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!

Some of these are genuinely terrifying. Love it Mumsnet!

I think I've told this one here before, but here it is again, will keep the thread active at least.

I was 25 yrs old and recently got a promotion in work from one city to another. A lady I worked with told me she had a flat to let in a high rise in the city I was moving to and it was mine to rent if I wanted it. I jumped at the chance!

On the day scheduled to visit the flat I was with my mum and we met my colleague along with her husband.

The flat itself was a multi story (or high rise) in a not brilliant area but I wasn't put off by that at all, it was 1/2 hour bus from work had shops nearby etc, was perfect for me.

We went up to the flat and had a look around. It was where my colleague had brought up her kids before she met her current husband. We were looking out the window of the living room when the husband came up behind me and said " don't fling yourself out the window whatever you do " my colleague quickly hushed her husband and we went back to looking around the flat.

I moved in September. My mum stayed with me for the first few days then went home. Oh my god I was lonely. I had transferred with work from one city to another so I knew people already. My new workmates were lovely, we were all young, trainees together. I couldn't have wished for more friendship and nights out than I had. But, I was lonely, and depressed. The world weighed heavily on my shoulders whenever I went home.

I started to go home to my own city on weekends and the fog would lift, then I always had to go back to the flat...

I honestly never saw anything in the flat or felt anything specific when I was there, it just brought me down, down down.

After spending a brilliant Christmas at home early in the new year I decided enough was enough, I had to move out. I was willing to give up my great career in a great city and just head home, I knew I had to do it.

In February (so I was only in the flat 6 months) my dad and my uncle were due with a van to remove my stuff (the flat was furnished so it was only my personal belongings). I packed everything and moved it all out to the communal hallway so all we had to do was put everything in a couple of trips in the lift and we'd be done.

With everything packed up all I had to do was wait for my dad.

To explain the flat, you came in the front door, immediately opposite was a large closet, to the right a short corridor then immediately ahead was a long corridor which had a bathroom to the left, the bedroom to the right and the living room and kitchen at the end of the long corridor. I had tidied and cleaned and made sure all windows were shut.

I was sat at the end of the long corridor, opposite the living room door with my back against the wall, waiting for my dad to call me. All of a sudden that living room door BANGED shut with all the might I couldn't comprehend.

I hightailed it out there and met my dad outside the block and refused to set foot inside it again.

I later learned that my workmates son had committed suicide from the flat. That must’ve been what my colleague’s husband had been referring to on the day I looked around the flat.

As I said, I didn’t see anything at all while living there, but I certainly experienced a horrible negative atmosphere that was chilling.

MyNameIsAlexDrake that's given me the chills

I have another from 2013. I remember the time because my Nan was very poorly in hospital and it was 1 month before she died. I was 18. Working full time and I just had my first ever promotion. Ghosts and woo where the last thing in my mind.

I still lived with my parents and sister at the time and I had the largest bedroom in the house, it's a 1930s house with vanity sinks in the bedrooms etc.

My bed faced the sink and next to it I had a large beautiful dressing table, I collected vintage and new perfume bottles at the time.

Early February one night I woke to a creek, the big heavy door (with the old fashioned key in the lock) has slowly opened but I thought it was my 10 year old sister mucking around. I just ignored it and went back to trying to get to sleep.

It must have been about 10 minutes later I heard a shhhhhhh sound and I turned over and stood between the end of my bed and the sink was what I can only describe as human shaped, small about 5 ft but like thick white fog.
You could make out the head and shoulders but it was just made up of white fog.
I froze. I couldn't move. I was wide awake and about a minute passes with me staring at this figure before I slowly managed to flick on a light by the bed. Then it was gone.

2 nights passed and It's around 1am. I woke to a very loud bang. I just couldn't turn over. I didn't want to see anything again.
But a few second later I felt something sit in the end of my bed. It was almost like a soft bounce and then a chill went up my legs. I was frozen for what seemed like hours. This was not sleep paralysis. I was wide awake. I eventually managed to switch the tv on and the room felt lighter.
The next morning I found one of my metal trinket boxes that was on the dressing table across the room and a scratch on the wall where it looked like it had hit. Which I presume was the bang in the night.

After that around the house always seemed different like there was someone watching.

It wasn't until I moved out that my mum told me the previous owner of the house was an old lady who died in my room.

My sister sleeps in there now and has many stories if her own.

Coincidently just before the first lockdown my mum was selling a table on FB and a lady came to pick it up from the house.
She walked in and walked over to the fireplace in the living room and touched it. Her whole face and mood changed and looked over to my mum and said ...
'I hope you don't think this untoward, but i also work as a psychic and can I just say what amazing stories your house has and they really are harmless and just interested you know, they just want to let you know they're around so they aren't forgotten'

@MyNameIsAlexDrake
That was a pretty crass comment for your colleague's husband to make in the circumstances.

@VexedofVirginiaWater
“ That was a pretty crass comment for your colleague's husband to make in the circumstances.”

I was thinking the exact same thing. Maybe it was gallows humour to get him through an awful time?!

I don't know if I have ever really seen a ghost, but I do believe in them.. or maybe I just want to believe in them. I did live in a house at university that was extremely creepy, even my mum said she hated being there because something just felt off with it. It was always cold, and lights would randomly turn on at night, the tv would also randomly turn on, as well as the taps.

The only other experience I have had is at my parents house, ever since I was very young, I would often see the shadow/outline of a tall, broad shouldered man, wearing a long trench coat and a trilby hat, standing at the bottom of our stairs, whatever it was it had a really really negative energy around it, it always freaked me out but as I got older I kind of put it to it being my mind playing tricks on me. A couple years ago I was speaking with my sister, and she was saying how she's always felt our parents house had a negative energy about it, and then she said that when we was young she saw a man standing at the bottom of the stairs, so I was like omg.. and asked her what he was wearing and she said a long trench coat and a trilby style hat 😱

@ShirleyPhallus

Great thread!! We need to find that really spooky one about the woman in the farm building who ran out after her dog and then felt a presence etc etc - anyone know what I’m talking about?

The forest one who was house sitting for her friend, I remember!

[quote emwantsbiscuits]@VexedofVirginiaWater
“ That was a pretty crass comment for your colleague's husband to make in the circumstances.”

I was thinking the exact same thing. Maybe it was gallows humour to get him through an awful time?![/quote]
I thought so too at the time, as did my colleague obviously hurrying to shush him up. Turns out though that he had early dementia at the time I met him which would explain his comment.

Don't know if anybody lives in York, but when I was a student, I used to live in one of the tall terraces hard by the river.

It HATED us, that house. It hated having students in it, not looking after it, keeping funny hours. It wanted a family in it. One of my friends was (not fatally) electrocuted by an appliance, and another one fell down the cellar steps. None of us liked being there by ourselves, we used to spend as much time as possible out at other people's houses.
I moved out after I fell down the stairs one Sunday night, nobody else in the house. It was the weirdest feeling I have ever had in my life - it was as if the house shrugged. If you've ever been riding, you know when you go to get on a horse and it just sidles out from under you? The stairs did that to me. It was coming on for dusk, September, I had just come off the train so it wasn't like I'd been to the pub or I'd been taking drugs.
It did not want me there, and it wanted to harm me.

It's got what it wanted now. It's a lovely family home and it's looked after beautifully.

I have one..

I used to teach in an old Victorian school in a Derbyshire village.

We used to hear the piano being played in the hall early in the morning, but when someone investigated no one was ever there.

The headteacher there (lovely lady) had always lived in the village and said that the school was haunted by a benign female presence.

We had a narrow flight of stairs leading to the staff room which used to be the old headteacher office, she said that often there would be a waft of perfume on those stairs, that she couldn't recognise on anyone that day.

She felt sure that the ghost was a previous headteacher.

It was a happy school.

When I was a child, probably around 9 or 10, something startled me awake in the middle of the night. I was in my single bed and right next to my face was a huge black dog. The best way I can describe it is that it looked like a big German shepherd but all black and it was very large. I remember it so vividly. I remember the way it was sitting next to me with its tongue out panting. It wasn’t barking or making any other noise other than the panting but I remember feeling absolutely petrified. After lying there for what felt like forever I reached to turn on the light on the bedside table and it vanished before my eyes.

I’m a very rational person and don’t believe in ghosts or anything like that but I still struggle with this memory. The best way I can rationalise it is that I was suffering some sort of sleep paralysis. I think about it frequently though and have googled extensively but can’t find any other stories of a dog visiting someone by their bed in the night. (Obviously loads of other folklore around black dogs). I’ve never even told anyone this story before and never mentioned it to my parents at the time.

I have one which is not scary but is v strange.

My DM used to work in a national trust stately home as a room guide. This house and a lot of the existing interior dates back to the 1400s and is kept as much as poss as it was.

This day she was working in one of the upstairs rooms. It was a big room between two of the main bedrooms and it had beautiful windows and a huge stone fireplace.

It was a quiet weekday and a young boy or 9 or 10 was walking through the rooms with his parents. The mum and dad moved on through to the next room and the boy came up to my mum and smiled. This is the convo that followed:
he: hello :) Where's the other sofa thing?
DM: what other sofa thing love?
he: those .
DM: weeeeell - actually there was another one of those but it got burned in a fire in this room about 150 years ago .......
he: hmmmm They were pink weren't they?
DM: ...... yes. This was re-uphostered in blue after the fire
he: Yes! They were here and here
DM: yes. yes they were. The records for the room tell us the surviving chair was moved away from by the fireplace to avoid another accident as it is very precious. It's over 300 years old ...
(this info is not published and is only known by the handfull people who would actually be interested. Buried in tons of historical records about the place)
he: the ''lady'' used to sit here and do her sewing
DM: oh - right! ........ !!

The boy said goodbye to DM and ran to catch up with his parents.

I have a few.

My house growing up was very haunted. From the figure of the WW1 soldier that appeared in the corner of my bedroom in uniform, only you couldn't see his feet because of a thick fog, to a shape shifter. . .

The shape shifter was the worst thing ever. It would be in the form of a man, all in black and would come halfway up the stairs. Then it would float directly up to the ceiling, to its right across the bannister then cone back to the floor in front of the bathroom, which was directly across from my bedroom. It would then shift into a giant spider and run across the landing towards my room. I'd scream and close the door if I saw it. I used to wet the bed I was so afraid of going to the toilet. Turns out my mum and uncle had both witnessed it too.

Then there was my uncles house. Which was so haunted, knocking, footsteps, voices, they actually got a priest in to bless it. That didn't work. A blind psychic came to the house after and told them it was a mother searching for her daughter. My uncle had to show the spirit that his baby was a boy, not a girl. After that they never had any trouble at all.

When I was little another uncles partner died. She called me princess. That night I heard her voice calling to me. I was heartbroken but then I heard a voice I'd never heard before shushing me and telling me it was OK. I looked up and there was a woman, with brown curly hair, the brightest blue eyes and wearing all white with a glow around her. She reassured me that I'd be ok and told me to go to sleep. I did. The next morning I told my mum who hunted out the only photograph she had of her mother and showed it to me. It was the woman from the night before. My mums mum had died when my mum was only 8 years old so I'd never met her.
I've only seen her once more since then, when DS1 was a baby. He woke me crying and she was stood over his cot shushing him. She smiled at me, then looked back at DS1 who was now sound asleep.

Now I live alone with my 3 children. We have 3 ghosts who live here with us.
The woman who hoovers the bedrooms every Friday. (I wish it was real hoovering instead of ghost hoovering!) You hear the hoover and her tutting and banging as she drags the hoover from room to room.

Then there's a baby that cries in the night. When my own children were younger I had my brother stay with me. He heard the crying and told me one of my kids was upset. I laughed and said "that's not one of mine" he didn't believe me and went to check. All of mine were asleep but still the crying continued. He left and refused to stay again.

And then finally there's the man who stays in DDs bedroom. He's not scary in any way. He's an older man who appears as a dark figure, but then vanishes as quickly as he came. I think he likes seeing a family here. That's the feeling I get from him.

I've also felt cats jump onto my bed when my cats haven't been there, seen my mums dad (who also died before I was born) he appears when I'm stressed about money but I've no reason to, for example just before I was awarded pip, he appeared and smiled at me as if he knew it would be ok. It was like he was putting my mind at ease. This has happened a few times. Now I know if my grandfather appears I don't need to worry as I'll come into some money.

Shameless place mark

place marking!
I love these threads and usually go through the archives for bedtime reading

No time to add anything at the moment but I do hope it continues and the cynics wont try to derail it - if they do, please don't take the bait!

I work in a law firm and our deeds and wills are kept in storage down in the basement. To get to the basement you need to go into reception, get the key out of a locked cabinet then return it straight away. About a week after I arrived I went to reception and two colleagues were chatting there. I unlocked the door to the basement, descended and saw the disembodied lower half of a man scurrying out of sight. i remember going absolutely cold with fear, turned around and went back to reception. My colleagues broke from their conversation, looked at me and one commented ; 'Oh you saw it then?'.

@Laiste, fascinating - he’d been there before.

I have a similar one, might have posted it before, but here goes anyway.

While on holiday a friend and her family visited a site of Graeco/Roman ruins where none of them had been before.
With them was friend’s little Gds of 4 or 5, but he hadn’t yet started school, this is relevant, since he couldn’t have read anything about the place.

As soon as they arrived he said, ‘I used to live here!’ And went on happily to point out the remains of his house, and his friend’s house (he even gave a slightly garbled but appropriate name for him) and the pool (bath) where they used to swim, and the cave where they used to hide.

Needless to say, all the rest of the family were seriously spooked!

When they left he said, ‘Thank you for bringing me home.’
He’s a lot older now and has no recollection of the incident at all.

I grew up on a farm with a very old house. I found the footprint of the existing house on a map from the 1790s, and there are buildings drawn on even earlier maps in about the right place, but those aren’t accurate enough to tell what the house layout was. The house is a bit higgledy piggledy, with unexpected steps and bricked up doorways all over. Half the house has been knocked down in the past and rebuilt on the other side.
I know my grandfather died in the room that became my bedroom, and that my great grandfather died in the downstairs sitting room, which had been his bedroom. It never bothered me.
I must have been 4 or 5 when I woke up in the middle of the night, very suddenly, as though a loud noise had woken me, although I don’t remember a sound. I remember very clearly seeing the shadow of a short fat man in a flat cap travel across the wall from one former doorway to another. He was side on and his outline was really clear. The shadow didn’t walk, it just kind of slid across. I told my mum the next morning and she dismissed it as a dream. It was only years later that she admitted it really freaked her out and she hadn’t slept for days after I’d told her!

Another weird experience was just a few years ago. My horse was in the stable. It was winter and dark, but the light from the stable spilled out onto the yard and I could see the shadow of his head on the concrete. My horse it pretty nosy, and gets himself stewed up about noises out on the road or distant lights moving in neighbouring farm yards. I could see him standing stock still, eyes on stalks, gawping at something, as usual. I started to walk down the yard to speak to him, but then I saw another shadow in the light on the floor. From a distance it looked like a person. It could just have been the horse’s body or a trick of the light, but my horse lowered his head and started making the little whickery grunting noises he makes when someone is fishing a treat out of their pocket for him. When I got there the shadow had gone, the horse gave me a look like I’d pissed on his chips and went back to his haynet.
I remember it was a really dark, cold night, and really still. I had a feeling like someone was watching me, not in an evil way, but I had shivers up my back all the same. I’m not sure why, but I said “grandad you’re scaring me, please don’t jump out” and the feeling just went away. Probably my imagination!

The only other thing I’ve heard at the farm is sounds like a horse in one of the old workhorse stables. Sighing and chewing, hooves on stone and occasionally a little low call, like a horse waiting to be put out, getting a bit impatient, but not anxious. Sometimes I’ve thought, “oh I didn’t realise the other horse was inside” and gone to say hi, just to find the stable dark and empty.

I have a few

I used to live in a flat by myself years ago. It was always a bit unsettling. Couldn't quite put my finger on it, but it was always cold and it would feel like someone was watching you

I broke my foot once, so was off work for a couple of months, alone in the flat. I refused to go to sleep at night as I was so creeped out and would sleep during the day instead. One night I was absolutely exhausted and thought, Bippity, you're being ridiculous, just go to bed, there's nothing here. So I went to bed, but kept the hall light on and my bedroom door open

I mustn't have been asleep for any longer than about ten minutes, abruptly woke up to pitch blackness, door shut. I was absolutely terrified, too scared to move. Kept blinking my eyes, hoping it was just a nightmare, but I was still lying there in the dark. Must have only been a couple of minutes, but felt like an eternity. Closed my eyes again, opened them, and the door was back open, hall light on. I leaped out of bed and ran to the living room shaking and crying. It was awful

The next day I left the flat and went to stay with my mum

Another one, I had a strange dream that I was on this wooden raft in the middle of the sea with my mum. The waves were very choppy and there was a bad storm. I had a ring on that my mum had bought me, but as I was clinging onto the raft, my ring fell off into the sea and I lost it. Shortly after, my mum fell off the raft as well and was gone

Woke up quite unsettled and upset. But the weird thing is, a couple of months after I had that dream, I lost my ring. I was devastated. Still haven't found it to this day. Then shortly after, my mum had a short, abrupt stay in hospital, but then passed away

I still remember that dream. Could have been a massive coincidence, but strange nonetheless

@MrsRussell

Don't know if anybody lives in York, but when I was a student, I used to live in one of the tall terraces hard by the river.

It HATED us, that house. It hated having students in it, not looking after it, keeping funny hours. It wanted a family in it. One of my friends was (not fatally) electrocuted by an appliance, and another one fell down the cellar steps. None of us liked being there by ourselves, we used to spend as much time as possible out at other people's houses.
I moved out after I fell down the stairs one Sunday night, nobody else in the house. It was the weirdest feeling I have ever had in my life - it was as if the house shrugged. If you've ever been riding, you know when you go to get on a horse and it just sidles out from under you? The stairs did that to me. It was coming on for dusk, September, I had just come off the train so it wasn't like I'd been to the pub or I'd been taking drugs.
It did not want me there, and it wanted to harm me.

It's got what it wanted now. It's a lovely family home and it's looked after beautifully.

That's super creepy.

@valerianroot

Some of these are genuinely terrifying. Love it Mumsnet!

Not if you make the same mistake I did and read this at night the other night!

DP's have a holiday home in SW France, been there a few times over the years.

Nearby is a town/city called Saintes, Roman in origin with a huge amphitheatre where me and a friend went once on a day trip there - you can park nearby which we did. It was a quiet day with few visitors there.

So we're walking through the tunnel to get to the main arena part and I suddenly hear heavy marching type footsteps behind us - ok, so someone is behind us... but no... no-one was behind us at all. Friend turns to me and says, "There's a very strange feeling here isn't there, like you can feel the spirits of the gladiators etc who were here before?" Me: "Yes..."

The strange thing about this was I've been there with an ex-DP and my DPs a few years before and absolutely nothing then! Apart from the local cats who came to try and steal our sandwiches in the seating in the amphitheatre.

@hoochyhooha

I have one..

I used to teach in an old Victorian school in a Derbyshire village.

We used to hear the piano being played in the hall early in the morning, but when someone investigated no one was ever there.

The headteacher there (lovely lady) had always lived in the village and said that the school was haunted by a benign female presence.

We had a narrow flight of stairs leading to the staff room which used to be the old headteacher office, she said that often there would be a waft of perfume on those stairs, that she couldn't recognise on anyone that day.

She felt sure that the ghost was a previous headteacher.

It was a happy school.

I understand if it's outing, but wondered if you could say where in Derbyshire? I have family there and know it a bit and am interested.