Signs Your House Is Haunted

Many years ago I used to live in a very haunted house, and one of the lessons that experience taught me was how to recognize the signs of a haunting. In hindsight most of the houses I have lived in were probably haunted, but in general the ghostly phenomenon was so subtle, and so rare, that had I not been very observant, or a believer in strange things, I may have just written them off as something mundane, and likely forgotten about it.

Most of us live busy and exhausting lives that take us away from where we live for the majority of our waking hours. The corona virus pandemic has changed all of that. Almost all of us are now either willingly or forcibly locked inside our homes, for who knows how long. These are anxious and turbulent times.  And now, as we are spending almost all of our time inside our houses, and apartments, and rooms I wonder how many people might be experiencing odd happenings that they may have not noticed before?

The following are some signs that your home may be haunted that I have learned through my personal experiences with ghosts, and through my many years of investigating hauntings. Its important to remember that since we are all living with a lot of anxiety and our routines have been upended a lot of what we may perceive as a haunting could have a natural explanation.

Strange Sounds: Are you hearing unusual sounds? Many hauntings do start out with strange sounds, knocks, loud bangs with no explanation, phantom footsteps, scratching sounds, disembodied voices, whispers, and even growls. Some sounds such as the house settling are normal, and you just might not be used to hearing them. If you can investigate the source of the sound you may be able to explain it.

Unusual Feelings and Sensations: Do you ever feel like you’re being watched when there is no one with you in the room? Have you ever had the sensation of being touched by unseen hands, or felt the temperature suddenly drop with no apparent explanation?  All of these have been reported by people who live in haunted homes, including myself.

Strange Dreams and Night Terrors: I think right now we are all experiencing these, but in normal circumstances people living with ghosts occasionally report having nightmares, and sleep paralysis.

My girls Pixie and Merry

Pets Acting Strangely:  Right now our pets are likely feeling the anxiety we have due to the pandemic. My own cats Pixie and Merry are very clingy lately and seem to know something is not quite right. But in general animals might react to spirits and ghosts in ways that are unusual such as barking at something only perceptible to them,  or not willing to enter certain rooms.

Objects Disappearing: When I lived in that very haunted house I would routinely have objects moved around, disappear, and sometimes reappear in places I knew I never put them. Ghosts are definitely tricksters. If this is happening a lot and your not in general absent minded you may have a ghost in the house.

Poltergeist Phenomena and PK or Psychokinesis:  This is more rare, but would include things like unexplained water puddles, fires, furniture moving, doors slamming, lights turning off and on etc. Electronic disturbances including strange interference with radio, tv, internet, and phone calls, and batteries draining are another sign that a place may be haunted.

Unexplained Shadows: Do you see shadows lurking out of the corner of your eye that are not there when you look around? Do you see shadows where one should not be? Shadow people are a newer phenomenon, but masses or balls of black shadow date back for centuries in the ghost literature. If you experience any of these unexplained shadows your house could be haunted.

Light anomaly or reflection? Taken at a place that was reputedly very haunted. 

Balls of Light and other Light Anomalies: I am not talking about "orb" photos which are mostly explained, but visually seeing balls of light with your own eyes. These are frequently associated with hauntings and are described in many different colours.

Apparitions: These include shadow people or human shaped shadows, but often they are described as fully solid looking 3D people or animals that witnesses would never have guessed were a ghost until they did something freaky like vanish or appear to walk through a wall.

An abandoned cabin in the woods near my home, that has a dark, and tragic past. 

Haunted History: Many haunted houses have a tragic or violent past or are perhaps built on land that has a history of turmoil. The home itself may have a long history of ghostly activity This is not true with all haunted houses. I have investigated ghosts in brand new buildings with no history nor the land they were built on. In those cases it seemed the people were haunted and not the place.

If you are worried that you may be living in a haunted house please keep in mind that hauntings are never like they are portrayed in the movies or horror fiction. When I investigated haunted houses one of the main things I took away from talking with people is that they were more afraid of what might happen than what had actually happened ie: their imagination was driving their fear more than the ghosts were.

Most hauntings end as swiftly and mysteriously as they begin with no lasting harm, but there are some tried a true methods to either live with ghosts or send them on their way.  In a few days I will write about some of the methods I've personally used and found success with.

Are you living in a haunted house? Can you add something to these signs of a haunting? If so, please leave a comment. 

Some of the suggestions I've been given in addition to the signs listed in the blog:

* A history of addictions or tenants with a addictive personalities
* Religious Iconography and or an overtly religious household
*Location --- near a cemetery, church, ravine, wood...
*History of Trauma --- either in the home or on the land
*Ratio of females to males living on the property
*Objects appearing and disappearing
*Strange smells that cannot be accounted for

These came from members of the Paranormal Experiences and the Pandemic Facebook group. Thanks so much to everyone who added to this post and please feel free to join the group.

Visitations

Sauble Beach, Ontario, Canada - My photo

It has been 11 years since my Mother passed away after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer. She is forever in my heart, and my mind, and I still miss her very much.

I have been going through some of my older posts from other blogs and websites that I have contributed to, and came across this one earlier today. It reminds me of how fleeting and precious our lives are, and I wanted to reshare it in honour of my Mom.

My Mother held no specific religious beliefs beyond that she would tell us that she believed in the stars, and the Sun, and our Earth. She was very much a Pagan in spirit if not in a self identifying label. She was a very spiritual woman in part due to a near death experience she had after falling into a river when she was 9 years old. And she was very interested in my research into exceptional human experiences.

A couple of weeks after her diagnosis of stage 4 pancreatic cancer with a very grim prognosis we had a long talk about death. She assured me that she had no fear of death itself, but was scared of the process of dying. Her illness came as a shock to all of us, including herself. A few weeks before she collapsed at home, and had to be rushed to the hospital we had taken a long walk on shores of Lake Ontario for her birthday. She loved the beach and she lived close to the lake. We had ice cream cones, and joked about stuff, and nothing seemed unusual or wrong on that warm Summer day. It was three weeks before we knew she was seriously ill.

When my Mom got her diagnosis she was in shock, and grief, and she told me she had no idea how she would be able to fall asleep for all of the anxiety.

Weeks later she told me that when she did go to her bedroom that first night, and climbed into bed with her book, something odd happened. She felt as if someone unseen to the eye had sat down on the bed right beside her. She could feel their weight, and mass as if someone was right there! She said it was like a larger person was sitting there, but she could not see them despite the lights being on.

A ghost?

She was not frightened, in fact she said she felt a great calm come over her, and she felt protected. She knew everything would be ok no matter what happened. And soon afterwards she was able to fall asleep.

Surely, she said to me, "this must have been my guardian angel come to comfort me." Everybody has a guardian angel isn't that right, Susan?" She told me about this strange experience a couple of weeks after it had happened, and as she, and we as a family began processing the knowledge that her life was coming to a close.

The day after the horrific diagnosis my Mom asked me to break the news to my younger sister. She couldn't bear to do it herself knowing it would break my sister's heart. I waited until my sister got off of work, and I told her our Mother was dying, and had very little time left. This was one of the hardest moment's of my life.

Before the end of the evening and as the news began sinking in for both of us, my sister said she had to tell me something, and it couldn't wait. She said she did not want to forget to tell me, knowing that I'm "into weird stuff" and that I'd find it interesting, and needed something else to occupy my thoughts even if only briefly.

Three days prior to the diagnosis of our Mom with terminal cancer my sister, and her partner were in the small town of Sauble, Ontario, Canada, that coincidentally was the same place our parents had first met during the 1950s. My Sis and her partner had stayed in the Sauble Beach area later than they had planned, and so they decided to rent a motel room for the night, and drive back to Toronto in the morning.

After watching a movie, my sister and her partner fell asleep. At some point during the night she was woken up by what she initially thought was her partner sitting down on the bed beside her. She felt it was a bigger person, and she turned around only to realize her partner was snoring, fast asleep on the other side of the bed!

She said she was a little startled by this because she could feel the indentation where this "bigger body" felt as if sitting right beside her, however she told me she was not scared.

The light was very dim, and she could not see this "person" only felt the sensation of someone being right beside you.

She then said it felt like a hand began stroking her head, and she felt comforted, as if the intention of this "unseen hand" was to soothe her, and she turned over and went to sleep.

She said she had no idea what the experience had been all about. In fact she said she probably just dreamed it all, but since she knew I collected "weird stories" she wanted to tell me, and give me the name of the motel so I could post an anonymous report about it to my ParaResearchers of Ontario website. Just in case someone else experienced something similar there or if there was a history of the place being haunted.

Bear in mind that at this point I did not know about my Mom's strange experience, and I had not been able to connect the two encounters yet.

So a couple of weeks later when my Mom began telling me of her "guardian angel" I was bursting, and almost leaping off my chair. And I believe the first thing I said to her was did you talk to Diana?!!!!

My mother and sister had not shared these experiences with each other yet. And both were amazed by this synchronicity. The descriptions of their separate encounters were nearly identical!

I did not have a similar encounter, and I'm not certain how I would have felt about it if I had. I did have several synchronicities leading up to my Mom's diagnosis, but I was only able to decipher them much later on.

There have been thousands of similar experiences reported over the centuries, and probably occurring since the beginning of human history. We are certainly not alone. I hope that somehow in the telling of our family's encounter this will help someone in some way.