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!

Agree about the glass. Happened to an ex bosses rear car window a few years back.

My writing style is pretty fluent, my spelling isn't too shabby and my punctuation is generally ok. I name change a bit too. I'm not sure writing style and an unfamiliar name is a good indication that a post is suspicious.

I lived in a mill manager's cottage that was 100+ years old. It creaked but there was nothing creepy about it. It had a lovely feel to it, even the long corridors in the dark. Sometimes I'd smell random smells like mint all of a sudden but it was nice! I felt more creeped out in the new buold I lived in before that, heard hissing and saw things out of the corner of my eye also cane home to loft hatch open!

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.

Are you Jonathon Creek?

If you havent previously lived in old houses, they do have odd quirks, and can be bizarrely noisy for entirely ordinary reasons. Ignore the superstitious who are telling you to get in priests/spiritualists - all you are experiencing is a string of what are essentially DIY problems in a still-unfamiliar old house, and, having been spooked, are stringing unrelated happenings together into a 'haunting'.

These are just tiresome but solvable house maintenance/repair issues to be solved. We live in a rented late 1970s house surrounded by fields, and our security lights are so often triggered by foxes, badgers, bats, deer and owls, we've switched them off. We also had squirrels in the attic who caused crashes by knocking things over, and - possibly related - the electric wiring is faulty and bulbs have blown and shattered frequently. You've been given several rational explanations for the glass shower door, and draughts explain cold patches and shifting attic trapdoors.

I have frequently imagined I heard knocking on my office door at work. Our minds play tricks on us. Don't worry. Nothing supernatural is occurring.

Thanks for all replies

Saltedcaramel, main change in personal life is pregnancy (first) and complications that mean I'm off work and home all day, so could explain why I'm feeling nervous/more alert. Maybe its hormones?

House was re-wired about 3 years ago and some changes made e.g. walls knocked down to create bigger rooms, upstairs passage opened up to link rooms. I tried to get hold of old records but there aren't any dating back as it belonged to church. I know the previous owners were there about 5 years, before that it was run as a B&B.

Im so relieved there are rational explanations for trapdoor, shower glass and noises in attic! I haven't lived in a house this big or old before so not used to noises.

I'll definitely try burning some white sage and brightening up dark corners. Not sure about pets, i love animals but used to have cats and they'd often react to invisible things, chasing things or going berserk or hissing at empty space, i think that would freak me out even more even though its normal cat behaviour! Do dogs do this too or just cats?

I'll invite some friends to stay while DH is away. Although most of my friends get freaked out easily so it might backfire if we start feeding each others anxieties!
When one friends stayed recently she said she was woken in night by sound of something metallic being dropped on floor by bed and rolling, like a pole falling over and rolling under bed. She was alone in room. Room she was sleeping in is downstairs near the spooky hallway, and has wooden floor. She said she put light on and looked under bed but no sign of anything that made the noise. She also claimed she heard heavy breathing in room with her!

When we first moved in we walked in woods behind house (ancient Oak wood, private but farmer gave us permission to walk in there) and came across an abandoned tent, complete with soaked sleeping-bag inside and bits of camping equipment! Its still there, no one came back for it. DH says it was probably someone trespassing who got chased off by farmer, but every time I think of it I get the shivers!

Where is it and will it be going cheap?

I'm not sure I buy all the ghost stories too either - apparently my mum has some friends who bought an old school house years ago - someone was murdered there or killed themselves but they never saw/heard anything.

Also, I second not asking about the history of the house. Pre-NHS it was very normal for people to die at home and something like 97% of homes built pre-1950 in the UK have had someone die in them. Just think of all the happy families in the house to think of it as a warm space, not a spooky space!

As has been suggested get out the survey and get the builder in.

Lets apply Occam's Razor here.
Which is the most likely? An old drafty house that makes noise when it settles at night. A shower screen that was fitted too tight. Bats in the attic (we have them at Mother's house, they make a hell of a noise some times). A combination of broken tiles, a windy day and an open window elsewhere causing the loft hatch to open.

Or

The disembodied spirit of a dead person.

A lot of coincidences though.

I'm going for a spook.

Abandoned tent has given me the heebie jeebies!!!

Can you not ask the farmer??

Whoooooahhhh

In the last few minutes, a friend of mine has just posted a photo on facebook of his shattered shower screen, which he found when he came home for the weekend. He is grumbling because his landlord is making him pay for it to be replaced, when he says it is quite obvious that these things only shatter on their own when they've been badly fitted.
So it clearly isn't that uncommon!

Honestly, I like living in England, and have lived here for ages, but I do have to say that as a culture, you sometimes strike me as being in denial about death. Of course virtually any house built before people began to die in hospitals and hospices will have had deaths as part of the normal course of events!

of course they have LadyGregory!
Our house is over 300 years old and v rural, goodness knows how many people have died and been born in there! Yet it has no 'atmosphere' at all.

We are largely in denial about death. If we don't think about it, maybe it won't happen.

Sorry, I sounded snottier than I meant! It's just that someone invariably pops up on these threads to say there was a cold patch in one of their bedrooms and the cat looked spooked at a particular spot and then they talked to the elderly neighbour who told them that the previous owner had died in that very room. Like it was some mysterious and horrifying occurrence.

uh yeh I had that in our old flat in Hove, Lady Gregory, some junkie Tarot card reader type came around and started going "Wooo woooo someone died here!"
I was like ...er....no shit Sherlock!

Don't agree a house would be unfamiliar after living in it six months. Six weeks, maybe. Would think OP should recognise and not be scared of all her home's regular creaks and noises by now. However, having lived in the sticks, critters in the loft can make a right racket. Even mice running about can sound like they've got hobnail boots on. But the abandoned tent and the mysterious knocking on the door! Oooer, definitely a plot for a horror story.

I moved into a small, isolated house in the west of Ireland a month after the previous inhabitant had killed himself there. The cleaners had missed one of his coats, which was still hanging on the back of a door that was never closed.

No haunting, strange sensations, cold patches, odd noises. And I lived there alone.

As my mum always says, you want to be more worried about things that are alive than things that are dead. When have you ever heard of any legitimate story of someone being hurt or killed by a spook? Listen to pp about the explanations behind the shower screen and creaky old house noises. You have convinced yourself something is wrong because the house fits the ghosty model. Big old dark vicarage in the woods. Isolated and cold and draughty. Brighten it up, make it homely, patch up the draughts, paint the spooky corridor. When it's summer time, bright and sunny it will seem less intimidating. Your house sounds amazing by the way - would love you to put some pics on by understand you might not want to privacy wise. Enjoy it!

Loft full o' badgers. Badgers or stoats.

I would light a candle, and sit down and tell whatever it is that you dont like all these noises, that you wish them well, but can they please leave because its frightening you

Badgers in the loft
Do not watch the conjuring!