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

No, of course we don’t know everything. But we DO know some things! Whenever anything paranormal has been properly investigated it has always turned out to be perfectly normal and fitting well within the laws of physics. We don’t need quantum physics to explain sleep paralysis, dreaming, faulty electrics, gusts of wind, houses shifting and creaking as they settle……. Of course people experience what they say they experience. That’s not disputed. It’s the explanation for what they experience that’s open to discussion.

I can believe you but also you should be aware that anyone can hallucinate

This is good advice…

we used to live in a very old house-built in 1475. Lots of little things went on that were…hard to explain…And we never felt alone there, though also never in a horrible way. Just as if there was someone else there.
For visiting tradesmen it was a different matter however (we were having work done a lot when we first moved in). 4 separate ones said they felt ‘weird’ or as if they were being watched. One refused to work in one particular room in the house. Make of that what you will.

The very need to go 'ghosts dont exist' is weird.
It always comes across as a bit of a narcissistic thing to say tbh.

I don't think people do go around saying ghosts don't exist. I certainly can't remember anyone starting a thread here in that vein.

Ghosts don't exist and I can't see how it's narcissistic to say that to someone claiming otherwise.

'I've never seen anything so, who knows'. Sure, makes sense. Perfectly fair.

That's not really how the world works through. Nobody, ever, has presented observable, measurable, replicable evidence of ghosts. So it doesn't make sense to agree that they might exist, just because someone says so.

I don't mind what people think or why they think it, but I don't have to play along.

But here you have a person who's given you perfectly plausible reasons as to why her house 'could' be haunted.

There wasn't a single plausible reason! Just a load of hearsay from a stranger on the internet which - even if it happened exactly as described - could all be explained by a host of infinitely more plausible explanations... including that they made the whole thing up!

And you're like 'nope, not real lalalalala'.

Show me a flying pig and I'll believe that pigs can fly. Tell me that everyone who stays in your spare room hears flapping and oinking outside the window at night and I'll reply that you/they are lying or mistaken.

Hitchins' Razor: That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.

The jury is out on a lot of things. Science is constantly looking to prove itself wrong. I'm willing to keep a very open mind where it's reasonable to do so. But I won't entertain fantasy like ghosts, magic healers, time travel, spoon bending or any other baseless nonsense.

It's weird. It always makes me think of a child that's been told ghosts aren't real at 5 and never questioned it their whole lives.

Quite the opposite.

I was convinced I'd seen a ghost when I was about 7-8. Told the story for years, and genuinely believed it. My friend saw it too. Then I grew up, and developed critical thinking skills. My friend admitted that they only went along with my story because it was fun telling other kids we were ghost hunters and taking them on ghost hunts in the trees behind a creepy manor house.

Which it was, until I found out that the ghostly old lady who vanished through the wall was actually a sweet, hunched over little woman of about 90 that did groundskeeping and had disappeared through a gate hidden behind a bush.

Everyone told me that ghosts weren't real but at 8 years old I'd seen one with my own eyes and wouldn't hear otherwise. When faced with a much more plausible explanation, I was forced to question what I knew and only by doing so did I come to understand that I'd been mistaken.

Terrifued that anything could rock their world view or take away their perceived control over their lives.

The only people who are terrified are the people who assume that the most likely explanation for anything they don't (or won't take the time to ) understand is some disgruntled supernatural entity out to give them grief.

I'd love to wake up tomorrow and find out that my nan's ghost had moved in, or that I could fly, or that aliens had landed and abducted David Walliams for probing.

The only thing that would cause me to lose control of my life would be losing my ability to think critically and apply common sense, to the point that I was willing to believe pure fantasy.

I use to live in a really old house in the middle of nowhere.

There were a lot of odd things that happened. You’d see people out of the corner of your eye sometimes, there a was one room in particular my dogs would not set foot in, their heckles would
raise and they would growl at the door.

You’d hear voices upstairs sometimes. Sound carried from neighbours houses though, right? Only our nearest neighbours were a 2-3 min walk down the lane.

I didn’t mention it to anyone as it was in the arse end of nowhere and I wanted visitors. I had a friend and his wife come to stay once and they left after one night, they were so uncomfortable in the house.

It had an awful feeling. The first time we viewed it, I couldn’t go in. I had this awful feeling of panic and dread and it was like something was physically stopping me from walking in.

Stupidly we bought it though, absolute panic buy as we couldn’t find anywhere else and it was very cheap for the area (the person selling wanted out asap as her dh had died there, v young of cancer, and she was staying at b&bs as she couldn’t face going back to the house).

The house needed work and we had a couple of workmen refuse to come back.

One was a tiler, doing the kitchen floor. He set to work and I had to go into town. I told him I would be popping out at some point. All fine with him, big job so he was going to be there for days. He said no worries. It was a very big house, so it wasn’t a little place where you would hear people coming and going.

Anyway, we went out for a hour, came back, I went to make a tea and asked if he wanted any.

”God, half term holidays, eh? Your kids have been making a racket running up
and down upstairs, I thought they would come through that ceiling!”

There was only me and ds, who had been out. No one else was in the house. I told him that. He went white as a sheet.

He called the next day saying he wasn’t coming back.

Ex h also still has the photo I took of him, on the sofa on one of the first nights we lived there. He was on his own, but the photo looks like there is a whiteish figure next to him, like a mate sat with their arm around you for the photo. He even had it printed in the Fortean times 🤣

Brilliantly put.

I’m always amazed that people believe in ghosts but choose to think they’d communicate by actions like taking a picture hook off a wall? Wouldn’t they just say ‘hello’?

I believe more in ghosts, that Catholic priests.

Yes, there is: High Church Anglicans.

Do you believe in God?

I want to know more about your house!
Was it the home of a hanging judge or do you live in a converted courtroom?

I find religion as a concept really interesting. But I find the notion of an actual higher power, or prayers being answered as ridiculous as I find ghosts.

In Italy Priests do come into a house and bless it. It doesn't have any connection to ghosts and the paranormal. Simply asking God to protect the inhabitants. It may be an idea to ask a Priest to bless your house and go from there.

I had an experience many years ago in Cornwall with my DS who was 17 at the time.

Not sure why my link is t showing

On the ‘all societies have ghosts’ thing — obviously ghosts have a strong cultural element. And cultural priming even infects one of the most obvious physiological events that make people think they’ve seen a ghost: sleep paralysis. The narratives your particular culture has around the supernatural will affect what you ‘see’ during sleep paralysis. If you’re from somewhere that traditionally believes in jinn, demonic possession, vampires, incubi etc, that’s what you’re more likely to hallucinate. (And obviously will affect the recommended ‘remedy’, too. It’s interesting that in a country where only a small minority attend Christian churches regularly, there’s still a lingering belief that you call in a priest when you have a ‘haunting’.)

People who believe in ghosts generally seem to be very defensive and don’t like anyone to suggest there might be a logical explanation. I’m particularly amused at one poster referring to non believers as narcissists. Where do you even start with that one? Believing in ghosts feeds into that reassurance many people need that there is more to existence than the physical brain and body. That we go on in another form. If there really were ghosts, I don’t see why we wouldn’t be living perfectly happily alongside them rather than talking about them in quivering voices. What is there to be frightened of? Apparently they mostly just waft around knocking stuff off walls and tables and arse around with the lights. Nobody has been killed by one. The fear is what will kill you, not the ghost.

Yes. I don’t believe in ghosts because there’s absolutely no evidence they exist. If someone presents me with credible evidence, obviously I’ll reconsider— I mean, why wouldn’t I? Why wouldn’t anyone be intrigued by discovering something entirely new to what we currently know about how the universe works. But for now, I’ll continue seeing the kind of experience described on here as a farrago of hearsay, mistakes, misremembering, children being children, pets being pets, sleep paralysis, superstition, pattern-seeking, wishful hinting about deceased loved ones etc.

Fair enough.

I do find it baffling that religious people we’ve known over the years have quite aggressively dismissed the idea of ghosts as nonsense yet believe in God.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

At the moment you’ve got ‘gravity’, ‘electricity’, ‘shadows’, and an ‘old house’.

That’s not a haunting, that’s home ownership.

We have similar issues with lights in our living room. They flicker and randomly switch themselves on and off. We thought house may need rewiring although it is only twenty years old. Electrician came and all is fine with the electrics. He said they must be faulty light fittings. We only moved in 3 years ago and they were all in when we came so not sure how old they are. Happily got electrician to fit some new ones more to our taste anyway. THEY STILL FLICKER AND TURN THEMSELVES ON AND OFF!!

Anyway, internet research tells me some older dimmer switches are not necessarily compatible with new light fittings so think this may actually be the issue. Bit miffed electrician didn't think of this.

BUT since we've moved in DH, is convinced that he can sometimes smell cigarette smoke in the living room. We don't smoke or allow smoking in the house. Previous owners weren't smokers either. Electrics have all been checked out so unlikely to be faulty electrics causing a burning smell.

How do ghosts smoke?

They use boo-tane!!

Sorry, it's the best I could do.....

They don't but neither does anybody else in the house. I personally have never smelt it only DH has so I believe we have a faulty dimmer switch/light fitting connection and DH is imagining he smells smoke for some reason. However, we do joke that the house is haunted. Just thought it was funny that someone else was experiencing the light issue too.

That's not going to work. My studio's in a deconsecrated Methodist chapel and it's full of mysterious noises and general odd vibes. Nobody wants to go upstairs after dark.