to think something supernatural is going on and want to move house? (Any rational explanations much appreciated!)

[GoldLetter]

6 months ago DH and I bought a detached 4-bed Victorian Vicarage in isolated spot on edge of village, no other houses in sight, woods behind. This had always been our dream. House seemed beautiful and peaceful until we moved in.
Soon after we moved in I started feeling really uneasy when alone during day,as if being watched, but I put it down to house being so big and isolated until bizarre things started happening. In upstairs bathroom there's a trapdoor leading to attics, I've never been up there but one morning I noticed trapdoor was slightly ajar. When DH came home from work I asked him why he'd been up in attic, he said he hadn't been up since putting some boxes up there when we'd moved in months earlier. He was freaked out by the trapdoor being ajar in case we'd had a break-in but he checked attics, nothing amiss. No explanation, and we would have noticed if he'd left it ajar the first time as I used to take bath in there everyday.

A week later, we heard a bang, like explosion, from upstairs and found one of glass shower doors in same bathroom had shattered! Luckily it's safety glass but was all over floor. Its quite new and company who fitted it had no explanation, said it had never happened before. They replaced it but I'm now too scared to go in that bathroom in case it happens again. No window was open and there'd been no sudden change in temperature. Is there anything that causes this to happen?

Last month DH went away for a week and I was nervous about being in house alone at night, but I'm skeptical about supernatural and an Athiest, so I convinced myself I was being silly. The first night he was away, there was a power-cut at 11pm, which tripped all the burglar alarms! The second night I was on phone to friend and heard lots of banging and crashing in attics, like piles of books falling, it was so loud she heard it down phone and asked what the noise was! Was a nervous wreck until DH came back.

My female friends also find the house very creepy, they say they can't sleep and that its always really cold with strange atmosphere.

Other strange things include a long hallway leading to an (unused) porch with outside door that's always locked, there's something so creepy about it I can't bear to walk past hall at night and twice DH thought he heard knocking on the door in eve, shouted to the person to go round to other door, but no-one came and no-one was out there when he checked. We put security lights all around house and garden, but they constantly flicker on and off, DH says they're just oversensitive and get triggered by bats or the wind. He's quite chilled about it all and says it just feels spooky because its an old house, he likes it here and can't understand why Im so scared. He's going away for another work trip soon, I said i'd stay at my friends' and he thinks I'm being totally unreasonable and got angry. He thinks I'm joking when I say I want to move again.

AIBU? Im not usually an anxious person but I'm constantly on edge!

Yes, bats and abandoned old boxes to rifle through .

This is like watching a spooky film where the actors don't believe you and think there is a plausible explanation for everything , and I am shouting at the TV - leave the house!!

A week later, we heard a bang, like explosion, from upstairs and found one of glass shower doors in same bathroom had shattered!

we heard a big crash upstairs once which freaked me out (I have two dds). I went upstairs and couldn't figure it out. Then I noticed that the bathroom door was closed, which is quite odd as we leave it open so that DD (3 y.o) can get to the toilet unimpeded at night. it was warm in the house and we left the upstairs windows open.

wind, door slam, was the explanation.

The only thing we found in our loft when we moved in was a video titled 'motorcycle gang bang.' We did not view it.

Get a priest/spiritualist over to bless the house.
Don't ask locals about the history of the house or at least be prepared that you may not like what you're told.
Our house had to be blessed as we had very strange goings on. It's settled now. But the locals relished in telling me how no one stays in our house long and how rumour has it is because of the ghost of the young man who hung himself over our stair well 30 odd years ago. I kid you not.

I am glad I wasn't the first to reply OP as I would be telling you to pack your bags!

Thankfully some more rational people got here first

Seriously I am a non believer and an atheist too so the idea of the supernatural doesn't bother me almost everything 'woo' I have ever read can be explained by science but I understand the feeling of being spooked, and I still find some things creepy as fuck!

We recently moved into a much bigger and much older house. It's not isolated or near the woods but we do have a loft and I hate it! We also have old rattly windows...Hate them too. Oh and I know the old tenant is dead haven't asked where he died, it might not have been in the house

I am up with the baby a lot in the night and often walking around not fully awake. We have some windows that are not yet with blinds / curtains and I often freak myself out by catching sight of myself unexpectedly [light from inside and outside can also play tricks on these uncovered windows]. I am pretty sure I read another thread on here and it was pretty unanimous that uncovered windows are creepy? I need to get some fucking blinds!!

It's amazing how even the most rational of minds can wonder in a split second.

I would get rid of the things from the attic, and maybe even call in a preist.

I've no idea if those things will do any good, but I've watched TV, and people on programs about the paranormal seem to think it will.

Better than doing nothing!

FWIW, I think there is a logic explanation for everything you've experienced.

I've never seen this so called ghost by the way but I wish I'd not heard what had happened.

Personally, I'd get an energy-healing type person in to suss it out, just make sure you get someone who'll be straight up with you and not in it for the money.

I can already tell you that anyone renting themselves out as an 'energy healer' for houses is 100% in it for the money...

Another vote for squirrels or similar. When we moved to our current house, I used to lie in bed petrified of a horrible knocking noise and thudding

When DH eventually could be persuaded to investigate it, he also found lots of small bones. Just at the point I was insisting we moved out, burnt the house down and salted the earth, we realised it was crows. They were collecting the litter leftovers from outside the local chicken shop, and dropping them onto the flat roof and then eating them. From the noise it made, you'd think they were dropping a small cow.

if you want someone to bless the place, at least use a priest because they don't charge. ALL spiritualists are in it for the money.

The priest gets paid, of course, but he has to work hard for it.

neither will make any difference of course. Plenty of real fixes suggested here that will.

oh, and unless it is a new house it is almost certain that someone has died in it. Makes no difference.

I understand that you are spooked. I would like be too but therr are rational reasons for them all and I think you need to find out those reasons.

I recently moved and started to get worried about a door that I kept finding open at all times of the day. But I would close it and try not to think about it. One day I witnessed it open as I walked across the other side of the room. Nobody else in the house and no pets in sight. Determined not to jump to the ghost conclusion I ran a series of tests. Turned out that the door opens when someone steps on a very precise point on a floorboard out in the hall, quite a long way away from the door in question.

Pressure on that point puts pressure on a set of pipes which in turn reduce pressure on another set of pipes with reduces pressure on the door frame allowing the door to swing open.

My point being there will be a non scary reason for it all.

Soon after I moved in I put lots of empty boxes up in the loft. Soon after that I heard a scampering over the boxes and many fell over. I knew it was little"squatters" and I was right .

Just yesterday I saw my window curtain "stir/ripple". I remembered luckily that I had opened the trickle vents in the window and we had a strong wind coming straight at the window, but at first I felt it was eerie.

We lived in an old house that had a sequence of creaks that sounded like someone was walking along the hallway to the bedroom door and would then stop outside the door but never come in. There would be a significant pause and then it would start the slow march back up the hallway again. It was all due to the heating - pipe expansion and contraction - but it was so convincing that DH took his baseball bat to bed when I was away.

I agree with all the pps about taking practical steps to batten down the loose banging things but you do also need to snap yourself out of confirmation bias. If that means burning something or talking to thin air about moving on, do it. For a long while I had this feeling about our current house and was convinced that I woke up to smell biscuits baking. I informed the thin air that it smelled lovely but that it was waking me and making me worried about the house burning down, so could it cook in the daytime instead. Never had it again. Do whatever you feel you need to restore your own sense of perspective and it'll feel happy again.

In high winds the loft cover shifts in my flat. Sometimes just a bit, but sometimes it will be half open. So I wouldn't worry about the loft cover.

The security lights are probably triggered by cats, foxes, bats etc. Again, very normal indeed, so I'd cross that off your list too.

Power cut - well, they happen all the time, so also cross that off.

Attic needs thoroughly checking out for squirrels, rats, birds. My friend had a whole squadron of rats in hers recently. I house sat and could hear the patter of tiny feet and the occasional clatter as they knocked something over.

Glass shattering also not unusual and possibly it was fitted in too tightly. Wouldn't be worried about that.

The only thing I can't explain is knocking at the door sound, but could it be an animal, tree branch or someone actually knocking but went away?

Because these things have happened in a relatively short space of time, it's understandable to link them and put it down to something supernatural, but they're all very normal things. We have images in our mind, stored up from all the films, books, programmes etc we've seen about haunted houses, and anything that reminds us of those, can make us uneasy and on the look out for weird things.

acegik - yes, after investing in motherofdragons tale which turned out not to be true I'd be sceptical of anyone here now...

I'm not saying OP is making this up at all. Just MOD pissed me off a bit about her story especially as it was dragged out such a lot...

My PILs had a new glass shower cubicle shatter too. It was because the fitter didn't take into account the movement of old houses - the weather changed and the glass had too much stress put on it when the house 'breathed' (as PIL's said) so smashed. It's really not a rare event, especially if you have a curved one fitted instead of straight.

OP, have you lived in an old house before? They all have odd quirks.

1. The roofs of victorian roofs are notoriously draughty. We ear the wind whistly through ours and stuff gets moved around in there. It is not unfeasible that you have a draught somewhere in the roof and the wind moved the attic door. Can you get a roofer to go up and look?
2. My parents had their shower door suddenly shatter one night. It was terrifying and would have been awful if someone was in it. It turned out that the door had been screwed in too tight. It happened quite soon after they bought it and this is not an uncommon problem esp in old houses with uneven floors which would stress the joints on the shower.
3. Power cuts do trip fire alarms.
4. Have you been in the attic to see if anything had fallen over? Again if their are draughts that could cause things to fall over. We have birds that are nesting in our attic/roof (got in through a gap) and make a racket and could knock stuff over.
5. The security lights may be oversensitive. Can you get the people who installed them to come and have a look? Did you have the whole house rewired when you moved in? Old wiring can be wierd.

The knocking on the door would have freaked me out though. That said, when anxious and alone and my sense are heightened I can hear 'footsteps' in our Victorian flats that is obviously just the pipes and floorboards settling. This has been the case in other Victorian houses too. I have found it worse in detached houses than terraced houses, which it sounds like yours is.

Could it be that?

Don't ask about the history of the house. Me and XH once lived in an old converted pub. He worked away and numerous 'helpful' neighbours would ask me if I knew how many people had died in that pub. Apparently quite a lot

OP your house sounds lovely!!! Agree with pps, there are a lot of rational explanations and old houses make lots of their own noise. I have a dog and a cat who keep me company when DH is away and DS is in bed...they are very reassuring, have you thought about getting a pet if your DH is away a lot?

Also think about your feeling from the house. Ours is a 350 year old farmhouse and it feels so nice. I imagine women cooking meals for their families over the centuries just like I do and it gives me a fuzzy feeling. What it means is that if any irrational thoughts slip in (like when DS wakes in the night and starts pointing at the corner of his room!) I tell myself the house is here to protect me and even if I did believe in the supernatural, nothing bad would happen in this house which has protected generations of families for centuries. Probably sounds a bit nuts but it really reassures me!!! Good luck!

Before giving up on it I would get a maintenance crew in to check the roof and windows, make the property as air tight as possible.

Then I would bleed radiators, really heat the place for a few days and then try to find the source of draughts etc.

oh and get one of the those plug Rat things, they emit a sound that Rats don't like.

Fenella is dead right about the glass. Tempered safety glass can do this for no reason at all. The tiniest little knock in the wrong place during delivery or whatever can cause it to shatter months or even years later, completely out of the blue.

I've had it happen with a shower screen, a garden table top and two oven doors.

In fact if you google it you'll see how common it is.

Also vermin in the loft (very common in old houses in rural areas) xan sound like a heard of elephants having a fight.