Bit of woo going on at holiday home

[MushyWoo]

Nc'd for this as it's outing.

We arrived at our holiday home in France late on Thursday night to find that it's a (stunning) very old cottage, I would guess 300-400 years at least.

First thing that happened was that my husband plugged his phone in before going to bed and left it on the bedside table. Woke up the next morning to find the phone still there but the charger unplugged and on the floor in the middle of the bedroom a few feet away. Also, during the night, I could hear kids talking, but when I got up to check they were all fast asleep, and I could still hear the talking coming from somewhere in the house as I stood there.

Similar thing the next night, I could hear my daughter's distinct voice, except when my husband went to check the kids were all fast asleep, and I could still hear the talking. The house is very rural and isolated so not from outside, and everything else was switched off.

The morning after this, we were up at 6am to travel somewhere and as I stood in the kitchen brushing my daughter's hair, the electric oven knob turned itself to the autocook setting and began heating up. Bothyself and my daughter were watching it as it happened.

After that, we were away overnight and only returned last night. Today, I opened the fridge and a pack of cheese slices came flying off a perfectly level shelf and past my head.

There have been other corner of the eye things and random stuff moving (that may or may not be down to the kids, of course). I'm not frightened, it's more of a loaded atmosphere than outright sinister. But blimey, we've only been here 2 full days so far so it's a bit much!!

Anyway, tell me yours so that I can feel a bit better about mine 🙂 We're not headed home til Thursday so have a bit to go yet!

You aren’t interested in filming or taping this?
Hmmm. Most people who would remain and not check out immediately would want proof and would dine out on the story for years!

Skeptics be skepticising! I would probably be skeptical too if I read this tbh. The cheese
/fridge thing could probably be explained away somehow but the actual physical definitiveness of the oven knob is deffo the most bizzare thing I've ever seen and I am genuinely baffled by it.

Problem is, unless I literally record the whole rest of the holiday (which I have no intention of doing for obvious reasons), then I'm not realistically going to catch anything am I?

Oooh I am freaking out a bit just reading this. Very odd.... Maybe the owners are still in the house and playing tricks on you. OR it could be a French TV show where they scare British Tourists perhaps to punish them for Brexit and buying cheese slices.

Give over, cheese flying out of the fridge past your shoulder cannot be explained away, and does contradict the law of physics, obvs. The fact you are backtracking does slightly suggest that bit wasn’t true OP.

The cooker is probably a weird electrical fault, which is slightly worrying.

Imagine if the owners were still here! And the cheese/oven knobs were on springs or strings 😂

Alas, we are not British, so the joke would be lost on us 😄

I'm not backtracking, I'm simply saying that if you really did want to explain something away, then you could probably find some excuse for it like shifting foundations beneath the fridge or something equally unlikely.

I've never heard of an electrical fault being able to turn a knob one step to the left on a dial with 4/5 other clicky steps on it.

shifting foundations causing flying cheese
OF COURSE!

time for bed OP

bit yes these old houses can be creepy and it can set ones mind on edge

You must have missed the bit where I said 'equally unlikely' there 😉

Yeah, no, I’d have to leave

Love a spooky thread!

Just in case it is a TV show .... and you are being filmed.... try to remember not to pick your nose when you are alone for the rest of the holiday!!

I'm confused on the timeline. Have you got an extra day?

Missing the point here massively, but I thought woo was a term to describe a belief in ghosts or crystals or astrology when you yourself think it’s rubbish. Not when you actually believe in it. Was expecting a thread about a holiday cottage filled with crystal skulls or something.

I felt something was bit weird in our home. I’d hear what I swore were the kids moving about and yet they’d be in separate area of the house. I’d hear sounds of children when there weren’t any (they’d be at playgroup). It all stopped after youngest was born. She was born in the home and I do wonder if somehow this meant whatever it was has accepted us now as the weirdness has stopped.

realistically it was probably all in my head at the time, but not sure that can explain your flying cheese situation.

The fridge thing is unbrielievable....

Implausible flying cheese slices aside, I enjoy a good woo thread. The one with the haunted forest (Savernake?) is hugely popular, and it's no more realistic than this one, imo!

Bring on the eerie tales! (Though on second thought, DH will be away for a couple of weeks soon, and if I want to sleep peacefully at night, I'll need to keep my mind clear of creepy things.)

Never had any woo stuff but I would freak out for sure.

I don’t know why people find the cheese slices so offensive.
I live in France, have never bought cheese slices but they are in every french supermarket and often the only form of cheddar, albeit plasticky looking, so they are popular amongst tourists.
If you want a nice hard cheese OP buy Mimolette, preferably the aged one. It’s very orange looking and is great with a glass of wine.
Cantal is good too and creamier.

Well, the stove turning on is mildly worrisome, but the cottage has stood for 300+ years, so let that go. And any "ghost" who has learned to toss cheese would certainly have decent aim by now, so this was just a showoff move. LOL, were it I, I would try talking to "to whom it may concern," telling them that you acknowledge that they are there, and will treat them with respect, but you expect them to do the same. If nothing else, you'll be telling stories about this vacation for DECADES to come!

OH, about that charger. A friend has something somewhat similar happen in her own home, more than once. She eventually got a clue, and had the socket checked by an electrician. It had developed a short, and could have caused a fire. Try having hubby plug in somewhere else.

🙄

Was the oven not just on a timer?
Did you use the oven before that? But like most people with an oven they aren't used to, you turned the knobs this way and that way to get it to work.
But by doing that accidentally set it to automatically come on at a certain time?

Peak Mumsnet.

We stayed in a creepy gîte near L’orient when DD was 3. Eventually I started talking to the house and asking it to stop freaking me out so much! Not sure if it did much but my DH though I’d lost the plot so at least that was a highlight…

Please come back and tell us about anything else that happens.

Indeed.

Give him/her/them a bit of time and they'll be back.