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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To find out if anyone ever died in the house we just bought?

115 replies

Ginnyfromtheblock · 29/04/2023 12:09

Currently having the house we just bought renovated. We aren't living in it yet and because it is near where my brother lives and we have a newborn we gave him a set of keys to go and check up on builders etc.

Yesterday he went to the house after work and video called me to show me the progress. While he was there he suddenly said how just saw a small child in the house and he ran out the house and locked the front door and left.

He isn't the pranking type and also isn't the superstitious type, nor am I. But I am a total wimp and cannot watch any type of horror or anything and I'm now terrified. In the loft there was an old cot and nothing else. I've also got a year's worth of maternity leave and imagine I'll be home alone with baby while DH is at work.

Does anyone know how to find out if there was ever a death in the house or a building? I'm in the UK if that helps.

OP posts:
Picklewicklepickle · 29/04/2023 13:31

My house is 200 years old, I don’t believe in ghosts at all but was worried it might feel spooky sometimes at night or in the basement. Honestly I’ve never felt anything except peace and calmness (other than noisy children but they’re my own or my neighbour’s).

chocolatehoovering · 29/04/2023 13:36

Both my parents died in their homes so that's two houses that have had fairly recent deaths in them. And one of those was a pretty new house so it's not just old houses where someone might have died.

KimberleyClark · 29/04/2023 13:39

My grandmother died in my 1950s childhood home when I was 16. My mother continued to live in the house for another 37 years. Nothing woo ever happened.

tescocreditcard · 29/04/2023 13:47

I wouldn't bother finding out.

It's the living you need to fear. Not the dead.

LlynTegid · 29/04/2023 13:53

I doubt if you can, though there are some places where you could assume it is very possible. Hyde in Greater Manchester (Harold Shipman was a doctor there), or anywhere that was an old people's home in 2020 (where Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson sent people with Covid from hospitals).

Shoelacesundone · 29/04/2023 13:58

I lived in a house with something like a ghost. Didn't believe in them and my husband 1 million per cent didn't breve in them. After 6 months there one drunken night we each confessed what we had sensed....the exact same figure in the exact same part of the house.

So I don't think you're being silly....but I would say our ghost meant no harm and definitely wasn't like a horror film.

Either you say you don't believe in it. Or you say there is something but it's nothing to be scared of...like an awkward flush on the toilet or a door that never shuts properly...you don’t need to panic.

You'll never get a definitive answer to your question and I'm not sure how it would help.

Nimbostratus100 · 29/04/2023 14:04

YABU

can you find out if anyone has ever died on that piece of land in the last 400 000 years? since British isles was first occupied?

no

can you assume they have?

yes. and every other piece of ground in the country too

DistrictCommissioner · 29/04/2023 14:06

My grandparents died at home in 2014 and 2019. It doesn’t have to be an old house to have had a death in (their house was 1920s FWIW).

strawberryfluff · 29/04/2023 14:07

Are you sure it wasn't a child that had got in?

Rosula · 29/04/2023 14:20

Whatevergetsyouthroughthenight · 29/04/2023 12:19

How is that going to help? You have bought the house, there’s no such thing as ghosts (I will get flamed for this but don’t care) and if someone died in the house, so what? If it’s an old house they probably have. Are you going to sell it if they have?

This. The whole concept of ghosts is so ridiculous.

Burgoo · 29/04/2023 14:25

People die in houses. Mostly old people. Or young that have had tragic endings. I suspect it is actually much more common than you think.

Oysterbabe · 29/04/2023 14:25

A playmate for the baby. Might work out well.

DontBiteTheBoobThatFeedsYou · 29/04/2023 14:32

Your brother's a wuss.
Whats a ghost child gonna do?!

DontBiteTheBoobThatFeedsYou · 29/04/2023 14:33

Oysterbabe · 29/04/2023 14:25

A playmate for the baby. Might work out well.

😁😁😁😁

MedievalMadness · 29/04/2023 14:34

It’s not going to help OP knowing that people have died in the homes they are in. OP wants to know if she can find out if anyone has died in hers (probably will be pretty hard to find out but possible by speaking to others in the community )

For me the question is not whether there is or is not a ghost child (almost certainly not ) but where does this leave OP now? Some people feel very strongly about stuff like this, others give it hardly a second thought. What do you want to do now OP? Even if you find out no-one has died in there, what do you think you will do about what your DB has told you? What are your options?

lapasion · 29/04/2023 14:38

Could you burn some sage? Get an exorcist in? I do sympathise because I get the creeps in certain houses, despite not believing in ghosts. I doubt you’ll be able to find out whether anyone died in the property though. Unless it was very recent.

slowquickstep · 29/04/2023 14:38

Exactly where i am sitting now is where the old man that used to own the cottage died, he had been dead a while. He died sitting in his chair. Doesn't bother me in the slightest. I occasionally say good morning to him and i put his favourite flowers in the room during the week of his death.

FarmGirl78 · 29/04/2023 14:42

Wasn't there a thread about this recently?

I did research on my street, and next door had 10 children, only 5 of which survived beyond age 2 or 3. I thought this was a grim, but hey ho, instead I focus on the times they had huddled round the fire, listening to their Dad play a banjo, or how excited they would have been hearing King George's speech on the radio. Or how proud they'd have been walking into a brand new house when it was first built 150 years ago. Sure, there's been deaths, but its the cycle of life, and there's also been joy as brides left this house on their way to get married, and heart bursting moments when new fathers sitting downstairs heard the cry of the first born upstairs as the midwife shouted down to them.

@Ginnyfromtheblock Dont worry about the bad stuff, there will have been so many more happy memories in your house than bad ones. Enjoy your new home and create some more memories within its walls.

LauderSyme · 29/04/2023 14:45

Better not to know I would have thought, given that you've probably just spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on it!

Hbh17 · 29/04/2023 14:49

People die. Death is normal. If anything, it is good to know that our houses have sheltered all types of human experience (one reason why I actually wouldn't want to live in a newly-built house).
I think your reaction is odd (that's the polite way of putting it) and you need to find a way to toughen up about everything that life has to chuck at us.

Bimbom · 29/04/2023 14:49

You could search for your address in the British newspaper archives. But would it matter?

JudgeRudy · 29/04/2023 14:50

There's a few replies here basically telling you not to be so silly but this 'apparition' clearly frightened a grown man.
Let's say ghosts exist, and let's say it's the ghost of a child...l'm pretty sure if you were 'nice' to said 'ghost' she's not going to cause you harm. Lots of ideas here how you might find out if a child died. I think the general 'rule' is whilst the two 'times' can cross over sometimes, 'ghosts' only interact if they can't 'settle'. A quick Google search will bring up 101 ways of laying a 'soul' to rest.
Don't invent problems where there aren't any.

Whisper23 · 29/04/2023 14:52

Could you burn some sage?

What exactly do you think that will achieve? Make the place smell herby? Seriously, think about it rationally.

FWIW I do believe in "ghosts", though I don't think they're what most people think they are (i.e. the spirit of a dead person returning).

BungalowLil · 29/04/2023 15:01

Having experienced some woo things in the house I live in now and a previous home (previous home had been a hospital and was built in 1730 = lots of deaths) current home converted from a row of Victorian estate workers cottages = lots of deaths) I would say make peace with the new house. 'Ghosts' can't harm you.

Nothing is frightening if you face it head on. Wander around the new place and tell the house you're the new family and it's going to be a happy house. Then get on with life and enjoy your new home.

ANiceBigCupOfTea · 29/04/2023 15:02

Can you not get that information from your solicitor?
I'm in NI and we were offered the information as standard. It's with all the legal bits.