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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

My house is haunted advice please

227 replies

saminamama · 23/12/2025 02:09

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

OP posts:
KimberleyClark · 23/12/2025 07:24

SparklySparkle · 23/12/2025 07:01

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.

Yes shadow figures can be explained by infrasound.

Purlant · 23/12/2025 07:32

Do the Christian churches really get involved in suspected haunted houses? What if the ghosts are atheists? Or Jewish/muslim/hindu?

UsernameMcUsername · 23/12/2025 07:34

I'm a Christian. I think that most 'hauntings' do have very boring explanations, but I also think there ARE spiritual forces which want to cause us distress and confusion. So if your issues continue and you genuinely feel you've eliminated all other possibilities (there'll be advice on that on this thread) exploring the latter option won't do you any harm. I'd suggest starting with your local Catholic priest. Some of your local non-Catholic churches might also help, but Protestant Christians can be either barely-believe-in-God-actually or incredibly OTT about this kind of stuff. There's no middle ground!

Velvian · 23/12/2025 07:37

Humanswarm · 23/12/2025 07:22

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!

I think Uncanny might be a bit much to cope with when going through what OP is. It would be for me.

TheChicDreamer · 23/12/2025 07:37

I’d be a non believer if it wasn’t for the fact I’ve seen what I can only explain as a ghost. It was that of a woman wearing Victorian maid’s clothes and she was only about two metres away from me. I watched as she busied herself at what would have been the place where there would have been a range in the Victorian days (a knocked through sitting room and I was sleeping on the sofa at the back end of the room). I was 16 and didn’t even really think of her as being a ghost so I wasn’t scared in the slightest, just surprised and vaguely irritated that here was this woman noiselessly ‘rustling about’, disturbing me and waking me up at six am. After a while I got fed up of her so I said something out loud and watched as she suddenly stopped what she was doing, ‘cringed’ and faded away before my eyes. I then got up and went about my day and didn’t think about it for ages afterwards.
It was a lot less exciting than you might think 🤣

Roseandviolin · 23/12/2025 07:42

Do people switch off TV sockets before going to bed?

Marinetrained · 23/12/2025 07:45

Your brain does not just record things as they are, it interprets. Shadows do fall in buildings. You had already primed your brain with your fears, so it interpreted the shadow as a figure of a man. . None of the things you describe are that unusual. Absolutely everyone has experienced inanimate objects randomly falling. Lights can flicker.

Fatrascal27 · 23/12/2025 07:46

Humanswarm · 23/12/2025 07:22

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!

Love this podcast! So entertaining.

TheMorgenmuffel · 23/12/2025 07:49

Velvian · 23/12/2025 07:19

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! 😬

People have literally explained it.
Giving a rational explanation is explaining it.

FromageTime · 23/12/2025 07:49

Timespentwithcatsisneverwasted · 23/12/2025 02:51

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

😂😂😂

Or…stop wasting your time thinking your house is haunted when you know it isn’t. Because there’s No Such Thing.

Humanswarm · 23/12/2025 07:52

@Fatrascal27I love it..Christmas special is out today, intend to listen as I Christmas food prep!

Marinetrained · 23/12/2025 07:52

TheChicDreamer · 23/12/2025 07:37

I’d be a non believer if it wasn’t for the fact I’ve seen what I can only explain as a ghost. It was that of a woman wearing Victorian maid’s clothes and she was only about two metres away from me. I watched as she busied herself at what would have been the place where there would have been a range in the Victorian days (a knocked through sitting room and I was sleeping on the sofa at the back end of the room). I was 16 and didn’t even really think of her as being a ghost so I wasn’t scared in the slightest, just surprised and vaguely irritated that here was this woman noiselessly ‘rustling about’, disturbing me and waking me up at six am. After a while I got fed up of her so I said something out loud and watched as she suddenly stopped what she was doing, ‘cringed’ and faded away before my eyes. I then got up and went about my day and didn’t think about it for ages afterwards.
It was a lot less exciting than you might think 🤣

This sounds like a waking dream. I have had several of these in my lifetime. You wake up but some dreaming part of your brain has not yet shut off. Hallucinations are more common than people think. Some people have night terrors where they wake and see terrifying hallucinations ( as their brain is still ‘dreaming’ but they are paralysed as the part of their brain that stops us acting our dreams, is still activated). I hope I never get that. My. Waking dreams were mostly being like yours. One had historical characters outing out a scene too.

BlueEyedBogWitch · 23/12/2025 07:53

I’ve seen a few. They won’t hurt you. I’d rather have a ghost than mice!

It seems mad to me to dismiss their existence out of hand, when every culture in the world has told ghost stories since time immemorial.

Just because we don’t know what causes a phenomenon doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist!

CurlewKate · 23/12/2025 07:53

TheChicDreamer · 23/12/2025 07:37

I’d be a non believer if it wasn’t for the fact I’ve seen what I can only explain as a ghost. It was that of a woman wearing Victorian maid’s clothes and she was only about two metres away from me. I watched as she busied herself at what would have been the place where there would have been a range in the Victorian days (a knocked through sitting room and I was sleeping on the sofa at the back end of the room). I was 16 and didn’t even really think of her as being a ghost so I wasn’t scared in the slightest, just surprised and vaguely irritated that here was this woman noiselessly ‘rustling about’, disturbing me and waking me up at six am. After a while I got fed up of her so I said something out loud and watched as she suddenly stopped what she was doing, ‘cringed’ and faded away before my eyes. I then got up and went about my day and didn’t think about it for ages afterwards.
It was a lot less exciting than you might think 🤣

Do you think that you sleeping on the sofa might have had something to do with it? Dreams can feel very real. And the being surprised and vaguely irritated sounds much more like the way you’d react in a dream than the way you’d react if you saw something while wide awake.

DahlsChickenz · 23/12/2025 07:58

Do you have a carbon monoxide detector in your house and is it still working? That's the worst case scenario in things like this and it's important to check.

The most likely explanation is the usual combination of tricks of the light, the normal settlement of houses, and the fallibility / suggestibility of humans. Now that you're both looking for ghosts, you'll see them. My mother is convinced her house is haunted and believes she hears and sees things in it daily. I lived there for the best part of a decade and never saw the smallest hint of anything that couldn't support a mundane explanation. You see what you expect to see.

Clarissaclaire · 23/12/2025 08:01

We lived in our last house for 13 years, it was built in 1764 and had history. I believe it was haunted, we all saw people, we heard footsteps….even our dogs heard the footsteps and responded. Things disappeared for weeks then reappeared, doors locked and we did not have the keys to unlock them. We sold up, never talked to anyone about our experiences and moved 7 years ago.
Two months ago I was contacted by the most recent residents, their 10 year son is being ‘attacked by something in the house’ and they wanted to know if we had had any experiences while living there.
To all the nae sayers, lucky you that you’ve not experienced this; to anyone who has experienced things like this, you have my full sympathy.

DinoLil · 23/12/2025 08:01

I've experienced a lot of odd things over the years so keep an open mind. My house is 200yrs old and I almost felt it hug me when I viewed it, it's so lovely. Anyway, I'm having work done at the moment. I've had to move out a few times because of the plaster dust, but I didn't tell the builder as he has a key and I didn't want him to think he can slack off. He said my house is haunted and the number of times he's phoned me to ask why I've moved stuff (a brand new basin being one thing!) is hilarious! I've not even been in the house.

I reckon it's because I don't like him. My dog doesn't like him. So my house doesn't like him!

TheChicDreamer · 23/12/2025 08:01

Ah that’s a good point. Your dreams sound really interesting! I’ve had sleep paralysis several times (runs in the female side of the family!) and once experienced an ‘incubus’ like thing, which was truly terrifying at the time but I’ve explained this away to myself as just my mind playing tricks.

This time was different though, because I remember vividly sitting up and feeling very calm, aware and conscious throughout, and as I said, even mildly irritated and wondering what on earth this woman was up to. And the context of the house’s layout and age wasn’t something that I as a sixteen year old was particularly aware of, but in hindsight would make perfect sense as a residual haunting.

But that’s something to think about for sure, waking dreams sound fascinating!

Edit to say: that was to @Marinetrained

TheChicDreamer · 23/12/2025 08:06

CurlewKate · 23/12/2025 07:53

Do you think that you sleeping on the sofa might have had something to do with it? Dreams can feel very real. And the being surprised and vaguely irritated sounds much more like the way you’d react in a dream than the way you’d react if you saw something while wide awake.

Edited

Thanks for your thoughts… yes I’ve wondered about this. I was certainly in a new environment where I wouldn’t expect to sleep so well. I think if I’d gone back to sleep afterwards I would have certainly dismissed it as a dream, but the fact I lay awake and observed her for a good five minutes, thinking very conscious thoughts just as I am right now, then spoke out loud to her and watched her disappear before getting up is the thing that has always made we wonder whether it was my mind playing dreamy tricks or not! 😆

crazysummertan · 23/12/2025 08:08

I don’t have much help, but we had what we called the “ mimic “ in our old property. This post will be long - so i dont know if it’s worth reading if you’re a non believer. - but i can see OP hasn’t had many people who have had experiences too. Which I’ve had plenty, but our old property was the worst one.

Anyway, our old property - we lived there for 4 years in total, for the first 2 years everything was fine, both of us had experience with the supernatural, my partner as a child, and me as a young tween. We had things happen that we couldn’t quite explain. But nevertheless it didn’t seem to bother us, and up until my last property I was always fascinated by it. I guess if there’s ghosts, it gives us hope there is something after life.

Anyway, going back to the mimic, it started when my daughter was around 3, we’d been moved in for 2 years, never had any problems at all. It was an apartment too, so it was all one floor. Me and DH was sat in the living room, watching TV and at around 10.00pm we hear our DD running in the hallway, we had our living room door ajar, so we could hear it clearly. The hallway light was off though so any potential shadows wouldn’t have been able to be seen. We waited around 15 seconds just to make sure it was from our hallway, as I said we lived in an apartment so initial thought was it could’ve potentially been coming from upstairs - No. it was our hallway plain as day, like daughters footsteps, as a parent you know exactly how your child sounds. And then I heard the run- back into the bedroom, and the creak just by the doorframe where the floor always creaks upon being stood on. I got up, and was thinking why on earth is she awake at this time, usual mom things, is her belly ok, bad dream?? Get into her bedroom, she’s fast asleep, mouth wide open, bed guard still up. - this was the first experience. And yes, I checked to make sure it wasn’t a “ pretend to be asleep “ moment.

second experience was one day my DH was taking a phone-call in his office, I can hear him plain as day, the walls are paper thin, I can hear every word he’s saying. I’m sat on the sofa, crocheting, no TV on, no phone on. Just me. DD is napping on the sofa next to me. I can hear my DH getting wound up, can’t be good, work is going bad. He ends the phone call quickly, rushes into the living room and asks “ what is going on, are you ok “ I’m sat on the sofa confused as heck. “ what do you mean what is going on, do I look ok?? “ he swears blind I’ve been calling him for 5 minutes, calling his name, asking for help. My voice. I most definitely wasn’t.

the last vocal experience was around 4 months before we left and one of the reasons we did actually leave.

we had been suffering with Covid, for around 3 weeks, and I was sleeping in my daughters room as she at that time was suffering with sickness, and then was dealing with a sleep regression, so I would sleep in her room, just to comfort her incase she would wake up, as this was more suitable for us especially with how hard covid hit my DH. One morning we woke up and my DH had told me he was waking up through the night with chest pains, and he was finding it unsettling and was getting concerned. I told him as you would, go to the drs and get it all checked out, make sure it isn’t anything serious. - we did.

that evening, I go to bed with my DD as we had the last couple of days, I get her to sleep, and I fall asleep myself, Covid luckily wasn’t too bad on myself, I had the loss of taste and smell, but overall, I’m thankful it wasn’t anymore. I wake up during the night to my partner whispering my name in my ear, I’m half asleep and facing the wall, and just as I fully wake up I hear him leave the bedroom, walk back into our bedroom, and shut the door. I get up instantly, thinking he’s dealing with the chest pains again, I want to comfort him. I go into the bedroom, he’s fast asleep, snoring with his mouth open. Just as I’m standing in our bedroom, I hear that floorboard creak in our daughter’s room. I head back in, and something doesn’t feel right. There was a battery operated lamp in the bedroom, it was a flimsy Wicca one I bought from Asda because my DD loved it. It worked for a couple weeks, and then stopped working, I tried replacing batteries but nothing worked, so we left it as an ornament no batteries in. However that evening, it decided to dimly lit itself. And from that corner of the room I could’ve swore I seen a shadow figure standing right behind the drawers where that lamp was.

this was the “ mimic “ as we called them. I had plenty of other experiences happen in this property. And as I said, we was believers, and intrigued, now I’m less intrigued and honestly just more scared of the possibility of it. I’m a chilled person too, I’m very head strong and will always choose facts over fiction. However some things cannot be explained, and this was one of them for me. I choose what happened over arrogance towards the idea there could possibly be something after life, whether that’s positive or negative.

edited to say many, not any.

Velvian · 23/12/2025 08:10

TheMorgenmuffel · 23/12/2025 07:49

People have literally explained it.
Giving a rational explanation is explaining it.

No they haven't, they've made suggestions, which may or may not be the explanation. There are many things in the world that we don't have the explanation for yet.

It is extremely unlikely that our particular age is the time when everyhing has been explained. Some of the explanations put forward will prove to be no more accurate than smelling herbs preventing the plague.

Marinetrained · 23/12/2025 08:11

TheChicDreamer · 23/12/2025 08:06

Thanks for your thoughts… yes I’ve wondered about this. I was certainly in a new environment where I wouldn’t expect to sleep so well. I think if I’d gone back to sleep afterwards I would have certainly dismissed it as a dream, but the fact I lay awake and observed her for a good five minutes, thinking very conscious thoughts just as I am right now, then spoke out loud to her and watched her disappear before getting up is the thing that has always made we wonder whether it was my mind playing dreamy tricks or not! 😆

Classic waking dream. The clue is in the fact you were asleep first. I too, when I have had these, watch the scene act out in front of me. And yes, it can last minutes. You know when you are really awake, and I am awake when it has happened.

I’m sorry, there is an explanation that fits a known phenomena.

Soontobe60 · 23/12/2025 08:12

Step away from the wacky baccy and you’ll soon be back to normal.

flattonicwater · 23/12/2025 08:13

FrankC · 23/12/2025 02:34

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.

This is the best post I ever read on MN! yes, exactly.

Your brain can play tricks on you

Nincompoo · 23/12/2025 08:15

I think it’s naive to think that the human race knows absolutely everything about everything and to make statements like ‘ghosts don’t exist’ when so many people have had experiences.

I’m an open minded sceptic and honestly, I’d quite like to see a ghost but nothing t report from me other than my picture rail hooks ping off all the bloody time 🤣

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