in the breath of ghosts
Sep. 26th, 2004 11:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_siobhanOK, so I'm not napping.
Let's talk about ghosts.
When I was a teenager I had a poltergeist. It showed up the summer we lived in the nursing home, so that would have been Grade 6. About 11-12 years old. It came and went for the next 4-5 years. Mostly it used to just dump things on the floor, but it would occasionally move to turning things on and off. When I lived with the wife-beater it started throwing things. Never at him, unfortunately, we would just hear things smashing in the kitchen.
When I lived in Guelph I was surrounded by ghosts. one house I where lived in had a woman in a dress that came down to just above her ankles. She was very young and very timid, she would flee if you acknowledged her in any way. One day I was bent over under the stairs sorting through boxes of Crap and I called out to the person I could very clearly see - from the shoulders down - standing at the foot of the stairs. They didn't respond and when I stuck my head out to look around the stairs at the person there was nobody there.
I also spent a number of years working in bar in an old building that had a biker history and a mobster one before that. During prohibition the main room had featured dancing with non-alcoholic refreshments, but if you opened a trap-door in the floor you could go down to a series of underground rooms where there was booze and gambling. At the time, there had been secret passages running out to the nearby fields in case the cops showed up - the passages were now sealed at either end but they were still there and rumour had it that there were a few bodies in those passages.
The bouncers used to like bringing all the new staff downstairs to show them the rooms. They were dusty and deserted except for some broken chairs and old newspapers. One girl who had just been hired as a waitress wandered into one of the rooms away from the rest - and screamed. She was found lying on the floor. After everybody dragged her out and made sure she was uninjured she told us she had come face-to-face with a man in a suit and had fainted on the spot.
The building itself also housed a hotel, a ballroom and restaurant, all connected by a warren of passages and smaller rooms. The waitresses were supposed to drag the night's trash through the kitchen and out to the dumpsters, I always had to go with them because they were terrified of being in the silent corridors alone. One of the bigger unusued rooms was supposed to be a staff room, but nobody ever used it. I was sitting at a table one night doing something when the gigantic chandelier started swinging back and forth - no noise, no vibration, just gradually picking up speed. There was no floor above it. Nothing else in the room moved. I sat and watched it until it stopped just as suddenly.
Definitely the weirdest experience I've ever had was the one night I walked into the corridor behind the ballroom and heard the unmistable sounds of a party going on - music, glasses tinkling, the unmistakable sound of dozens of voices chatting and laughing. It was loud enough to hear through the closed door. The lights for the ballroom were right on the corner of the wall before you entered the room and I flicked them on as I walked in. Into a completely silent empty room. The noise cut off the second the lights came on.
The building where I work now used to be a children's hospital at one time. Some of the staff tell stories about seeing children running through the halls. I haven't seen anything yet.
Tell me a ghost story.
Let's talk about ghosts.
When I was a teenager I had a poltergeist. It showed up the summer we lived in the nursing home, so that would have been Grade 6. About 11-12 years old. It came and went for the next 4-5 years. Mostly it used to just dump things on the floor, but it would occasionally move to turning things on and off. When I lived with the wife-beater it started throwing things. Never at him, unfortunately, we would just hear things smashing in the kitchen.
When I lived in Guelph I was surrounded by ghosts. one house I where lived in had a woman in a dress that came down to just above her ankles. She was very young and very timid, she would flee if you acknowledged her in any way. One day I was bent over under the stairs sorting through boxes of Crap and I called out to the person I could very clearly see - from the shoulders down - standing at the foot of the stairs. They didn't respond and when I stuck my head out to look around the stairs at the person there was nobody there.
I also spent a number of years working in bar in an old building that had a biker history and a mobster one before that. During prohibition the main room had featured dancing with non-alcoholic refreshments, but if you opened a trap-door in the floor you could go down to a series of underground rooms where there was booze and gambling. At the time, there had been secret passages running out to the nearby fields in case the cops showed up - the passages were now sealed at either end but they were still there and rumour had it that there were a few bodies in those passages.
The bouncers used to like bringing all the new staff downstairs to show them the rooms. They were dusty and deserted except for some broken chairs and old newspapers. One girl who had just been hired as a waitress wandered into one of the rooms away from the rest - and screamed. She was found lying on the floor. After everybody dragged her out and made sure she was uninjured she told us she had come face-to-face with a man in a suit and had fainted on the spot.
The building itself also housed a hotel, a ballroom and restaurant, all connected by a warren of passages and smaller rooms. The waitresses were supposed to drag the night's trash through the kitchen and out to the dumpsters, I always had to go with them because they were terrified of being in the silent corridors alone. One of the bigger unusued rooms was supposed to be a staff room, but nobody ever used it. I was sitting at a table one night doing something when the gigantic chandelier started swinging back and forth - no noise, no vibration, just gradually picking up speed. There was no floor above it. Nothing else in the room moved. I sat and watched it until it stopped just as suddenly.
Definitely the weirdest experience I've ever had was the one night I walked into the corridor behind the ballroom and heard the unmistable sounds of a party going on - music, glasses tinkling, the unmistakable sound of dozens of voices chatting and laughing. It was loud enough to hear through the closed door. The lights for the ballroom were right on the corner of the wall before you entered the room and I flicked them on as I walked in. Into a completely silent empty room. The noise cut off the second the lights came on.
The building where I work now used to be a children's hospital at one time. Some of the staff tell stories about seeing children running through the halls. I haven't seen anything yet.
Tell me a ghost story.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-26 09:06 am (UTC)When J was pregnant with her second child, she kept smelling menthol cigarettes, as if someone was standing behind her and smoking, but there was never anyone there. Also, it was odd because even though she lived with her inlaws and they smoked, they did it outside and no one smoked menthols.
Finally she mentioned it to her mother in law, who said that she'd smelled the same thing on occasion, and it smelled like her mother's cigarettes. Her mother has been dead at least twenty years.
The smell of cigarettes didn't go away until J's daughter was about two years old and they moved out of the house (one that the ghost had never seen when alive) but there were instances where, after the baby was born, if J smelled menthols she had to go find her daughter right now. There was actually one instance (I forget what her daughter did, it wasn't putting her head through the crib bars because they didn't have a crib that she could do that to, but it was something very dangerous...maybe she was climbing on the bars or something) when the cigarette smell was intense behind her, and when J found her daughter it was obvious that there could have very easily been a fatal accident if she hadn't checked the baby right then.
Well...
Date: 2004-09-26 09:13 am (UTC)He was 18 at the time and just discovering he was gay. His life was pretty turbulent to say the least.
This poltergiest also brought a shadowy ghost like figure with it for company.
People who stayed over often saw it. I saw it once and hid under the duvet!
The poltergiest would never throw anything but it was quite fond of making heavy objects like ashtrays and ornaments hover for a bit before flying off tables and dropping to the ground. It also had immense fun hiding things. I'd deliberately put stuff out to see if it got moved, to prove me and my flat mate weren't just being forgetful!
When my flatmate eventually moved out, 2 years later, all action ceased and the flat has been ghost free ever since.
My mate didn't take them with him to his new place, so presumably they went and found another troubled teenager to pester...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-26 10:31 am (UTC)So I'll pick two.
Story one:
My parents still live in the house I grew up in. As far back as I can remember, I always felt a little freaked out in the hallway outside the bathroom - in the foyer - and in the basement. Due to my sisters telling me that you were supposed to hold your breath when you passed by cemetaries (as to not make the dead jealous) I took to holding my breath whenever I had to go through these areas in the dark. Around my sophomore year of college - I noticed that I would just naturally walk through those areas without holding my breath. I chalked it up to maturity. Two years later my father and I were watching a horror movie and he said "I've seen things in this house that would turn your hair white!" So of course, I had to know. He told me that in the three same places I mentioned above - he used to see a little boy in PJs out of the corner of his eye... when he would turn his head the boy would disappear. He then told me that the couple who owned the house before my parents had a little boy who died of some kind of natural illness... I told my father about my feelings and how they went away a few years ago - he told me that he stopped seeing the little boy around the same time.
Part I
Date: 2004-09-26 10:31 am (UTC)When I was 12 years old I started baby-sitting for a family who lived in an old farm house. My neighborhood was built up in the 1950s - before that it had all been farmland. This was one of the original houses. It was a pretty cool house. There were a lot of things in it that modern houses didn't have. There was a little hand pull elevator type thing between the bathroom - kitchen - and basement. I assume it was for laundry. There was a cast iron washer - the kind with the handle that you turn to wring out the clothes - bolted ot the basement floor... stuff like that. It was either the first or second night that I baby sat there - that I noticed how every time I would pass by the stairwell, the lights would turn on. They would turn off when I was past them. I assumed it was some kind of sensor. When the parents came home, however, I noticed that it never happened for them - or me.
Another night I was sitting on the couch watching tv - the kid was upstairs asleep... and I heard someone run down the stairs (behind me was the wall that separated the living room from the stairs). I thought it was the kid so I just said "Jeff - go to sleep!" and he ran up the stairs. Fifteen minutes later... I heard the same thing. I think I said something like "Jeff...this isn't funny. Go to sleep!" in the direction of the stairs, and I heard him run back up. The third time it happened I got pissed and got up. When I went around the corner to confront him... there was no one there. I tiptoed up the stairs and opened his bedroom door. He was totally passed out. I went back down the stairs feeling very creeped out. The minute I sat back down on the couch - I heard something run UP the stairs.
Now this was my first babysitting job and I was determined to seem as grown up as my two older sisters - so I was not going to let this get to me or keep me from my job. Yup. I went back. At one point, when I babysat in the afternoon a friend of his came over with her sitter... the girl babysitting said "So have you had any strange experiences in this house?" I asked her why and she told me that her sister used to babysit there and claimed it was haunted.
When a friend and I worked a xmas party there - just serving appatizers and making sure there was enough soda around... we had to go into the basement frequently because there was another fridge down there where the soda was being kept. She started playing with the cast iron washing bin...turning the handle. She commented on how heavy it was... and indeed, when she would pick it up - it would fall on its own. On our next trip down to the basement we noticed something odd - the handle was standing straight up in the air. When my friend took a few steps closer - it fell. We screamed and ran up the stairs.
The last time I baby sat there the weird stuff happened late at night, again. I was watching tv - the kid was asleep - and he came downstairs sobbing. I calmed him down a little and he told me that he "didn't want to let them out of the closet," and started sobbing again. I started getting really freaked out... and asked him who... he just said "they're gonna hurt mom and dad." and would start sobbing again. I freaked out, picked him up, and walked to my parents house (about 5 blocks away). We called the cops from there. Everything appeared to be okay in the house... but his closet door was open and inside, to the left was another full size door that led to the attic. It was open too.
Re: Part II
Date: 2004-09-26 10:32 am (UTC)I still hate that house.
bleh.
Re: Part II
Date: 2004-09-27 12:09 pm (UTC)THAT sounds like somebody fucking around.
I'm not afraid of ghosts, but live people are a different story.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-26 10:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-27 12:08 pm (UTC)It reappeared at 18 - which is really late by my understanding - then disappeared for good.
Now I have to throw my plates myself.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-26 01:02 pm (UTC)Canada had Prohibition?
Anyway, I actually have had the (good or bad) fortune of living and working in many haunted locations that were haunted. Hell, The brownstone I lived in on Delaware was on the ghost walk tour of the author of "Shadows on the Western Door".
The floor we lived on was inhabited by the shade of an old woman. On occassion she'd be seen rocking in a chair that wasn't part of the current furniture. Lights would be turned on and off. Shadows could be seen moving along the wall when no one else was in the apartment.
There's SOMETHING in the basement at the Continental. Something ... not good. I have issues going down there alone after we close. It friggin sends all my hairs standing on end.
On to the main floors of the Continental. Every once in awhile the wafting reek of "good" weed will come streaming down the stairs and no one will have been found lighting up. General consensus is that it's the old owner who died back in the late 90s.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-26 01:07 pm (UTC)Yep (http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=J1ARTJ0006515)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-26 01:15 pm (UTC)We get the same thing at work (a children's hospital) usually in relation to our 4th floor, which is the cancer ward (and therefore a location with many deaths). I haven't ever seen anything but some of the nurses have stories.
There are two I remember most clearly from when I was young. A lot of the area where I grew up was haunted in many ways.
The first was at a friend's house, we must have been 8 or 9 at the time. She often spoke of waking up in the middle of the night to an older man standing and sitting at the end of her bed. He was never frightening, just seemed to be watching over her. She'd turn away and he'd be gone. Never was sure I believed her until one night when I slept over only to wake up and see him myself. He had graying dark hair and wore some sort of robe. He was definitely very sad looking. He actually felt kind of reassuring, not at all scary. We tried looking into any stories about her house when we were older but never found anything.
The second was one I saw often. There was a stretch of beach front not to far from my house growing up. It was a quiet area where no one went often, so was great for walking at night. Friends and I used it as just a place to hang out. There was an old historic house right on that beach that served as a meeting point for Revolutionary War soldiers. It also had tunnels that led out to what was now the water but used to be beach that served as escape tunnels. We would often see what looked like candlelight points moving between the house and the waterfront. A couple times we could hear the rustlings of people moving and hushed whispers. Never saw anything more than the candle lights - not even candles, which always made it odd like we weren't really seeing what we were seeing. It wasn't until we heard the rustlings/whispers that we were more sure. It was sort of like watching a dance of lights.
I had a couple encounters in the house as well, but many people did. I once spoke with one of the curators there about the lights a few years back (after college). She said she had heard a similar story from one or two other people but never heard anyone say they saw it the multiple times like my friends and I did. Apparently we were the only ones willing enough to keep coming back.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-26 01:19 pm (UTC)yes. actually, i do have a decent ghost story.
I'll post it later however, i'm in the middle of getting ready to take off for my boring job. ugh. but, it's money for my hobbys.
i'll have to read through this a little further.
-lone13
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-26 03:17 pm (UTC)shadows in the dark
Date: 2004-09-26 05:49 pm (UTC)when i was younger (because they all start this way, don't they?), my mom and brother and i lived in a strange little house on a lake. there's a few things about this house i could probably dredge up from my memory if i tried, but other than the fact that it's one of the places where the walls creeped me out a little, that's all i'll say on that.
i woke up one night because there was a party going. it sounded like mom had friends over, like she often did, and the music was playing low, and people were milling about, laughing and drinking and partying.. that sort of thing. i got up, because i wanted to know if there was anyone i wanted to see there. i remember my mom has this really tall friend that i liked to talk to. he was always very nice to me and my brother. and i thought i heard his voice out there, so i went out.
turned the corner out of my bedroom, and the light from the kitchen (i had seen it on the floor from my bed) was out. the sounds of the party stopped. i walked through the kitchen into the dining room (which was part of the living room. it was a very small house), and it got progressively colder and colder as i walked on. i went into the living room, still confused about where the party went to. it was so cold, i could nearly see my breath, but it wasn't quite that cold outside, maybe early fall. there was a metal fireplace that stood away from the wall in the living room, and we always had a fire in it that time of year. i put my hand on it, and it was ice cold.
i don't think i touched the floor once, running back to my bed. and whenever i woke up in the middle of the night after that, no matter how bad i had to pee or how thirsty i was, i just shoved my head under the blankets as far as i could stand, and waited until i fell asleep or it was light outside.
(yeah, i know the_siobhan told a similar story, but it's the one i remember best, of all of them. if you really want to hear one of the others... one is about a forest on an old burial ground. most are from when i was a baby. my mom has a photo she only pulls out once in a great while, and tells one of the stories. the others from then are special to me.)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-27 05:55 am (UTC)In fact, the last place I lived in DC was an old victorian townhouse, built in 1902. We lived in the basement - and while much of it had been redone, the storage closet still had the original exposed brick and such. I hated going near that closet/going into that closet. It caught my attention when we were looking at the place, but I just chalked it up to being tired from an 8 hour drive.
THen, after we were living there, I would catch movement out of the corner of my eye now and then. Finally, one afternoon, I was lying on the sofa in the living room, with a clear view down the hall to where the door was. One of the cats stopped by the door, hissing and backing away. I saw something come /out/ of the door, pause, and turn towards the back office...then fade away. It looked like a woman in long skirts with her hair tucked under a ruffled mobcap. Considering the basement was usually where the food and coal storage was, it wouldn't surprise me to find a servant's ghost there.
The cats would always race past that door. Walk down the hall slowly, then scurry past that, then slow down again.
Also, like the story about the menthol cigarettes - my gr.grandfather died in March, and I was born in May of 63. My mother was very close to him and was heartbroken that he never got to see his first gr.grandchild. I believe he did, however. I recognized him in pictures that I didn't see until I was older. I pointed him out as the man who would sit in my room and sing me to sleep when I was little. My mom said that she would swear she heard his voice, calling her name - and when she would go check on me, I was either doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing (like climbing up the cabinets) or I was uncovered, and it was cold, etc.
(not a story, but...)
Date: 2004-09-27 07:03 am (UTC)Over half of the "scientific" community involved in paranormal investigation have come to believe that poltergeists aren't separate entities at all, but rather psychokinetic energies radiating from young girls of about the age you described. Apparently, almost all documented poltergeist cases have occurred in the presence of girls around the time of adolescence.
Perhaps it's YOU, m'lass ;)
Re: (not a story, but...)
Date: 2004-09-27 09:29 am (UTC)Re: (not a story, but...)
Date: 2004-09-27 10:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-27 07:29 am (UTC)I started hearing voices for a while when I was teen. I would hear someone speak my name very clearly.
They always came from just behind me, right over my shoulder, and I could never identify a gender. They were always low and they cut right through whatever other noise was going on around me.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-27 11:54 am (UTC)Then one night, something in the bathroom blew in, with a big gust of wind. And a high (soprano) woman's voice came singing down the hall. She sang for several seconds and then faded out. I was frozen in bed, unable to get back to sleep for quite awhile. (I told my parents about that one too, and they tried to convince me it was a dream. Nope, sorry.) And after that, there were no more running footsteps.