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!

Yes I agree. If items are moving via telekinesis please film them and share - I’d love to see something like that.

Oh I love that part of France. I wonder if you are anywhere near Limoux/Quillan.

So lovely, I wish I was there now!

Now that would be a business idea!

Yes, try and find so spooky reviews or Google the history of the building.

Sounds like a poltergeist.

Were the children’s voices in French?

I have some family group photos with orbs where there is space for an extra person to stand behind which I assume is our late grandfather. (Group photo with nee baby cousin, although he’s sixteen now)

Ive never noticed orbs in camera phone pics though. Would be interested to know if it is possible.

*new

I grew up in an old house that was built in 1880. At night sometimes it would sound like a baby crying and sometimes just children laughing. My parents thought they heard a baby crying and a rocking chair.

My sister and I shared a bunk bed and she decided to block off the bottom with a blanket and refused to sleep without it. She said that 2 little girls in some type of night clothes would stand beside the bed looking at her.

My mother sometimes had the feeling that someone was in her kitchen but she wasn't scared by it. In those days, women wore aprons in the kitchen and that feeling would come when she put on her apron to begin dinner.

The basement was the most creepy as it seemed older than the house and there was a coal room on one side and it went back a way but seemed to have been blocked off.

Some years later, we were doing a genealogy search and trying to find the history on places we had lived.

It turns out there was a house there previously which explained the older basement area. A black family who had escaped from Kentucky across the Ohio river to freedom lived there. The house had caught on fire in the middle of the night and all of them perished in the fire. There was 5 of them. The parents, 2 little girls and an infant boy. 😞

When DH and i were dating we stayed in a lovely old hotel on the edge of the main square of a rural market town.

Top floor. Big room, massive fireplace, big chairs with throws, low ceilings. Creaky, sloping floors - you went significantly downhill as you crossed the room towards the bathroom door 😂

Odd atmos. when we walked in. Not scary - just very odd. As if you were having a quick poke around in someone's bedroom.

So anyway, we both went off like lights at bedtime. V comfy bed. Deep in the night though, i woke and didn't know why. Didn't need the loo. No noises. I just lay there on my back with my eyes still shut thinking - i'm so comfy, but here i am awake. What's woken me up?

Then i got the weirdest feeling that there was something or someone else nearby (apart from DH asleep next to me). My eyes flew open and i raised my head a few inches and peered down the bed. Over against the opposite wall, by the bathroom door, i could see the dark shape of a person just standing still, looking back at me. A female i think. About 5 foot.

I propped myself up on my elbows and stared and blinked a lot in case it was my eyes, but the shape stayed right there. If anything while i watched it became more solid looking. I understood it wasn't a real person as there was no detail. I started violently but silently elbowing DH while still staring. I had time to feel a slight panicy feeling - like 'oh my god i'm seeing a ghost!'

Then the shape very slowly started to fade. DH took a bloody age to wake up and sit up a bit🙄I so wanted him to hurry up but i didn't want to start making any noises. He finally looked where i was looking and sat up properly very quickly! He could see it. But not for as long or as clearly as i had.

I didn't sleep the rest of the night. The atmos was never bad, but i wouldn't stay in that room again!

These things start and then are over with in such a short space of time. There isn't always time to evaluate what's best to do. While it's going on you're not thinking about who's going to believe you and how can you prove it. You're just there thinking ''oh shit!'' lol

This sounds like sleep paralysis, except for the fact that you said you got up on your elbows! I’ve had it before and it’s terrifying.

Thank you to pps who explained the orb (or not)!

Absolutely @Maireas .

I love a bit of Woo and find it all very entertaining (hence my username). But I do tend to think that the majority of cases have a rational explanation.

It's the ones that don't that are really fascinating.

Your ghost is French and hates electric items and inferior cheese. Totally reasonable.

I was thinking there was alot of dairy in that fridge and maybe it was dairy intolerant.

But yes I agree with talking to whatever it is and saying you are happy there and want a nice holiday.

We used to live with a ghost dog. It was a rented house because otherwise we would have asked it to come live with us. It was quite sweet, used to poke our legs when in the kitchen, come and lie on the sofa etc. (WE'd feel the dip). My DH was the most unwoo person ever before that. We never mentioned it to my parents but after a day or two of them coming to stay the first time my father said; 'Um.... this will sound strange.... but is there something in the house?' We said yes, we thought it was a dog.

Op can I ask what site you used? We go to France every year and use Chez Nous, looking for something different?

@IvorCutler - This sounds like sleep paralysis, except for the fact that you said you got up on your elbows! I’ve had it before and it’s terrifying.

The fact that i was elbowing DH awake for what seemed like forever (and that he saw it as well) makes me feel it wasn't a paralysis incident. I've never suffered with it myself. We both sat up fully for a while afterwards. Strangely neither of us felt inclined to actually get out of the safety of the bed and invstigate 😂

Things physically moving is poltergeist activity, I'd be getting my phone out and put the voice recorder on then shout 'Hello?' into the ether like all the ghost hunters do, then listen back and disproportionately freak out when a French accent replies 'if you put that awful cheese in the fridge one more time! Sick of folk coming here infiltrating my space and using my fridge, leave!'

I'd normally say definitely woo but I've never actually seen or heard anything woo first hand - DM has though!

It's probably electrics or the age of the property.

Family friends in Charente-Maritime area were a bit freaked out in their village that there were dolls (yes dolls!) in trees. No idea if this was some strange superstition ritual or not but it definitely seemed almost ritualistic not Halloween time.

Whatever you do, don't mention it to the locals, because some of them have strange senses of humour (borne partly out of disliking the English!) and might think it's funny to wind up the English tourists with a made up/embellished ghost story!

Having said that - holiday home which parents have is in a French hamlet and although I've stayed there overnight alone, when we first stayed here, me and DM after they bought it (as adults), she immediately put on/bought a radio and we rushed out to get a TV as it's in the middle of nowhere (I quite liked the peace and quiet!) but the kind of place where no-one could hear you scream! Also, before they bought it, they were looking at deserted old houses to buy and one really freaked her out - huge meat hook in an outhouse or something and just an eerie sense about it, she said they didn't buy that one!

I'm similar to you but how do you explain a sort of electrical but not quite item (like a toy) which immediately lit up and made a noise the night my nana died? Or the house phone ringing in the dead of the night on the night/morning her beloved uncle died? Or her having a strange experience (didn't see anything) in a house and years later with no one swapping stories, a friend of a friend recounted a seeing of a ghost, policeman looked into it and discovered a woman had been murdered there?

Again, I'm not really woo as I've never seen anything myself personally, just heard second hand stories.

Ha ha - I love that this is the only thing you got from the post lol... And I concur

I lived in a terraced house that was built in 1893.

It probably needed re-wiring, sometimes the landing or the hall light would randomly not work. Or you'd switch one on, and the other would come on! Other funny things would happen like the radio coming on. Once I heard a voice speaking out of the TV set (which seemed unconnected to the programme at the time) saying "Cathy? Are you there?" Eep. So that was the electrical stuff.
It was a bit cold, damp and draughty as it needed new windows and probably lots of other things doing. The only toilet was downstairs, so that was fun as I always need a pee in the night, even then when I was in my 20s. Especially when you've just had a dream about being in a spooky house and not being able to put the light on and the landing light won't go on. I remember saying "Oh, come on!" in exasperation one night and then the light popped on. I had unpleasant sleep paralysis experiences there a few times.

That's probably when I started talking to the house. Just saying "Hello!" when we came in and "Goodbye" when you were the last to leave. It just felt that you weren't alone, not necssarily in a bad way, but just odd. This was compounded by being a mid-terrace - noises from next door carried so often we'd think someone had some in and ran up the stairs when in fact it was next door!

The weirdest time though was that I was absolutely sure DH had come in, I'd heard the front door open and close and it really sounded like him coming in. I walked into the living room talking to him and there was no-one there.

Another time I was awakened in the night by what sounded like a hubbub of people talking and eating and drinking downstairs (when there was no-one downstairs). I could still hear it from the landing. I shouted "Hello?" and it seemed to die down. I didn't go down to investigate as I assumed I'd been half asleep and/or just heard noise from elsewhere. I must have dozed off again then heard what sounded like someone having a fight downstairs, jumped out of bed again and shouted "Oi!" from the landing. The noises stopped, then started again. I woke up DH and said I thought there was someone downstairs. We went downstairs (the noises stopped again after I shouted again) with a softball bat (we used to play a bit then). Nothing there. I can only think some foxes had been scrapping outside the window and had knocked into the bins (it sounded like big things being knocked over).

I hadn't told my mum any of this - one time we asked her to house/cat sit but she said she'd prefer not to be on her own there overnight.

There was nothing physical or visual, except I felt I'd been tapped on the shoulder one time in the kitchen. I used to trip up on the stairs and fall on my bum a few times. This has never happened in my current house but the stairs are far less steep.

One actually quite sweet thing was stuff that happened after my dear old cat died- she was 19, a good innings, but I was very sad as I'd had her since I was 8 years old.

I used to have dreams that she was sitting on my chest in bed and I was cuddling and stroking her, and I could hear her purring, and for a little while when waking up it felt like I could feel the weight and warmth of her and still feel and hear her.

A couple of times I was in the loo and could hear her tap tapping across the kitchen floor (we used to get her claws clipped as they would get overlong with her not going out much in her final 12 months).

All explainable stuff, and we were there five years so it sounds like a lot but it was quite drawn out and not happening all the time.

It wasn't in the Cotswolds, was it? It sounds so reminiscent of a hotel stay I had (your explanation of the place) and I had the room to myself 😬

OP are you in Brittany by any chance? We once rented a creepy house there, what if it’s the same 😅

Ha quite! Sorry I missed that part 😂

@GonnaGetGoingReturns This happened to me. I went to my dear uncle´s funeral that day. He had lots of historic toys, quite a collection and was funny (haha) had a good sense of humour and I was sad i did not get to see him before he died, because of COVID. That night i had just sung my 2.5 year old to sleep and was lying at the end of her bed thinking and suddenly one of her toys lit up and went "Shall we go for a walk?". I would have hit the roof normally, but for some reason I replied "you still have a sense of humour as always, eh? Good bye uncle. " and the toy replied "hahaha". It has never happened since and it never happened before. My daughter was asking "mummy?" and i just said, "Uncle, saying goodbye". She thought that was pretty reasonable so went to sleep again.

We stayed at a castle in Scotland - you could rent the whole thing for like £100 a night - middle of nowhere.

The attic and basement and such dreadfully heavy feelings, no one including my parents would go in there alone, and they are very unwoo.

You felt like you were being watched in every single room. At night I grabbed the dog and made her come to the bathroom with me.

One night there was a storm, and I will never forget how loud the under seemed to reverberate around the stone rooms!