on a really quiet street. And something that we also really liked was that it was right beside an incredible 1800s-era mansion that sat on a huge estate-sized lot that took up the rest of the block.
So as we drove by the property, it seemed like, other than the price, it would be an ideal place to build our house and raise our family. But once the car was parked and we started to walk around the property I suddenly became violently ill. I had been feeling well, with no sign of sickness, right up until that moment. It just hit me full force right out of the blue. I was so sick that we headed back to the car as soon as I could make it that far and planned to go right back to our house. As soon as I got back into the car I was fine again, but we left anyway in case the illness returned. It didn’t. I felt completely normal still when we got home, and remained well until we went back to the building site the following week. Although not quite as intense as the first time, I was sick again as soon as I started to walk onto the property. We had not considered that the property could somehow be the cause of the illness at that point, but once again the minute I walked off the property and sat in the car, parked on the road, I immediately felt fine. I had so much to do during that time period that being sick was the last thing I needed, so I was very relieved when the feeling passed so quickly and I was able to resume my busy schedule when I got back home.
A few days later my husband suggested we drive by the building site again to see how the work on the new house was coming along. By then, though, I was starting to sense that for some bizarre reason that property made me feel deathly ill whenever I walked on it. This was a terrible feeling, because our new house was being built on that lot and I knew I couldn’t avoid it forever. So, somewhat nervously, we drove over to the new property. I sat in the car for a few minutes before I felt ready to walk over to where the house was being built. Nothing happened at first, and I was relieved and felt foolish at the same time. I thought it had been pretty ridiculous that I had thought there was any connection between that land and my recent bouts of illness.
We stayed for a while. I didn’t feel sick to my stomach and was very relieved about that, but did notice a strange but obvious tension started to develop between my husband and me. We have always had a great relationship and are the best of friends, but as we stood looking at the foundation hole that had been dug and the other work that was being done, we started snapping at each other over the most trivial things. This was so out of character for us that it must have almost sounded funny, but at the time I felt this very real fury at him, but couldn’t really understand why. I could tell from his tone that he was furious at me too, and we acted like we were enemies. It was lucky our kids were at home with a babysitter because I wouldn’t have wanted them to hear their parents talking to each other like that!
We made up by the time we got home and both felt terrible for how we had treated each other. Like my illness, the negative feelings we had toward each other had just come out of nowhere and left just as quickly as soon as we left the property.
By the time our house was finished it looked great and we were all happy with it. Everything seemed fine for the first few weeks, but then our youngest child became really ill. After consulting several doctors, including specialists, no one could ever determine what was causing the problem. Eventually everything was fine again, and fortunately the illness did not return and everyone remained healthy. But that awful tension definitely came back into our marriage. We were so miserable for the whole time we lived in that house.
After a couple of years my husband was offered a new job and we had to move. When the real estate agent was over to give us an appraisal on what the property was worth, he remarked on what a huge improvement our next-door neighbours had made to their home. I was curious about that, because their house was so beautiful and I had only ever known it to look like that. He explained to me that a long time ago (probably at least fifty years), when he was a young boy, he had lived nearby, and he and the other neighbourhood children used to bet each other that they wouldn’t have the nerve to step onto the “haunted” house’s property, because they were all terrified of that whole area.
At that time the property was completely overgrown, and the mansion was in a terrible state of disrepair because it had long been abandoned. The property that our house was built on was originally part of that huge estate. But the house next door was now beautifully restored and didn’t look anything like the agent remembered. I asked him why it had the reputation of being haunted, but he seemed very reluctant to talk about it further and the topic was dropped. And I never did learn any more about the history of that property before we moved.
What I did learn, though, through friends in the neighbourhood, was that since we left, just a few years ago, the house has had a very high turnover rate, with the next two couples who owned it after us both leaving shortly after they moved in, on account of their marriages breaking up and them getting divorced. And the next owner, a single middle-aged woman, had some sort of nervous breakdown after living there for only a few months, and had to move away to live with her father in another city.
So after that experience, I truly believe now that even if you build a new house that no one else has lived in before, it can still be “haunted” by whatever negative energy the property it is built on, has, especially if there was a disturbing history of some kind.
Sweater Girl
I don’t know if this could be classified as a ghost story, because I’m not sure it was a ghost that I saw. That experience definitely haunted me, though, and whatever it was, it could only be described as supernatural.
About twenty years ago, when my youngest child had just turned one, we moved to a new town and bought our first house there, in the oldest (and busiest) section of town.
The only problem I had with the neighbourhood was the congestion from all the traffic on a street not designed to accommodate modern vehicles. Between three-thirty and four o’clock every afternoon, dismissed students from four different schools in the area surrounding us hurried past, and even inside our house the noise from this was very loud.
One warm, sunny spring day I was playing with my little daughter in our living room. She would get so excited to see all the children racing by at dismissal time that I would sometimes put her into her playpen in front of the large bay window so she could happily watch them.
The traffic started to increase as always, with parents approaching the schools to pick up their children, and I could hear the bells start to ring, signalling another ended school day. And on cue, as always, the kids not getting rides started walking or running down the street, free from school for the rest of the day. So, in every way, it just seemed like a very typical afternoon.
But as I placed the baby into her playpen for a better view of all this commotion, something happened that I will never, ever forget. The sunny
afternoon suddenly (and when I say suddenly I do mean immediately) turned into a cold, cloudy day. And although there had been a constant din of noise and activity right outside the window up until that very second, it was now deathly silent, without a vehicle or person in sight. Even my neighbour who had seen me looking out the window and had just waved to me from his front garden only a moment before was no longer visible.
My daughter stared up at me, and her big blue eyes showed just as much bewilderment as I was feeling myself. I walked over to the front door and slowly turned the knob, feeling I had to investigate what was going on, but nervous to leave the safety of my home. I glanced back at the baby in her playpen, and then immediately looked in the large front window at her again as soon as I stepped out onto the porch so she knew I was still there.
We were both baffled. I stood on our front porch staring up and down the street trying to understand how the cloudless, sunny day had been so altered so quickly into the cold, damp grey afternoon it
