned to me how bad the change of life affected her. She told me about being at the fence and talking to our sweet neighbor, Bunny, (her nature fit her nickname). Mom said that she had an over powering urge to choke Bunny. She told me that she had to use all her strength to go into the house and leave with choking her. I said, "Mom that wasn't an affect of the change of life. That was the ghosts." She looked at me stunned and silent for a while and then said, "You think so?" I said "absolutely."

Things happened that people were not aware that they did or said. I really think that the ghosts channeled through us on a regular basis.

Sometime during my high school years I caught a program on television. It was Hans Holzer and Sybil Leek. They were ghost hunters. They announced that if anyone in the Bay Area thought that they had ghosts in the house to call or write them. They would come out to the house free of charge and get rid of the ghosts. I BEGGED, and BEGGED, and BUGGED my parents to let me contact them. Frankly I spent most of my life terrified. Really, even when you think that the water heater is making a noise that sounds like someone in your face breathing heavily it is still extremely unnerving. I always slept with my covers over my head to avoid this very unpleasant regular occurrence.

My parents did not want to contact the ghost busters. They forbade me to contact them. I did write them a letter, which I never sent. My parents were worried about the publicity. "What would people think?" How could we ever sell this house if people knew that it was haunted? I thought these were very lame excuses. I wanted to have a regular house. I wanted to live in the kind of house that does not have a life of it own.

I remember one time that was pretty amusing though. My parents and I were in the breakfast nook. It was the afternoon and we were having a snack. We heard someone knock on the front door. I got up to answer it. When I opened the door, there was no one there. This happened again and again. When the knocking started again for the fourth time, I turned to my Father and asked if I had to go to the door again. He said that I should just in case there was someone there. I went to the door. To my surprise, friends of my parents were standing in front of me on the porch. Now you have to figure - I was not expecting to see anyone. When I saw them my eyes at least doubled in size and I started stomping my feet and waving my arms wildly about me while hollering non-words. I guess this startled Milt & Billie, because they stood across from me also stomping their feet, hollering non-words and waving their arms wildly. My parents came running to the door to rescue me from my "attacker". When they caught sight of Milt & Billie, and me all hollering - they started laughing "hysterically" - we all had a good laugh over it. Fortunately Milt & Billie had already had experiences with the ghosts, so they knew we weren't crazy and were still our friends. They knew that my parents called the ghosts "Dave and Florence". The other spirit - well - it looked like it had a black wet suit on - don't think that is what it was - but that is how it looked. Couldn't say whether it was male or female. I don't think it was either. It was terrifying - it had no face.

A couple of times my parents came into the bedroom where I was sleeping. They had to wake me because they said that I was screaming blood-curdling screams at the top of my lungs. I had no recollection of it, even as they woke me. I would look at their terrified faces in confusion.

The ghosts would be very active for a couple of months, then for months we would not be aware of a sound and would wonder if they had found some other "haunt." Unfortunately, they always returned.

When my Father retired, they put the house up for sale. The ghosts became excessively active. After all the experiences my Father had with the ghosts, they were finally taking actions against him that he found horrific.

I had many terrifying experiences over the years which my parents would tell me were my imagination. They would tell me that the ghosts would not do something like "that" and invalidate my horrible experiences. The last night my Dad spent in the house he was subjected to one of these horrible experiences. He no longer invalidated my experiences, but it was too late to remove the trauma of 15 years of bone-chilling terror.

The morning after this experience Dad told Mom that he wanted to live in the travel trailer in the driveway. He explained that this would assist them in keeping the house in a pristine condition while they were searching for a buyer. He explained that he was tired of dealing with the realtors and customers roaming through the house. He said that he reduced the price because he wanted to get on with their retirement and start traveling.

Not long after the move to the trailer he lowered the price substantially and the house sold that very same day. The new owners were buying it for a rental property.

While Dad escorted the new owners to their car, my Mother and I were sitting in the breakfast nook. We heard the back door slam and footsteps coming up the back stairs. Mom called out to Dad. There was no response. We both got up and looked down the hallway to the stairs below. We could hear the footsteps and had a clear view of the stairway, but there was no one "visible" walking up the stairs.

After we left, we heard from the neighbors that a nice Baptist Minister was the first renter. I thought in my heart that may be a Minister could release these haunting spirits. He moved after three months.

We heard from the neighbors that renter never stayed long. Eventually the owners sold the house. One of the neighbors said the house was moved to another location. I have no idea as to where. I would be curious if it is still standing, and still haunted. An apartment house now stands where my childhood home once was located. I have mused with the thought of going up to one of the apartments, pretending that I am taking some survey, and ask them if their water heater ever sounds like heavy breathing.

For years I could not speak or think of the ghosts without becoming terrified. I guess I have arrived at some kind of peace about it now after all these years. It is difficult for me to be neutral about my experiences in that house. It is also kind of funny when one thinks of all that I have experienced and seen since those days that it still gives me chills. I have chills right now as I type this. I probably have a lot of unresolved issues associated with the experiences in that house.

I would suggest this though. If you should ever move into a haunted house often times the best possible solution is to move out, especially if the ghosts are poltergeists.

Poltergeist most commonly discussed and covered in movies. Yes, they can actually be as terrifying as some depictions in movies. The movie "Inner stirrings" with Kevin Bacon best describes the core activity in the home in which I lived. Also the movie "Sixth Sense" had a number of common haunting experiences. Neither were "over done", like some. I think that someone really needs to experience real ghosts to write a believable ghost story.

I don't suggest staying in a house that has poltergeist activity, as they are difficult if not impossible to get rid of. Poltergeists can harm in many ways. These are beings that have not gone through the "second death" which is going through the tunnel of light you all hear about in "near death" experiences. For some reason these people are filled with dread as to what they will meet when they go through the tunnel of light. The dread is usually due to act for which they are guilty. These are also called "earth bound."

You may resolve the issues by calling in a professional ghost buster, but I would not suggest living in the house or on the property while doing the clearing. Even though disclosures are supposed to reveal deaths etc that occurred in a house, the grounds may have issues.

Some earth bound beings or entities are basically harmless. Some just refuse to believe that their bodies are dead, they have unresolved issues, or have addictions that they don't want to leave.

Have you ever had a thought that you considered so contrary to your way of thinking? Have you said to yourself "Where did that come from?"

Please remember that if you have a thought or feeling that you cannot control - it is not yours. This is an entity in your space. This is one of the main problems for drug and alcohol abusers is that these beings get in their space and bombard them with an urgent need to satisfy a longing for their drug of choice. Again, if you have a thought or feeling that you cannot control - it is not yours. You can simply state "Thank you - Good-bye!" After you do this for a while, the thoughts or feelings will subside.

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• Types of Hauntings
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