How do you know if a previous occupant in your home died whilst living there?

[SundaySimmons]

An unemployed mother has demanded to be given a new council house after she discovered that a man died in her current home.

Lisa Bowden insists that her traveller beliefs mean that she cannot live anywhere where someone has died.

And the mother of four says her local council has a duty to provide her with a new taxpayer-funded home.

Former heroin addict Ms Bowden, 40, moved in to the two-bedroom flat in Dartford, Kent in October with her nine-year-old son.

But she was soon horrified to learn that the previous tenant, a 64-year-old man, had died in the property, and called in a priest to bless the first-floor flat.

However, she says that she still believes she can sense the man's spirit moving around her home, and has applied to be moved by Dartford Borough Council.

According to traveller tradition, when someone dies at home their caravan should be burned in order release the spirit of the dead person.

'It is forbidden for us to enter somewhere where someone's died,' said Ms Bowden, who has not worked since 1998 because of ill health. 'It's not good for us.

'I can feel the man's spirit and it gives me the shivers. I can't live here. I always sleep with the light on and would never stay here at night on my own.

'The council need to give me a new home - one with a garden and three bedrooms so my daughter can visit.'

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I'm not going to debate Gypsy tradition, being on benefits or whether she has the right to insist on being moved or not.

I am wondering how you would know who has previously died in situ in your home?

Especially in old properties where someone could have died in their sleep forty years ago?

The old lady, we were told by the landlords. The man, I just know.

I remember being worried as a teen when our friends, a family with two boys, moved in round the corner. The woman who had lived there before had hanged herself from the loft hatch and her two little boys had found her .

I don't think I as so much disturbed by the possibility of ghosts as I was by wondering what had driven the lady, whom I knew only slightly, to do something so awful. My friends lived in the house for years and did not see anything ghostly.

People moving into retirement flats know that there's a good chance that the previous occupant died there, but it doesn't seem to discourage buyers. Also in care homes and hospices there is a fair chance that the any room will have seen not just one but several deaths.

Doesn't bother me in general. Our first flat was over a hundred years old and I assume people must have died in it. The second house we had was a 70s semi so I don't know. Our current house was a post office until fairly recently, but again, who knows?

I once worked in a hospital where people had been murdered, but didn't think much about it.

The only problem is that when very depressed I tend to think back to every horrible thing I've heard and think a lot about ghosts (don't otherwise) so if I knew someone had died in a particular place in my house, especially if traumatic death or younger person, it would really bother me if I was unwell. For that reason I wouldn't buy a house where I knew someone had died violently or by suicide.

Previous owner died in the room I'm sitting in now (natural causes aka old age). I try not to think about it!

I know that people have died in my house. I like it that people have been able to die at home, not in hospital. I find it very comforting somehow to know that all the events of living a life have taken place by the previous occupants.

I live in a 1970's house and knew that the old lady who lived here died in the house when I bought it. I didn't really expect my neighbour to give me a blow by blow account of her death (and exact location in my bedroom) though.

Doesn't bother me. I thought it odd that the estate agent tried to hide that she had died in there (told me she'd gone into a care home, when someone else had already said she'd died) - so perhaps people do find it offputting.

I found the house that we looked at where the couple had separated more offputting - a much more uneasy and unhappy feeling.