Can we have a seasonal spooky thread...

[valerianroot]

As nights are drawing in and Halloween is nearly here, I love these mumsnet threads.

I'll start, many years ago I lived in a flat where sadly two builders had died when their scaffold had collapsed outside. My bedroom was on the top floor and quite often I would hear voices on the landing outside (always at night of course ;) I would never leave the bedroom, even to go to the loo and it was really disconcerting!

Also another flat I lived in and there was something so off about it, the energy was so dark and there was a room off the kitchen that just felt cold and horrible, and it wasn't just me who thought it, friends who came over commented on it too.

Couldn't wait to move from either flat!

@ParadiseLaundry

The Savernake Forest one always comes up on threads like this and is really scary but can anyone remember one where a MN told the story about living in a little flat with a weird old fashioned looking stone alcove but then after they moved out they were talking to some friends who had visited them and they had no memory of it even - I think - providing photos with no alcove, just normal wall?!

For some reason that story always stuck with me and was really unsettling! I wouldn't know how to find it but I'd love to read it again.

Yes I remember that one, it was very spooky.

If anyone wants a spooky Halloween listen, The Battersea Poltergeist on BBC Sounds is really good.

@nancybotwinbloom

Is ask a mortician on YouTube?

Yes it is.

Bright sunny morning only last year I was working in a nursing home and I saw the bottom half of a woman walking slowly across the lounge. Blue pleated skirt, cream sheepskin slippers and a zimmer frame.
Watched from the doorway for about 10seconds then ran to get a colleague.
The apparition had gone.
The resident in the lounge hadn't seen anything I don't think
( though I can't be sure).

@ShirleyPhallus

The forest one is fake?? What?! It’s like the best thing about MN!

Yes, the forest one is fake. It's the one where the dog sitter chases a shadow into the garden after dark and is spoken to by a scary other worldly voice when she stops to catch her breath. She runs back into the house and the puppy she is dog sitting is safe and sound in the kitchen.

It's been debunked as a fake. Which is what I suspected as it runs too smoothly and holds the readers' attention very well i.e. like an author would.

I have stories galore and could spend hours writing my bizarre things but this one is particularly memorable for me. I would of been about 14 at the time.

I was fond of sleeping with my light on as a child because our house was full of strange goings on so I felt safer with a light on. My cat was laying next to me and I was awake as I always had trouble sleeping. My bedroom door opened and the sound of little footsteps padded across my carpet. I sat up and watched where I could hear the footsteps as they made their way around my room and I became aware that my cat was now looking alarmed and his fur was starting to stand on its hackles. He was also watching this invisible thing. This 'thing' then moved to where I had a tall umbrella plant in the corner and the plant started to rustle and shake. My cat started hissing and the next thing I knew my cat was lifted into the air whilst still lying down and thrown across the room. I've never seen a cat leave a room so fast. The reason this mainly sticks out for me was because as a younger child something used to visit me at night which I could actually visibly see. It was another child and it used to stand by my bed and watch me sleep. As I started to wake I could always see this child's little hands on my bed. When I would finally wake up fully it used to run out of my bedroom door.

The most frightening thing that ever happened to me was when dd2 was around 5 weeks old. I was holding her and I heard a voice say Bessy Bates (a pseudonym) will end up murdered. She's still alive, but she's got two children with a man who has proved cruel and dangerous. He has isolated her from her family and raped her and I am watching a nightmare unfold. I have been prone to mental health issues and nobody would believe me.
I see her occasionally and very rarely she answers my emails. I am so afraid.

@bangonthedoorgroovychick

When I was a little girl my mum used to work in a nursing home. It was a huge Victorian House with lots of rooms and staircases and it was very grand inside. A bit creepy.

One day she was in a very posh old ladies room which was very high up in the house and having a convocation with her. This woman looked and spoke as if she was perfectly healthy and fine.
It was about 10pm and very dark and quiet. The old lady asked my mum if she could help her change into her best night gown, my mum did so, then in a very matter of fact voice the old lady said-
'My dear I believe there is someone at the front door, you must go and answer it'

My mum laughed and said there was no one there as they would have heard the bell going but the old lady insisted that she had to go right now as "Morris" was waiting for her and she mustn't miss him.

My mum knew there was no one there but to appease the old woman she went all the way down lots of stair cases to go check the door.

There was no one there- so she went back to tell the old lady and the old lady was lay on her bed -positioned perfectly with her hands crossed on her tummy - dead.

When my mother spoke to the old ladies children it turns out Morris was her husband who died years before and my mum believes the old lady knew she was going to die and wanted privacy to do so and meet Morris again.

This is beautiful, tears reading. I worked somewhere similar, and one of my ladies insisted on wearing blue in her last days as her husband loved her in blue, and she'd be dancing with him again when it was time. She passed in her favourite blue outfit, and with a smile on her face. I'm convinced he came to her as she passed, for her to be smiling the way she was.

@Smallsadstory

The most frightening thing that ever happened to me was when dd2 was around 5 weeks old. I was holding her and I heard a voice say Bessy Bates (a pseudonym) will end up murdered. She's still alive, but she's got two children with a man who has proved cruel and dangerous. He has isolated her from her family and raped her and I am watching a nightmare unfold. I have been prone to mental health issues and nobody would believe me. I see her occasionally and very rarely she answers my emails. I am so afraid.

Bloody hell

@MellowMelly, was your cat OK? The child ghost would've scared me senseless!

My gran used to have a very big old house with an old servants’ quarters and a staircase leading down to them that was bricked up, but sometimes at night you could still hear footsteps going up and down the staircase.

@Ludo19
Yes he was okay. No injuries luckily. It was a little sad because he was a rescue cat and he was just getting up the confidence to stop living in my wardrobe so it sort of put us back to square one with him for a while.

@thekaratekid

The scariest one I have read recently was the horrible apparition one poster saw in a guesthouse in Somerset. It was on this thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4326598-To-ask-you-to-tell-me-the-weirdest-spookiest-thing-you-ve-experience?pg=6

Left quite disturbed for atleast 24 hours afterwards . The poster goes on to explain later in the thread what it was she actually saw (I physically suddered!)

Okkkaaaaay. I've just read that and now I'm properly spooked 😱. I'm at home on my own .

My Nan used to work in Harrods, and the only reason she didn't die in the IRA bombing was that 'something' told her to get off the bus a stop early. She could only explain it as ''the strongest feeling that she must get off the bus''.

Not close to paternal grand parents, went to grans funeral, but the relationship was minimal, so didn't visit or tend her grave, as didn't know the woman.
One day I suddenly got the urge to go out and put flowers on her grave, the urge was so strong that I went out that day , bought some and laid them on her grave.
The following day my dad phoned me to say that my cousin (on his side) had been killed in a car accident, he would have died as I was putting the flowers on his grandmothers grave .
I remember later talking to some friends about this incident and suddenly there was a strong smell of alcohol in the air (none of us were drinking). A friend asked did he like to drink, I didn't know, as this particular cousin had lived overseas and it wasn't something I could ask.
A few years later, cousins parents were over to the UK for a visit, when they started talking about cousin and confirmed that he had a drink problem.
I'm sure most would think its just a coincidence, but I find it comforting.

I lived in a really creepy old Victorian house as a student. It was quite an ‘active’ place, lots of dark/menacing corners m, the kind of place you could be working away, aware of general house sounds, movement, voices, only to realise you’re the only person home and have been for hours. I hated going to the loo at night, and generally moving around the house, but my bedroom felt very calm. One day, and I’m not quite sure why, I pulled back the carpet to discover that the room had runes carved into the floorboards all the way round the room. I’ve no idea why but I assume they were protective against whatever was going on in that house.

The link won't open for me

@thekaratekid the story in the link is far too well
Written. It's like a horror novel!

@VexedofVirginiaWater

For you:

I had a similar strong feeling when staying in a very old farmhouse in Somerset. It was a bed and breakfast servicing a small touristy village. The owners were out for the afternoon and I had wandered upstairs into a far wing of the house, little used, but part of the guests' area. At the end on the left was a bathroom which I was heading for. Opposite the bathroom door was a short flight of steps to a door leading to a long thin bedroom. That room was rarely used and the door was normally locked.

Just as I was about to turn into the bathroom I had the most terrifying sensation. I can only describe it as being a message from some higher power imploring me not to turn and look towards the bedroom. It was such a strong sensation, it was as if I had no power to disobey. I stood stock still staring ahead into the bathroom and out of the window at the fields and hills above the village. This sensation was driving me on to keep my face forward. It was so weird, this feeling of needing to count the trees, the rooves, draw an imaginary line around the clouds and branches - anything to take my mind away from the thing at the bedroom. I have never known any sense so strong, so purposeful and so protective.

After about 10 minutes (but felt like a lifetime) of standing stock still, sweat dripping down me, I sensed the bad presence and the good powerful presence starting to wane. Really weird, but at that precise moment a blackbird flew fast into the bathroom through the open window and perched on the wide window ledge. It's eyes were wide and bright, its chest heaving after landing. It kept blinking and looking at me.

The sensations were not quite over, but the blackbird had interrupted my train of thought. In a flash I thought I had imagined it all, so confidently turned away to look at the bedroom and the small steps leading up to it. What I saw was truly terrifying, before it vanished infront of me. That image stays with me forever. I am not going to go into detail because there are sensitive readers on this site. The real story is in the powerful presence, like the poster above, that strong sense coming from somewhere else that looks over you. Very weird but comforting also.

@ToffeeNotCoffee did the writer ever say what "it" was??! Sounds terrifying

The alcove story was me!

Here it is:

When DH and I first moved in together we moved in to a church/monastery that had been demolished apart from the outside and then nice apartments had been built in like the shell of this old building.

We had seen a few apartments up for rent in this building and always missed out on getting one, so when one came up on Rightmove we jumped at the chance to move in and just called the agent and said we'd rent it without viewing first. I know that wasn't a very smart move but this building was beautiful and but he apartments were all similar and we'd seen 5 before now.

We move in and everything is great. It was a duplex apartment with the bedroom and a bathroom upstairs. The downstairs was an open plan area with a big island in the middle with the oven and hob built in to it. At the back of the kitchen was a small alcove/corridor. Maybe about ten steps from the end of the kitchen to the end of this little part. There were two stone steps leading down to it and the floor was stone with old brick walls. We assumed it was just a bit of character left in from the refurbishment of the old building and loved it.

When friends came over we used to use the alcove bit to hang up coats. There wasn't a light there during the day the light from the big windows lit it up but of a night it would get quite dark. After a few weeks I started to feel uneasy being home alone, especially if I was standing in the kitchen part. The end of the island was where the hob and oven was and the alcove started directly opposite the end of the island. So if I was cooking it was behind me to the left. I had my back to it. I mentioned this to a few friends and they said that they always felt scared going to get coats and bags but just thought that was because it was dark. Another thing too, in front of hob was a sort of half wall that went from the island counter top all the way up to the ceiling so say if you were stood in certain parts of living room area you couldn't see the oven or see the alcove part.

One day, DH was sat on the couch and I was cooking. I could see him from where I was standing. I was looking at the pan and then suddenly felt someone grab my left shoulder. I thought it was DH so I turned but no one was there. I turned again and DH was still sat down. There was no way he could have done it. I told him what had happened and he said that had happened to him a few times while he had been stood there.

Our 6 month contract ended and we decided to move as I had a new job. The agents were showing someone around and we were on our way out when we bumped in to them in the corridor. They were showing a friend of a friend around so we had a little chat and they later rented it out.

We bumped in to them a few months later and asked how they were enjoying it there and they said they loved it but asked if we found the kitchen drafty. I said no but always thought the alcove bit was a bit chilly. They looked a bit puzzled and asked me when I meant. I explained where I meant and they said "There's just a wall there. There's always just been a wall there." I asked if it had been put up perhaps after we moved and they said that it wasn't there when they looked around and that they would absolutely remember seeing that.

We went home and looked back through photos and in the six months we'd lived there all the photos we'd taken hadn't included that part. There were photos where the wall by the oven had covered where it had been. Nobody else seemed to have captured this mysterious corner of the apartment apart from one who had taken a photo from the front of the island but half of the photo where it would have been was just black.

I went on this persons Facebook to see photos and there was one of them sat on the island with their keys with the entire back wall of the kitchen behind them- no alcove at all. They moved in the day after we left so there wouldn't have been time to put up a new wall.

DH and I were so confused but then we thought about it more and realised that the entire inside of the building had been removed so why would there be an old brick and stone part?

We looked back at the pictures the estate agent had put on and there weren't any that included that area so couldn't tell if it was there or not.

I honestly don't know what it was or if we all imagined it. There is just no explanation for it at all but I'm just glad that my friends and DH had at least seen it too!

@ToffeeNotCoffee oh fecking hell I'm home alone with the kids and I'm bloody terrified now.

@ToffeeNotCoffee can you find the description of what 'it' was please? Apparently it's in the thread somewhere. The link doesnt work for me either.

G

Do you all mean the Somerset story ? Or the dog sitting story ?

Dog sitting story:

@PoshWatchShitShoes

There was never any explanation. 'It' was assumed to be, maybe, a demon or the Devil or a would be bad guy.

@bangonthedoorgroovychick (sorry, watch a comedy on the t.v. to change the mood)

@Laiste - There was never any explanation. 'It' was assumed to be, maybe, a demon or the Devil or a would be bad guy.

Oh I should not have read this before going to bed. I live on the edge of Savernake Forest .
I’m desperately trying to think who around here has chickens and loads of black dogs so I can keep the hell away from that area of the forest!!!!!