When we sold our house we rented a house a few miles away. It was 1970s build on a big estate of similar houses. My ex had chosen it without me. When I saw it I took an instant dislike to it. On the day we moved in I was there on my own cleaning it while the removal firm loaded our stuff into their van.
My ex dropped me off and when I went in I didn’t want to shut the door. I noticed a weird sweet smell and the place just felt eerie.
The first night I couldn’t sleep and kept going into DDs room to check her. She was 11 at the time and I never checked on her unless she was unwell but I felt I needed to.
A few days later I was getting dressed in the main bedroom when a crack appeared In the mirrored wardrobe door. In front of our eyes the crack went from one side to the other.
My aunt came round with her grandson and the first thing the boy (he was about 7) said to me was Is this place real or pretend. I know what he meant as it felt sort of on its own and unreal even though it was surrounded by houses.
The smell didn’t go despite airing the house. It wasn’t a damp smell or anything i could identify. A friend called round one day while we were out and she told me later she didn’t want to park on the drive for some reason. The kitchen, the main bedroom and the landing seemed the creepiest places of all. One friend wouldn’t use the upstairs loo as she didn’t want to go up on her own.
One day I came home to find a teddy bear that was on a chair on the landing was on the floor. No one had been home since morning.
I started to feel weirdly depressed and disassociated and found myself spending as much time as I could away from the house. I didn’t feel safe and didn’t feel DD was safe either. In the bedroom I felt watched and by something not nice. I kept having to check on DD in the night.
I didn’t wear my Engagement or wedding rings as I had eczema and kept them in a little fabric pouch in my jewellery box. I don’t know what made me open the pouch one day but I did and the rings had gone. I darednt tell my ex.
The day we were packing up the bedroom contents I found both rings In a bowl of pot pouree on the bedroom windowsill.
After a few months I genuinely felt it wasn’t a safe place and something bad was going to happen. I persuaded my ex to try get the tenancy ended early. The landlord said as long as he could get another tenant and he didn’t end up out of pocket we could break the contract.
We found a flat and the minute we moved our stuff in the depression and weird feeling lifted. I felt as if a weight had been taken off me. We went to clean round once the house was empty. On the window sill of the main bedroom we found 2 small cameos like you see on necklaces. One was a Photo of a oldish man, the other an oldish woman (they looked Edwardian clothes or maybe Victorian). I phoned the removal guys number and asked if he or the other chap had found them and put them on the windowsill. They said they hadn’t and didn’t see any cameos.
Years later I found out that the old man who had lived in the house had died in the main bedroom. He apparently was a miserable sod who hated women. The only people who had felt spooked out were women apart from my aunts little grandson.
It was the weirdest most unsettling experience and the sudden lifting of quite a bad depression when we left was very odd. I have had occasional spells of depressed but apart from this time they very gradually resolved. This was like an instant change.
The next tenant apparently didn’t stay out their whole tenancy either. I’m sure the cracking mirror was just a weakness in the glass of the wardrobe door but the other things like the teddy on the floor, the smell, the cameos and the rings I can’t explain.