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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To consider we may have a ghost..?

208 replies

SimulationStation · 09/11/2011 22:21

DH obv think I am AIBU but we live in a cottage built in 1856 and the incidents so far:

Hearing footsteps on stairs thinking it's our DCs only to find them fast asleep. Happens a lot!

DCs special 'taggies' (comfort blanket) disappearing for days, only to reappear in really obvious places we have looked at before.

DD's electric toothbrush turning itself on at 3 am in the morning. Bzzzzzz.

A friend convinced she saw a Childs face peering through our bannisters. DCs def in bed at the time.

DD 5yrs old saying 'who is the little boy that came to stay last night?' No little boy was staying!

I dont know. Possibly some could be explained but the toothbrush and footsteps freaks me out! Even DH has heard them, checked kids who are fast asleep and stated 'that's weird'.

OP posts:
eminencegrise · 10/11/2011 13:46

The last person who lived in here hanged himself from a light fixture in the stairwell. Every now and again I can see him in my mind as I go up.

But it's just a playback of what happened here.

It usually is.

rainbow2000 · 10/11/2011 14:43

eminencegrise fair balls to you living there,it wouldnt be me and ive a fair bit happen to me.Love threads like this they scare me shitless haha.

pollyblue · 10/11/2011 15:01

I use to work in a very old building that was - at that time - a pub/bistro. I was often there on my own early mornings doing work in the cellar. One morning I walked through the main room, past a staircase that led up to the managers flat, and saw quite clearly a pair of legs and feet run up the stairs. Sounds quite funny i suppose but it gave me a hell of a fright. I ran up to the flat and found the manager was still in bed, so it wasn't her. I'm a complete sceptic about all things paranormal, but I'm sure of what i saw.

I mentioned it to several regular customers later on and they were all completely unsurprised and said it was considered one of the most haunted buildings in the town.

Bugsy2 · 10/11/2011 15:19

Ghosts are a figment of our amazing imaginations. If you believe in them, you will see them, just like if you believe in God then he exists for you too. There are some people with more active frontal lobes (better imaginations) and they are more likely to believe in ghosts / religion and all other non-provable things!

eminencegrise · 10/11/2011 15:30

'If you believe in them, you will see them, just like if you believe in God then he exists for you too. There are some people with more active frontal lobes (better imaginations) and they are more likely to believe in ghosts / religion and all other non-provable things!'

What a patronising and condescending thing to say. Are you this intolerant of anyone who doesn't believe exactly how you do? FWIW, plenty of people were die-hard skeptics until they have experiences that couldn't be explained. Guess they're all a bunch of moronic fanatasists. Hmm

MrBloomsNursery · 10/11/2011 15:32

I don't know if they're ghosts, but I do believe in something like that. I read this thread last night but I was too scared to reply! Sorry I'm on my phone so can't scroll up, but to the person who wrote about the cupboard under the stairs that opened by itself: you jolted my memory and your story reminded me of something I used to see in the cupboard under the stairs in the house I grew up in when I was about 3. I used to see eyes in the gaps of the door. I also remember a big thumping sound like a giant walking out of the cupboard in the hallway and going through the fireplace. I remember this happening once when I was playing with my mum on the floor and her asking me why I'd gone quiet. My family also tell me that when I was a baby I used to laugh and wave at something at the top of the stairs. Apparantly, our house was never lived in longer than a few months by anyone and we were the first family to actually live there permanently. My mum was adamant it was because of ghosts or similar entities.

Bugsy2 · 10/11/2011 15:45

eminence, I am not intolerant at all and I don't think I was patronising or condescending. I absolutely do not believe in "other worldly" type things. I think the world we live in is full of its own amazing wonders. Yes, some things are odd or hard to explain - but that does not mean they are dead people risen again, that they are gods, etc. It just means we don't know exactly what they are or why they happened.
Each to their own of course - but I think my perspective is valid too!

somewherewest · 10/11/2011 15:53

I wouldn't rule out the existence of random spiritual beings but they're probably a lot rarer than many people think (I've never seen anything). Here's my go at an explanation:

Hearing footsteps on stairs thinking it's our DCs only to find them fast asleep. Happens a lot!

Its definitely not next door?

DCs special 'taggies' (comfort blanket) disappearing for days, only to reappear in really obvious places we have looked at before.

A little unusual, unless you're chronically absent-minded (like me!). Could your DP/any older DCs be a little less thorough when looking for things than you think? Grin

DD's electric toothbrush turning itself on at 3 am in the morning. Bzzzzzz.

Loose connection? Its never happened to anything I own but I've heard it can happen to appliances.

A friend convinced she saw a Childs face peering through our bannisters. DCs def in bed at the time.

Apparently our brains are strongly programmed to identify human faces, which means we can easily spot a face when there isn't one. If your friend knew about your suspicions it might have predisposed her to see something.

DD 5yrs old saying 'who is the little boy that came to stay last night?' No little boy was staying!

I guess this depends on how imaginative your DD normally is. If she never normally comes out with things like that its a bit unusual.

If it continues and upsets you the best thing is to speak to your local RC priest. From what I've heard the RC approach is fairly balanced. They accept that these things are possible, but don't think there are random spirits lurking behind every door.

PinkCanary · 10/11/2011 15:57

We've had hundreds of incidents in our Victorian villa. And it's not just us that have seen / heard / felt stuff. Once had a neighbour stood chatting on my doorstep, she looked behind me up the stairs and asked how long we'd had our cat! (we never had one). We found out our house used to be a vets though so explains lots of 'animal' experiences.

We brought in a medium who wasn't local. She told us we have 4 human ghosts and gave names. Unbeknown to her, we had all the old deeds and I was able to verify the info she gave.

Lookattheears · 10/11/2011 16:06

Hmm, the medium probably did her research on your house too.

cynical

Proudnscary · 10/11/2011 16:06

Wooooooo...WoooooOOOOO...WOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Sorry, just heard my dh has bought wine for tonight.

Anyhoo, look there really aren't ghosts, there are always rational explanations.

Moominsarescary · 10/11/2011 16:16

iron was bobbins what they called the ghost under the stairs in that program they did years ago on Halloween? I'd forgot about that!

Scared the shit out of me

quietlyafraid · 10/11/2011 16:35

SimulationStation people will think this is a made up story, but when I was 6 or 7 we lived in this old victorian house. It was around the time when ghostbuster was huge so my mum thought it was just my age and my imagination. I used to tell her that I saw people walking through the house and I hear people when there was no one there.

Anyway, fast forward about 12 years long after we moved out, and my mum sees our old neighbour after many years. The old neighbour starts talking about the people who had just moved in to our old house. The mother claimed she was psychic and had witnessed some strange things in the house. She had put a pile of books down when moving and then left the room. She return 5 minutes later to find them all neatly on the shelf. She also reported hearing someone walking up the stairs, going into the bathroom and flushing when she was home alone.

When my mum was told this she was shocked. She had never told the neighbour about the stuff I said. And she was shocked because there was one other thing that was noticable about what the new neighbour said. All the stuff she had witnesses was centred around one room only. My old bedroom.

I can only remember bits and pieces about it, but I always thought it real, but it hindsight it could just have been my young age, but it has made me wonder...

PinkCanary · 10/11/2011 16:35

Lookattheears - She didn't know our address. She was a visiting relative of a friend and was brought to our home. Furthermore, The records i have were from the former building societies. As some of the info was less than 100 years old it was not in the public domain.

Regardless, that goes no way to explaining flashes of light on our landing, curtains moving in a room with a sleeping baby, an analogue stereo being turned up to full volume then turned down as far as the dial will go, visitors seeing feet and ankles on our staircase, or a figure walking across the lounge. The unmistakable smell of cigar smoke in a strictly non smoking house, parents of my mindees (non battery or clockwork) toys move of there own accord, and, in three rooms that have the strongest 'incident' rate, childlike drawings on the wall of a man smoking a pipe when we stripped the wallpaper. Even an estate agent commented when we enqired about selling that ours was the house 'where paint bubbles for no reason'. Turns out he'd remembered the experiences of a previous occupant...

eminencegrise · 10/11/2011 16:39

'I absolutely do not believe in "other worldly" type things. I think the world we live in is full of its own amazing wonders. Yes, some things are odd or hard to explain - but that does not mean they are dead people risen again, that they are gods, etc. It just means we don't know exactly what they are or why they happened.
Each to their own of course - but I think my perspective is valid too!'

Good for you, yes. Your viewpoint is entirely valid, but you dismiss that of others entirely by labelling them fanatasists with over-active imagination rather than just leaving them to their own.

quietlyafraid · 10/11/2011 16:43

My DH is a scientist through and through and is skeptical of anything 'other worldly' such as religion or ghosts. But he does say something interesting with his scientist brain in that we can't prove they don't exist, therefore we must conclude that there is a small possibility that they do exist, we just haven't proved that yet either.

BalloonTwister · 10/11/2011 16:47

YANBU. I used to have a haunted pub. Things would often move around randomly, pump badge once flew off the pump. We were closed at the time. It hit my cellarman on the nose and I had the CCTV to prove it. All you doubters should spent a month or two living there and then come back and tell us there's no such thing.....

Bugsy2 · 10/11/2011 16:47

eminence, I am not sure why you are having a go at me. At no point did I refer to anyone as a fantasist. The OP asked us to consider if she had a ghost in an AIBU thread!!!!!!!!
My posts are just my perspecitive. By all means disagree, but there is no need to start singling me out as being patronising & condescending or dismissive.

eminencegrise · 10/11/2011 16:49

I found the tone of your post patronising and condescending.

ApocalypseCheeseToastie · 10/11/2011 16:57

Blimey, catscrap on a spooky thread Shock

Lookattheears · 10/11/2011 16:59

People believe what they want to, is my belief.

I've got to forty something lived in many houses of all ages and never seen so much as a sniff of anything untoward.

Bugsy2 · 10/11/2011 17:03

emincence, I think you have made that quite clear!

eminencegrise · 10/11/2011 17:04

I've lived in homes where I know people to have been murdered and never 'saw' anything.

Neuromantic · 10/11/2011 17:20

some people will believe any old bullshit.

Proudnscary · 10/11/2011 17:26

How come everyone who believes in ghosts lives in a house where someone was murdered?