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!

I’ve got one. A few years ago family friend lived in a Victorian house with her 2 boys. For approx a year whilst her youngest boy was 2-3 he said he’d seen a grey/white lady upstairs in his bedroom. She’s very non woo and didn’t want to encourage it but mentioned it to her DM who was also a family friend. After age 3 he stopped mentioning this image. Hadn’t seen anything on tv or from his DB either. They’ve moved since and he’s now a teenager.

Another one which I’m sure I’ve mentioned. A flashing noisy sort of trick which never ever moves did just this after my nana died when DM mentioned her. And when DM’s uncle died the house phone apparently rang at the exact time he died in early hours.

In DM’s family home when we were kids there used to be a very strong scent of flowers mostly in hall. Was at a time when they rarely had flowers or had perfume etc. Used to be commented on. They looked in attic and found lovely coloured drawings of flowers and did research and found out apparently 2 sisters lived there in Victorian/Edwardian times and must’ve done drawings of flowers as a hobby.

@KillingMeDeftly

I've been to Mary King's Close *@BippityBoppity87* but unfortunately never experienced anything supernatural!

I’ve been to several “woo” haunted places including The Clink prison etc and apart from various chills you might expect never saw anything supernatural. The only place I did feel strange was an old pub.

I've often felt strange on the pub but it usually was after a few drinks 😆

@crochetmonkey74

So here is the story of the house I lived in. It is a perfectly average house on a 1990s housing estate near the motorway in my town, absolutely nothing at all old or creepy. I moved in with my friend- we were renting it. Almost immediately when I was there by myself I would feel nervous about a particular corner of the living room- it's a weird feeling to describe - it wasn't exactly fear- more keep checking over your shoulder in case someone is there. This was so strong that when my friend was out on a shift and I was there by myself I would take my dinner to my bedroom to eat rather than be downstairs alone. One night, when I was sleeping on the sofa as I had family staying and I had given them the beds- I had to sleep with the lights on and face the back of the settee rather than close my eyes facing the corner of the room. When I left the house, I would always think to myself 'Don't look back in there, just lock the door and go' I had not shared this with my friend at all for a couple of reasons- I thought maybe I was just a bit low, and my friend is a nurse and very pragmatic. One day, I got home form work and she was up in pyjamas and hadn't slept despite coming off a night shift. She had been in bed, mid morning and had heard the front door slam and loud footsteps coming up the stairs, and into my bedroom, and my door shut. She had called out to me about why I had left work, got no answer and gone into my room and obviously I wasn't there, She then confessed to me that she had been feeling really scared too, and talked about the same corner of the room. She had also had the 'don't look in there' feeling and had had a few really awful dreams (corpse of her father in bed with her and she couldn't get out) was the worse one. We lived there for about another 6 months then she moved out to live with her now DH- leaving me alone there for 6 weeks. I spent as many nights away as I could - and when I finally moved out my Mum, stepdad and sister all confessed that they hated the house and always felt scared when they stayed over but never told me and friend so we didn't get freaked out!

This sounds like my parents first house.

Back room lights would go on and off.

Mum, was in the bathroom one evening, to hear the door slam and footsteps coming up the stairs.
She thought it was my dad, but no one came into the bathroom.

Other things they experienced was banging from above them when they were sat watching tv. Cheque books going missing, then turning up out of nowhere (Was the early 80s).

When they moved. The new couple asked my mum, if they had experienced anything. They had been in bed the first night and had experienced the same thing. They were so scared they put suitcases against the bedroom door!!!

Not many people stayed there long. And finally a family that moved in had it blessed.

They then moved and it's been occupied since 2001, so i am guessing the blessing, hopefully worked for the current occupants.

Posted this before...

When I was at school we went on a school trip to Germany. One of the afternoons was spent visiting the site of a concentration camp. The whole class had split off into groups and pairs and we were walking round in silence. Everyone was reading the various information plaques and being very respectful.

Me and my friend were walking around what had been the medical block. Below the block we noticed a set of steps leading down to a double door. The doors were set into a basement type entrance below the block. We walked up to the door and noticed the right one was slightly open. Thinking that this entrance led to more museum, we opened the door and walked in. It was a large dark basement area and looked almost derelict, but on the far side (slightly beyond our field of view) was what looked like a row of dim lights set on the furthest wall. Thinking that was where more exhibits were, we took about 3 steps into the basement. We both then heard the most horrible horrible scream (female) from the far side of the basement. The scream lasted all of 2 seconds and then silence. We both froze, looked at each other, turned and ran immediately up the stairs and back outside.

I have no idea what we heard, but we both heard it and were physically shaken.

@KillingMeDeftly

I've been to Mary King's Close *@BippityBoppity87* but unfortunately never experienced anything supernatural!

Yeah, I've been a few times since, and never experienced anything like that again. It was just that one time. Really bizarre. Was almost like vertigo

Maybe looking at it psychologically, it could be because it's underground and dark, it might make you feel a bit off balance? No idea. I've been trying to find an explanation to it for a while!

@Gonnagetgoing Same. I've never really experienced anything "spooky" in the majority of places I've been to. It was just that one time. Tbh, it wasn't even that scary, as in I didn't get chills or anything like that. I just felt off and had this very strong feeling that I had to leave. Then when I saw the room, it was more of an "aaahh maybe that's what I was picking up on" and it went away and I was fine again

@KillingMeDeftly

I've often felt strange on the pub but it usually was after a few drinks 😆

😂 this was with me surprisingly sober

Bumping for more spooky stories now it’s Halloween!!

My mum bought my dog a special ball not long before she died, she was very pleased the dog loved it.

Anyway she died a couple of months later and I lost this ball shortly after mum died. I knew it wouldn't be upstairs as the dog didn't go upstairs and it would be very unlikely she would have taken it outside as she had separate outside toys. My dh and I looked everywhere, my downstairs is fairly uncluttered and has sofas and a large footstool on legs. We looked everywhere under all the furniture and around the curtains where a ball could be lost. We have no dc living at home.

Anyway on a Friday night about a week after we lost the ball we were getting ready to go up to bed, we were standing in the living room and the ball just randomly rolled out from under the footstool. Even my husband a retired policeman, totally non woo was amazed, we had both checked under the footstool multiple times.

As a child, my family moved into a very old house built in the 1690’s. The day we moved in we were all upstairs and heard an almighty banging coming from a downstairs room. It was such a loud, unexplainable sound. We never worked out exactly what it was and it never happened again.

Not long after this, my mum was decorating in her bedroom and heard a voice whisper “What’s she doing?” She told me this years later, thankfully, as I’d have been terrified as a child!

Nothing else notable happened once we’d settled in, think we’d just “disturbed” things with the move and change of residents. We only used the room which made the banging sound for storage though and it always felt cold and unwelcoming but that might have been because I was already scared of it!

Not my story but my DGF, many years ago. He and my nan used to stay regularly with her mum, who lived in an old terraced house in Liverpool.

He used to regularly wake in the night when staying in the spare room with the sensation of something pulling him down the bed and hated being in the house as a result.

Anyway, the street where she lived was later condemned and all the houses were due to be knocked down. His MIL had moved out, as had all the neighbours and the electrics had been turned off. His MIL wanted to take her fridge with her to the new place and my DGF had gone to disconnect it and bring it back to her new place in his van. House was a small terrace so dark with no lights in the kitchen/pantry.

He set about unplugging the fridge and suddenly got the strongest creeping sensation that he wasn't alone. Every hair was standing on end, to the extent that he ran out of the house, grabbed another neighbour who was moving things down the road and pretended he needed help lifting the fridge so he didn't have to be in the house alone.

They packed it up in the van, he locked the door and that was that.

Before he drove off, he had one last look at the front bedroom where he and my nan used to stay. He swears there was the outline of a face watching him leave from behind the old net curtain.

What was the Savernake Forest story if it wasn't the one posted upthread about the housesitting OP?

I worked in a very small village school that had an old cottage on the ground that the head teachers used to live in. It hadn't been lived in for years and was mainly used for storage. I was asked to go in there to get some art supplies so went across one lunchtime. As soon as I walked in, I felt like someone was watching me and it followed me around the whole cottage, downstairs and upstairs. It was as if you just expected to see someone when you turned around.
I got out of there as quick as possible and went back to the staff room. I made a comment about not liking it in the cottage and something following me. The head teacher just said "oh yes, that's a little boy that used to go to school here. Just say hello to him when you go in and he'll leave you alone."
I did say hello (feeling like an idiot) when I went in after that but never felt comfortable in there.

I've got a couple. One mine and one a friends who I hope doesn't mind me sharing; it's such a good story!

Mine: I went out with an Aussie for about 6 years. We visited his family in Australia a couple of times. During the first visit, we saw quite a lot of his grandparents. The grandfather, in particular, seemed quite fond of me (he was quite an intellectual fella and we enjoyed a debate or 2).

Sadly, not long before our second visit, he passed away. We spent about a week staying with DPs grandmother when we were there, as had DP's mother and auntie for the weeks following on from his death - essentially to keep her company. One night I fell asleep in the reclining chair that had been his. DP and his grandmother had gone to bed, leaving me on my own in the living room. I woke up when I felt a hand holding mine, giving it a bit of a squeeze. I expected to see my DP when I opened my eyes, but there was nobody there - and the feeling of having my hand held continued for some seconds.

I kind of shrugged it off and didn't mention it to anyone. A couple of nights later, DP and I were asleep in what had been his grandfather's bedroom. I woke up at around 3 or 4 and saw a shadow looming over sleeping DP at the other side of the bed - which then very purposefully made its way around the foot of the bed towards me! I was crapping myself (obviously) and shut my eyes firmly closed and hid under the duvet until the sun came up. I told DP about this encounter when he woke and said, "like hell am I staying here another night", but he persuaded me to stay the remaining couple of days. Fortunately, my GP had given me a small prescription of Diazepam for my fear of flying before we left England, so I took one on each of the remaining nights before going to bed so I would sleep through any other ghostly events!

I did ask DPs mum and auntie if they had had any out-of-the-ordinary experiences whilst they were staying, and they very nonchalantly said that they had both seen various shadows and unfamiliar noises since his death and were sure he was still around. They could have given us a heads up!

My friends: They had gone on holiday to France with another family and were staying in a very old (medieval) house – think it may have been a converted watermill (AirBnB). One night their youngest woke up and was absolutely inconsolable, his older brother went and got my friend (his mum). She tried to calm him down and managed to get out of him that he he’d had a nightmare about a skeleton that wouldn’t leave him alone. Friend of course continued to attempt to calm him down and reassure him that it was only a dream and it was over now, to which her son replied, “no it isn’t, he’s right behind you”!! Obviously this freaked her out quite a bit, and she did mention it quietly to some of the other adults – who mentioned they felt uneasy in the place – but that was about it. That wasn’t the end of the story though…

Each evening when they were there, the kids would hang out in one of the living rooms, whilst the adults would be in another. When they returned home, she asked the kids if they’d had a good time. Their middle son, I think about 12 at the time (and quite a serious kid), said, “yes, but I thought it would only be us (i.e. them and the other family they had gone away with) in the house?”, she asked “what do you mean? It was only us – we had the place to ourselves”, to which he replied, “so who was that man and lady that walked through the living room each night and said goodnight to us?” His siblings concurred, as did the other kids I believe.

An odd thing happened just today that might have a rational explanation but might also be sweetly spooky...

My widowed DF died last year and I drove his car back from our old family home at the other end of the country to use as a runaround. It's been 18 months but I miss him very much, so I'm secretly glad that despite a couple of valets, the car still smells 'like Dad'. His glasses are still in the glove compartment. Sometimes I chat to him when I'm pottering around.

He only listened to two radio channels - Classic FM and the local BBC station. I reprogrammed the radio to the channels I like but often have it on Classic FM because it reminds me of him. Today, when I got in the car and turned on the radio, it was tuned to (and just about picking up) our old BBC station, a station I've never managed to get more than 20 miles outside the county, let alone 200+ miles away, and one which isn't programmed into the radio anymore. I recognised the presenter, and the display was showing the station ID. The reception tuned in and out, then retuned into a more local regional station. I have absolutely no idea how it happened - there's probably an explanation - but it felt like DF was saying hello for a Hallowe'en joke.

@Witchinthedales

When my DP, ( now husband), and I hadn't being going out very long we were out for a walk one night along a lane in our village. This lane is well reported for being haunted as there used to be an old sanatorium at the end of it. It was summer but very late in the evening so becoming fairly dark. As we walked along we saw another couple in the shadows in the distance heading towards us. As we got nearer we noticed they were wearing the same clothes as us, DP a denim shirt and jeans, me, a white sweater with a band of flowers embroidered around the middle and jeans, we then realised it WAS us, they came nearer then disappeared into thin air. I have no idea what happened here. My DP doesn't believe in ghosts and spooky stuff but even he saw them. Did we glimpse some sort of parallel universe? Who knows? One thing I've made sure of though is to never be up there in the dark ever again.

Also only recently I had a dream about a family who used to live near us. My son went to school with their daughter, X. Never seen them for years as they'd moved away. In my dream the mother in this family had died.
A month later my son was asking me if I remembered X's mum. Apparently she'd died suddenly that day from a huge seizure.

@Witchinthedales - that's so scary!