Your True Tales
April 2005 – Page 10

The House Didn't Want Her
by Penguin

In the summer of 1999 my husband and I began shopping for houses. We had a small child and were ready to move out of our apartment. A good friend of ours was a real estate agent, so we asked her to show us some properties. One of the properties was a beautiful old house, approximately 100 years old. It had four bedrooms, a formal living room, a parlor, a dining room, family room, a kitchen and a study. In addition, there was a mother-in-law's quarters upstairs (which included another entire kitchen, bedroom, living room and bathroom) along with a separate side entrance.

I suppose our first mistake was viewing the home at night... it was creepy from the outside. Three stories tall, it loomed over the street lamps below. The trees in the yard were as tall as the house. Once we got into the house, I was immediately uneasy. Something wasn't right (aside, of course, from the fact that the house was in terrible shape -- all the wood was soft and would have to be replaced). The '70s-style yellow/orange carpet was covering the most beautiful cherry hardwood floors. Our agent told us that only one family had owned the home since it was built and that the original owners and their children had passed away in the home. The estate of said children were now selling the house.

As I walked toward the stairs, I was very uneasy. There was an attic door to a crawlspace half way up the first flight of stairs on a landing. As I made my way up the stairs, I couldn't help but feel like something was with me... walking right behind me. I turned around, but nothing was there. My husband and daughter were in the kitchen with the agent at the time, so I knew it was not them. I made my way up the stairs onto the second floor. There was a shotgun bathroom (long, but not deep at all) with a sliding door. I stepped into the bathroom to admire the antique clawfoot tub and set down my purse on the floor. It was a square straw purse with a zippered top -- and I am certain it was closed as I had driven to the house and had placed my keys inside to secure them.

After admiring the bathroom for a moment, I made my way into the mother-in-law's quarters and then back downstairs. All the while, I felt uncomfortable... nauseous and dizzy. As we were preparing to leave, I realized that I'd left my purse upstairs. I quickly ascended the first flight of stairs (again feeling as if someone was with me) and what I saw when I reached the top of the second flight was horrifying. The entire contents of my purse had been strewn all over the floor. My compact was in the bathroom as was my wallet, my sunglasses and keys were in the doorway of the bathroom and my makeup case was in the hallway. My husband, daughter and the real estate agent had looked around upstairs before I did; no one else had been up there.

I gathered my things and quickly ran down the stairs. We did not purchase that house, and each time I drive past it, I get the creeps.

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