A bit freaked, what do other MNers think?

[Callmemadam]

I am not going to change my name for this, as anyone who recognises it will probably know I come from the sound and sensible corner . I would like to know what you make of this, though. We live in an old Victorian/medieval house in the SE, have been here for 2 years. There have been times when we have heard music, smelt smells (usually boiling meat for some reason) and heard what sounds like a child's voice upstairs calling. EVERY time we dismiss it/rationalise it away. Now 2 things have happened which have started me wondering if there is something else after all. We have never ever said anything to the children about this stuff, yet a fortnight ago dd1 (11) came running downstairs in tears at 11pm saying she couldn't go back to sleep because she had been listening to heavy breathing in her bedroom. She had even got out of bed to check little sisters room because she thought little sister was snoring. When she got back into bed someone spoke in her ear. She was adamant it was a voice but couldn't say what it said, it was just a noise to her. Anyway, we rationalised that away (overtired, just dropping off etc) and then the other night a friend came to stay with me with her 3 month old dd. We were alone in the house, downstairs watching tv, and baby was upstairs in the travel cot in the centre of the spare room. About 9.45pm there was a HUGE white noise static on the listner and we both jumped and Isabelle said'what the hell was that'. She picked the listener up and we could hear footsteps, as clear as a bell, crossing the wooden bedroom floor. She went haring upstairs thinking it was my little one going to look at the baby but dd2 was fast asleep in her room. Definately footsteps, and Isabelle knows nothing at all about the house. Have to admit I'm now wondering about it.....

hi when we first moved in to our house we were the first ones on the cul de sac and on the first night heard a old mns frail voice on ds intercom over the next couple of days things would go missing and a lot of bannging, we got in touch with our local church and the vicar came out and blessed every room in the house and told us what to say if we hear feel anything again, it went so i think its a good idea if you got a vicar out

Have to say that since it all i have very vivid dreams of my grandad and now i can feel his presence in the house at times as i know its him it doesnt unnerve me

This kind of stuff would freak me out, even though I am a very sensible scientist... I really hope you can find a rational explanation. FWIW our baby monitor does the occassional burst of very loud white noise for a few seconds. It doesn't happen with any regularity - some evenings it'll do it two or three times, and others not at all. Mind you, it's never been followed by the sound of footsteps.

You really do need to examine all logical explanations first. White noise on the monitor can be a tiny dip in the electricity supply for example (assuming it is a plugged in type).

None of it sounds like a poltergeist to me, far too calm and ordered. Smells can be a sign of various spiritual happenings, doesn't have to imply poltergeist.

Possibly spirit activity, the age of the house would suggest it is possible. Try to relax and not worry about it, the more wound up you get the more you will start finding things that worry you.

I have a friend who had a similar experience and she contacted a local vicar who put her in touch with someone who did a excorcism. All you have got to say is "im really sceptical but its bothering the children so just to put my mind at rest...."

I kept seeing a person walking into one of our rooms and thought it was my husband, but quite a few times when I asked him he said it wasnt. Eventually I told him what had happened and said I thought the house was haunted and he said he had come to the same conclusion!!

I read something which said you could tune in or tune out of seeing psychic manifestations (or whatever - as you can tell im not an expert!)I just sat down and said "OK I know you are here & thats fine but I really dont want to see you" and nothing has happened since!!

I have to say I WILL always try to find a logical reason for things but sometimes you just have to accept that there isnt one.

Actually the vicar may have blessed the house - an exorcism sounds a bit hollywood doesnt it! LOL

We bought an 1890's cottage and the owner before us who collapsed here then died in hospital is around. My PILs are spiritualists and they were round one day and dh and I remarked that we could smell pipe smoke. "Oh yes, pipes up MIL, there's a man wandering around here". Last week when they were round again, FIL commented that there was a man looking at the back door and shaking his head. "He doesn't like the back door you've put on" says FIL "but he doesn't mind you living here".

Last night I was lying in bed and could smell the pipe smoke again. I told him to bugger off! .

You could try your local spiritualist church Callmemadam if you wanted some advice about it.

(Surfermum)

I think I'd start keeping a log, too.

I'd try not to let it bother me.

I used to be the world's biggest skeptic.

Until I could no longer deny what I was seeing and sensing.

On the other hand, one good point about that is that if someone is indeed still around, it's no mystery to me who they are.

I grew up in a house, parts of which dated back to the Norman age, some of it was Elizabethan and other bits Victorian. It even has secret rooms, canon balls from the civil war & an old shoe in the roof from the 17th century. Must have been hundreds of people have lived there & not one spiritual incident. However, lots of things like the dog barking for no reason (he is a pain), the fridge makes very strange moaning noises, doors bang shut when the wind blows from the East etc etc. You can find the "supernatural" if you want, or you can find ordinary stuff.
I used to get hideous inteferance on my monitor. I'd hear other babies, get taxi companies, pizza deliveries & I could hear other mothers in the area singing lullabies to their babies sometimes.
We get strange smells when our neighbours cook certain things - at least I'm presuming its my neighbours!!!!
I've woken up before convinced that there is something in the room, but I know it is just a bad dream.
However, I could have thought that those things meant that my Victorian terrace was haunted.

It just doesn't happen to some people.

But when it starts happening to several different people, or visitors who know nothing about the place, etc, it's possible there's something amiss w/it.

Don't think the age of a home has much to do w/things.

I've been in council flats and homes built in the 60s that had had a lot go on in them.

Also in modern homes which were built over the site where older ones stood.

Alert Alert Serious boring skeptical person about to post in discouraging vein:

I would be very, very, very unwilling to express the belief that our house was haunted anywhere near my children, personally. Potentially extremely scary for an 11 year old to report that she thinks that someone has whispered in her ear and to subsequently find that her parents explain this by the house being haunted, I'd guess. I'd definitely stick with the rational explanations as far as she and her siblings are concerned.

I wouldn't tell her it was haunted, I agree.

But I also would not and never will brush off things my children tell me as patently untrue.

That can be just as damaging.

Totally agree re not dismissing it either, expat. Just think that it could all blow up into something really scary for this dd if it's dealt with by going with a haunted house explanation (I'm sure Callmemadam isn't doing this anyway).

Ooh scary. Agree with advice not to say anything to children. this has never happened to me but similar things happened in my boyfriend's house (when I was a teenager) which was 'haunted' by the woman who used to live there whose husband had died suddenly. i remember making a cup of tea for him one day and shouting through from the kitchen to ask if he wanted milk; he didn't reply but when i went into the living room he said he was sorry but the ghost had been reading the paper over his shoulder! I nearly dropped the tray! Also several years later a friend lived in a house with some sort of presence - they had unexplained cold spots in the house (around the TV for instance), dog barking at a spot on the wall which they later found out had once been a doorway, kept seeing things out of the corner of their eyes etc. all i know is that in both cases the famiilies sort of acepted their ghost and in the second case my friend just sat down and had a sort of man to man chat with it (or with the spot on the wall, anyway.) He told the ghost it was scaring people and would it mind going away or piping down - it worked.

if you could explain things rationally you would, wouldn't you? but it may be worthwhile trying to talk to it...

Even to a sceptic it sounds like there are some noises of concern in your house! Personally I'd be tempted to try the priest route on the pretence that it's bothering the children.

Have you ever tried researching the history of your house?

I wouldn't recommend trying to talk to it or contact it in ANY way unless you know who it is and what it wants, in other words, if you're a medium, clairvoyant, etc.

No!

DEFFO NEVER use a ouija board or seance, either. Leave that to professionals.

Your mind is far more powerful than you think (no pun intended). Channel and focus on your thoughts on what you want to happen w/regards to what you feel is the presence in your home.

I don't honestly think a medium or clairvoyant or priest will make the slightest difference, but if you think it will - then of course it will.
Given that the human brain is skilled in creating associations - that is what makes us so successful it can take an outsider to break the associations. So you think inteferance on the monitor is a "presence" - after the medium/clairvoyant or priest has been, you'll think its just the local pizza delivery bike with a radio in the vicinity!

Im also a bit of a sceptic but I have seen a few odd things.

My DH who when he was 3 lived in an old terrace house and had an imaginary friend who he played with at the bottom of the stairs. When they moved the friend dissapeared. Years later he told this story to his psychology professor who did some research in the news archives and found a story about a little boy who had died in the house. We have often wondered if he is still there..

The day my dad died as we got up to go to bed that evening his armchair moved about a foot back, no one had been sitting in it, it just didnt seem right. We have not seen dad since, but we definately felt his presence that day, he was a happy man and I assume he just came home with us and has since passed over to elsewhere

See this is why I hate baby monitors, they scare the poop out of me, I always imagine I'll hear something spooky on them!

Me too Seashells, always dreaded hearing footsteps, the op has scared me to death!

I mean, really, what is the rational explanation for hearing heavy footfalls when you're in a house in the middle of nowhere?

Although Im Very sceptical, I have heard stories like this from people I wholeheartedly trust. My MIL was gardening last year and heard her father (dead for 20 years) call her name.
My FIL is a musician and once played in an old church and when we was locking up he could hear a child giggling through the PA system and checked all over and couldnt find anything.
I also had something happen a couple of months ago when I was on my bike and I asked a couple of MNers about it.
I suppose we will never know why these things happen and som things I just cant rationalise.

I am a fairly sensible professional person, but am also sensitive to spirit activity, and we had a situation similar to this a few years ago. I got in touch with the minister of my local Christian Spiritualist church, and he came and did a little service. The lady/spirit was seen by several members of the family and by a couple of visiting friends, and also by a builder who was so rattled he refused to come back. We sorted it all out eventually. I was very calm about it, didn't make a big deal - she was sitting in my son's bedroom, so there wasn't much point in pretending it wasn't happening. The point is, these things do happen, and they can be dealt with.

Thanx for all the suggestions! Scummy, I absulutely would NEVER let my children think that there was anything to concern them: I am, and was boringly matter of fact about it and sent her straight back to bed . We are in the middle of house renovations atm, and so I am interested in what Lucy5 says. I am reluctant to go down the vicar route as that would seem to authenticate something iyswim. Have no idea of the history of the place, but it is the main house of what was once a large victorian estate but all the buildings, barn, oast, stables etc have been sold off as separate dwellings. However, the house is in a very small valley which was probably inhabited from the Iron Age, when they mined down here, and later, coppiced charcoal. The original house dates back a long way. I don't feel alarmed at all as although I am sceptical about the existance of spirits the house is a warm and friendly place to be. I said that it's easy to be sceptical until it happens to you. For example, my husband , who dismissed it, came to bed late one night last year, and was sitting on the loo ([grin TMI] watching the light pull at the other end of the room swinging very precisely from left to right at the same distance without slowing down, and then stopped abruptly. He tried and tried to make it happen again and he had entered by another door, and forunf he could't diturb the light pull, let alone make it do the swing again. He came to bed so fast!!

I arranged for the minister to visit when everyone was out at work/school etc.

Just to rationalise one point on here, I dont know if any other MNers have noticed but when we used the baby intercom thing it picked up on our neighbours two doors down and one night they came to the door because their wee boy had said "the mans talking to the baby" and they thought he was hearing "things" turns out they were picking up our signal and could hear us.