My house is haunted advice please

[saminamama]

Husband - 32 and an absolute scientist non believer
me also 32 and whilst a bit more open minded also a non believer

So my husband has been saying for months he thought I was on the landing and then found our no I wasn’t.. he saw a shadow on the upstairs landing and looked up to discover I was downstairs

didnt think much until both children were on my bed and then one of the picture hooks on a picture rail pinged onto the floor of its own accord the other morning now while it freaked me out.:: I didn’t think much and rationalised a mouse ./////

again didn't think much of it until the baby was crying this afternoon and I saw with my own eyes the outline of a man walk across the landing (looked like a shadow)

then this evening the lights (dimmer switch) were switching on and of and this happened about 20 times

not sure what to think

You didn’t fasten the picture properly

You need an electrician

Your husband needs an eye test

You lost me at your husband is a scientist and so a firm non believer

People have been sentenced to death in my house for centuries but there’s no ghosts

When you’re dead You're dead OP

Agree @Fibonacci2 has got it in one

You should sell up immediately, even at a huge loss, and take your family to seek sanctuary in the nearest methodist chapel.

There are absolutely no ghosts. I read some statistics ages ago about how quickly men move on after their wife dies Vs how quickly a wife moves on after her husband does. One of those statistics was the % of men who meet their next wife at their dead wife's funeral. If those dead wives aren't haunting those husbands then there's no way a ghost is haunting you.

Fabulous logic

Ok If you think there are spirits, you can just ask them to leave. If this doesn't work, buy a sage stick, light it so it starts smoking and then "smudge" your house .meaning hold the sage stick in every corner of each room, starting upstairs and moving downstairs. Have the windows open in each room as you do it. It's meant to cleanse the house. If that doesn't work, speak to your local church, but ime most spirits are stuck and just need a bit of help to move towards the light

When we moved into our home a salt lamp (big and heavy!) fell off a sideboard. Nobody in the room- just fell to the floor. We have seen various shadows, the smoke alarm has randomly gone off a few times and a few odd noises. Nothing feels sinister. Not sure if it’s a spirit or us imagining things as we are aware of strange goings on. It’s an old house with a colourful history.

Both me and my DH have never given it much thought till we moved in this house. But somethings (like the salt lamp) have been difficult to explain away.

Lights do flicker and picture hooks do work their way out of walls.

You've all experienced the shadow on the landing. That one's less easy to explain away. Let's assume it's a ghost. It hasn't hurt you. In fact I haven't ever heard of a ghost or unexplained presence actually hurting the living so you have nothing to fear. I think you should just choose to coexist.

Our eyes don't work the way we think they do. Our brain interprets a lot and fills in a lot of details.
Research it and you will feel a lot more confident that ghosts aren't real.

The downside is you'll feel a lot less confident in your eyes. 😁

I mean if I were a ghost I’d be wreaking havoc not walking across landings and popping drawing pins out of a wall.

So let’s just rationalise this: you have the dullest ghost on earth. You’re safe.

You need to do 2 things: check your carbon monoxide alarm is working, buy sage. Covers both bases.

That made me laugh... but it's bloody true!

Husband not literally a scientist what I mean is his subject is science. He has very keen interest, hobbies are sciencey etc

realise this all makes us sound bonkers but we can’t deny it

There is possibly a source of infrasound in the house which is causing you/DH to see shadows/shapes in your peripheral vision.

I also never believed in ghosts. Still not sure what I believe now. But in our old house there were strange things that happened over the time we were there that are hard to explain. The most significant was when I was at my parents with the kids for a few nights and husband was home alone. One evening he was calling and telling me that he could hear walking on the stairs and everytime he went to the kitchen all the cupboards were open!! He kept calling throughout the evening saying it kept happening and freaking out a bit! Was so weird! When I returned with the kids the next day all the cupboards were open. Freaked me out! I just kind of spoke to it and said we are home now, can you please leave. And nothing weird happened again. There were other things that happened before that also. Like tv turning itself on in the night, random things moving. Like a bath mat moving from bathroom and found on the sofa arm! Hard to explain away.

We have moved house now and nothing weird has ever happened here.

Clouds moving across the sky can create shadows, or even a tiny mouse maybe? Picture hooks can perish and snap. Electrical items can misbehave etc. None of the things you describe seem especially odd.

In my new house, a picture fell off the wall and we have deduced it was too heavy for the hook. The TV switched on one night, we deduced that the remote batteries were a bit flat and dd had been pressing them all earlier trying to get it to work. A vase fell off a window sill the other night....highly suspicious of the cat here. How long have you lived in this house? Has it always been this way or is it a new house and you are just feeling a bit unsettled?

If take things logically.
The picture...as the kids moved around the room it would cause movement in the floor which in turn affects the wall, continued over time can cause pins, nails etc to move. Plus pictures get brushed up against. Doors slamming in other rooms cause vibration hence the loosening of the fixings.

The shadow. We evolved to by being able to detect dangers, our eyes/brain are designed to work in tandem to pick up potential threats and interpret things as being such even if not. Therefore, your husband has mentioned the shadow, your "lizard brain" that is the oldest in evolutionary terms part of the brain, has gathered that idea and extrapolated a moving shadow on the landing in the shape of a man.

The dimmer switch works buy limiting the amount electricity getting through the wire to the bulb. It's not a particularly effective way to achieve the effect and like a radio slightly miss tuned it can produce a fluttery effect.

The could be a ghost but just as Conan Doyle and other prominent people at the time believed the fairy pictures two children had made, it's often the case that we need or want to believe something when it's obviously not the case.

The picture hooks might have come loose (are they stick on plastic hooks?) and electrics are explainable (as long as an electrician has confirmed that there’s something wrong with the electrics) but not the shadow figures.

I forgot the lamp. As I said, vibration caused by doors slamming, heavy walking etc can cause issues. 2 years ago I put an extending shower tidy in my bathroom and the spring effect has caused 3 tiles to crack...there can be no movement of the house as that part is an extension which was underpinned.

If your kids are heavy footed/have grown the effect can have increased.

Sage smudge stuck all over the house should sort it out.

I think there is a lot of phenomena that we don't have explanations for yet.

It is very unnerving and can be terrifying to experience something like you are experiencing.

I think the people that shut down any discussion with 'there are no ghosts' are really lacking in imagination and have an over-inflated view of the intellectual advancement of our age, in comparison with the past. The reason for shutting it down, it that they can't explain it and they don't like it.

People who have experienced similar to you, have found talking out loud to a perceived ghost to be helpful @saminamama . Alternatively, do as a pp suggested and contact a local church. I don't for a minute believe that God scares a spirit away, but whatever the process is, it has helped many people.

Personally, I would have already moved house! 😬

There was a notorious early 20thc murder on our first floor landing and still not the slightest whiff of a ghost.

OP, you’re stringing unrelated things (the dimmer switches, the picture hook) into a narrative. Which is making you nervous, hence seeing the ‘shadow’.

My friend says she has a ghost who just sits in one chair in her lounge, her DH cannot see him. Friend was busy raising 4 DC, doing major renovations to house, so just carried on with life, ghost wasn’t always there, she knew mentioning it people would say she’s imagining it. Fast forward a couple of years when her eldest DC was 6 he asks why is there an old man sitting in that chair, all other DC saw him also, but still the DH didn’t. 30 years later, all DC moved out, it’s just my friend, DH and the ghost living there, I asked her if she should do something about it, she’s looked into the house’s previous owners and cannot find that someone died there, but it’s possible as house is old, his visits have become less frequent. They’ve also had dogs, they’ve never shown any interest to the ghost.

Listen to the Uncanny Podcast. Loads of spooky stories but you have team believer and team sceptic. So both sides which help to rationalise the stories. Or maybe not actually, some can be quite emotive.
Regardless, most things can be explained away once you rationalise. It's winter, it's dark, there are spooky stories floating around on social media etc. I've read a few around the days of Yule and Winter Solstice. Even subconsciously these can prickle our senses and make us wary. Just rationalise. And indeed, if you did have a ghost, it's not exactly terrorising you. I'd be much more frightened of the living!