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!

I moved in to this house 10 years ago just after it had been built.

Recently I was woken up by knocking on the door. Of course it isn't a spirit or an axe murderer, for some reason my letterbox has decided to bang in the wind. But bloody hell did it make me jump.

What exactly are you worried about?

A local priest/vicar would probably bless the house for you, personally I don't think there is a woo reason for your feelings but would a blessing make you feel better?

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!

That is such a nice post BanKimoon, and I will remember it next time I'm alone in the house!

OP, I find having noise around helps - radios, TVs, music. In the silence, and at night, old houses seem to make all manor of strange noises - whenever I've sat in silence, I always feel spooked out.

I also find the phrase, 'beware the living, not the dead' to be comforting. Or not. The tent thing is weird - but most likely innocent.

I've lived in relatively new homes that felt bad and old ones that felt fine.

I rented a house once where the previous tenants had a messy divorce and that house had the most tense atmosphere.

OP - another one just to say the shower screen thing happens. It did to my friend (modern 2 bed flat). She was standing next to it at the time - your installers' comment is more to do with PR than ghosts.

This is "big old house noises". Frankly, if you do have a malevolent spirit in there , it's a pretty rubbish one if all it's doing is breaking shower screens and opening the loft hatch.

Do not let your friends spook you if they come to stay. Get some lights on and turn the heating up. Also look at insulation. Oh and in our current house we sometimes get a tapping sound. It's water dripping down an internal down pipe we found out.

I walk in woods a lot, and I think it's rare to find a patch of woodland without an abandoned tent!! Usually from kids who have an illicit camping trip and can't be bothered to clear up next day when they are tired, cold and hungover.
Your house sounds wonderful, I am so jealous! Whatever the cause of the bumps, thumps and tinkles I hope you can find a way to make it feel like home.

listverse.com/2013/09/30/10-scientific-explanations-for-ghostly-phenomena/

Read this op ^

abandoned tent is messy spoilt brats whose parents didn't teach them not to be dirty.
animals have different senses and react to different things. They don't see ghosts.
if you want to see some records, get to the library and look up the address on Ancestry, then you can see the 1911 census and those before.

woo may be fun, but it is all bollocks. Science is true even if you don't believe in it.

ahem. All manner of strange noises.

Blatant place marking, I love a bit of woo

Agree with special and slowtrain about the tent.

I live in a Victorian building, the creaks and groans are part and parcel of an old place. Beams and floorboards cooling and contracting or expanding, our central heating can make a ticking sound in the floor in our room when it starts up on a cold winters day.
An airlock in a pipe can give a terrible rattle and banging, I have felt floors shake due to airlocks, is there a water tank or pipework in the attic?
We used to have an oversensitive security light, it was triggered by cats, leaves, passing foxes, probably even snails burping ( and DD discovering the bats would swoop over her head searching for moths and insects if she got it to go on)
We have mice that sound like a herd of elephants, they scramble up and down the plaster inside the walls.
I've had seagulls tapping at the windows and seen a chaffinch attack its own reflection.
We did have cold spots in one room, investigating we found it had smaller thickness of walls and gaps around the skirting. Thick underlay and carpet helped.

I'd think about thicker loft insulation
Bolt on attic hatch
Lining for curtains
Your long hall to unused porch might be a bit cooler than the rest of the house just enough to subconsciously notice. Think about putting a curtain up at the hall entrance and one over the door.

Our letterbox bangs in the wind and it sounds exactly like someone knocking the door loudly if it's windy enough. Jumped out of my skin the first time it happened!

Checklist from me. We live in a large house in a rural location, remote and surrounded by woods.

Noises in the loft so often and so loud that it's a stock phrase about The Badgers that live up there. We have those plug in devices that say they repel mice, rats etc. They don't. Not in this house anyhow.
NB beware if you put down rat or mouse poison in a few days you'll notice vile and unfathomable smells in random places

Birds and other critters in odd rooms when no window's been open.

Frequent power cuts.
Burglar alarm going off after said power cut because it needs servicing and the battery back up's not working any more.

Gusts of wind in the loft.
Creaking and shifting noises, most noticed at night.

One oddly cold room.

Waking in the night thinking I've heard a noise of some kind.

A glass shower screen shattering.
It was fairly newly installed.

Ancient abandoned tent camp in the woods.

Ungodly screaming noises in the night and stuff in the garden seemingly moved of its own accord.
That usually turns out to be foxes or hedgehogs, who make a hell of a lot more noise than you'd expect. If not them then it's wild boar.

There's loads more. Our house isn't that old though and no one else but us has ever lived in it.

The most important thing about your account OP is that when you first viewed the house it felt good. Just check your security and start to get a feeling for your house's quirks, then it won't all feel so strange.

By nature, I'm a sceptic (atheist, too). I grew up in a house that had 18thC bits, 19thC bits, and modern bits too. Several people (sometimes simultaneously) saw and heard many unaccountable things over the years. We had no doubt whatsoever that house was 'haunted' - whatever 'haunted' is.

First thing you should know... My dad lived there over 4 decades. He was the one person who insisted he never heard, or saw, or even vaguely experienced a thing. Some people don't pick anything up. At all. Ever. He ended up believing us, though as so many other people did and they were people he'd known a lifetime, and trusted. Just not him experiencing anything.

Second thing that comes to mind is - whatever it was, was most active whenever there were guests staying overnight or strangers around. We'd never 'warn' them, or mention things that went on, in any way. We didn't want to prejudice anyone's reactions.

But all the most spectacular things happened to people who didn't live there but stayed there. So, if I was OP, when husband is away, I'd fill the house with my friends and see if genuinely, there is anything going on. (Preferably, pick friends who have not heard any of your fears). If the friends pick up on nothing - nothing is happening. And at last you won't be alone.

I'd give anything to still be living in my 'haunted' house. Growing up with it, it was normality. It can't hurt you in any way. If I was you I'd research the house's history. Many library tickets let you access 19thC newspaper databases from online at home (ask in your library). Check out if anything bad ever happened there. I bet you nothing did - you might find this reassuring.

That feeling of being watched, btw, can just be caused by things like flourescent lighting - it's not supernatural at all.

I'd put a bolt on the outside of your attic door so it can't come open on its own again. I'd check under the eaves for holes birds might have used to get in. The chances are, there are practical explanations but as so many have so ably discussed those - I'd not give up on such a lovely house til I was sure. It is possible, however, for one person to be totally unaffected in a house that does have strange goings on.

joffrey - dying to know what these unaccountable things were witnessed by several; will you spill??

I used to live in a very old house that made noises at night. I used to think of it as an old lady making herself comfortable for the night.

NotNob - I spilled around Halloween time on the spooky thread. But briefly, two of us saw a 'ghost' (both saw same thing the same week). Once, two guests on different floors of the house were woken up by the same noises (whilst my dad slept through all the commotion, blissfully unaware) and various other things - usually auditory, often heard by two people at once. 40 years on my brother refuses even to speak about it - scared him that much. Only two rooms were really 'active' though and a big house so those rooms easily avoided.

I grew up in a 500 year old farmhouse which had LOTS of spooky goings on. I know I'll get shot down in flames, but personally I believe that ghosts exist. The good news is, you can learn to live with them. I found that telling them to leave me alone worked (temporarily) and forcing myself to think of other things (recite times tables in your head or whatever works for you) at times when I got the feeling that something was happening really helped.

I always knew when something was about to happen, because tears would spring from my eyes completely involuntarily and THEN the weirdness would happen.

I appreciate this post makes me sound completely batshit. But to add a bit of back up to my story, a celeb bought my parents house after their divorce, and she gave a recent radio interview talking about her haunted house, so it's not just me they bothered!

I'm another living in an old country house. I grew up in the middle of nowhere, so am used to it and the noises of the country. To be honest towns and the light streetlights throw freak me out more. Other friends that have grown up in the town find it a bit creepy sometimes here.

Our house has a trapdoor to the cellar which has been carpeted over. On a windy night it lifts up (it's old heavy oak) and takes the carpet too. A bird or animal in the loft can make a heck of a noise, even tiny ones.

Security lights are hopeless in the country. Branches flapping, animals going past, all sorts of things set them off. Ours lasted less than a week before we turned them to switch mode!

I think most of what you are experiencing is down to imagination. Once you've got yourself spooked it escalates. Tonight it's windy here and the fireplace is making noises, the trees are rustling, things are blowing about. I could get spooked, but I'm not. Our house is always cold. It's old. Light the fire if you have one. They really make a room warm and cosy.

As for the long corridor, brighten it up. Paint it, change the lighting and leave it on. Change the door to one with a window so that you can see if someone is there.

Have people over while DH is away, but not ones who will spook you, and especially the one from before! Have you got any country bumpkin type friends? As someone said, summer is around the corner (so were told!) so evenings will be calmer and brighter. Until then leave lamps on, have nice music playing, have the TV on. Animals make a cosy home for me, and provide company/security, but only get them if you really like them, especially if you have a baby on the way.

Sometimes this type of house doesn't suit people. A lady who used to keep her horse at our house bought a small holding. Her husband used to work away sometimes and she panicked being alone. They ended up moving back to the village. It just wasn't for her.

I think you have more to fear from the living than the dead.

We moved house when I was a teenager and I used to be woken up every morning by something running across my ceiling. In my mind it was something from the depths of hell scuttling around in the attic. I was petrified.
I finally told my parents and they laughed and took me outside, showing me that my room was an extension, with a flat roof and no attic space. I'd been hearing sea gulls!!

I think the wind whistling through your loft created a suction which lifted the trap door and i'll bet you have animal life in your loft too.

I used to live in an old terraced house. Despite having wires on the top on the chimney to prevent it happening, every spring/summer I'd end up with a crow and baby crows in my living room. And they do thrash around. It could be birds.

I'd be pretty surprised disappointed if an old Victorian house in the woods wasnt Haunted!!

Yes - I agree with all the posts about debunking first - very probably the noises in the attic are animals (spirit would not choose to live in the attic unless it were previously rooms anyway) the glass shattering was most likely a fault.
I'm more interested in the tinkling bell you heard. That could be spirit but not an unfriendly one you'll be pleased to know! Also - spirits are different to ghost. Ghosts are simply like a playback of things that are etched in time they can't hurt you as their soul is not present. Spirit is a soul that most likely is connected to either you or the house. If you have a loved one on the other side OP it could simply be them letting you know that they are watching over you whilst your husband is away - spirit connection to the house would most likely be a soul that lived there previously but this doesn't mean they want you out!! It sounds crazy but before you call in a minister to bless the house or any other kind of medium - just burn some white sage (Amazon sell sage!) walk around your home allowing the smoke to get into every corner (I do this in any new home anyway to cleanse it from any negativity left behind) saying out loud "bless this house, may it only be filled with love and happiness" also if you say out loud "whoever is here in my home please stop making the noises as it is scaring me!"
It sounds bonkers but imagine if you were a soul trying to make yourself known to someone and they call in the big guns to remove You? You would wonder why they hadn't simply spoken to you about it first? It's often as simple as that.

I realise I sound like a stark raving looney to a lot of people so I'll bog off now!

Get a cat, then you can blame any unexpected noises on the cat.
( also cats are always the first to know if anything 'bad' is out there - according to the many horror movies I have watched )
But seriously its nice to have company when your husband is away.

I agree with getting a cat.
I grew up in a very spooky old house and we had 5 cats. There was always one to blame unusual noises on.