Growing Up in a Haunted House
by Judith
(California)
The house I grew up in was haunted. I am the youngest child of six and all of my siblings agree that the house was haunted. None of the other siblings ever saw a ghosts except for me. My parents did not believe in ghosts and would ignore the strange things that would happen. Numerous things happened to me that I can not even share them all.
We had a heavy wooden door in the basement that was hard to open. Sometimes out of the blue it would start swinging open and shut. My dad ended up removing the door.
Sometimes the dishes in the cupboards would rattle violently - though our swinging plants were still. I always felt like something was watching me in that house. I was always scared, even in the day time.
We lived on several acres of land. The far back of the property had been covered in eucalyptus trees. My dad had cut most of them down. In the summer sometimes a few friends of mine would pitch a tent back there and camp out for the night when we were kids. There were a few nights when strange things happened to us out there.
In the middle of the night when we had drifted to sleep in our tents. Something caved in the side of our tent. It felt as if a somewhat heavy mass was throw at the side of our tent. The force of it picked up my duffel bag and threw it across the test. My friend and I had woken up at that point and were wondering what just happened. Then someone grabbed my ankle from the outside of the tent.
At that point I was sure that it was my dad playing pranks on us so all of my fear dissolved and I stood up and unzipped the tent in a hurry. I called out "Dad, stop, we know you're there." It was almost dawn by then and it was light enough to see the area around the tent. I saw no one. Just an empty field and a few trees.
I could see the gravel road leading to the house clearly and no one was on it. I was still looking for my dad. I went up to the house, sure I would find my dad up and dressed with a grin on his face from playing a trick on us. To my surprise, he was still asleep in bed and their was no evidence that he had ever been up yet that morning. As soon as I realized it wasn't my dad I felt a chill go up my spine.
When I was about 16 I was walking out of the bathroom in the middle of the day, and standing in front of me was a tall old man dressed in an old fashioned suit. He had an old fashioned square hat on his pale head. He was somewhat transparent but I could still make out every detail of his face and clothing. He had no expression on his face.
When I saw him I wasn't scared at all, which I thought was strange considering how creeped out I always felt when alone in the house. I stared at him in amazement for a few seconds and then he was gone. I could not believe my eyes. I am positive what I saw was there and was not a figment of my imagination.
There was another occurrence where I saw a qhost. This had happened in previous years, I was maybe 9 or 10 years old. I had not thought much about this encounter until I had seen the old man. I was walking towards my bedroom one night, my mom was standing in the kitchen and I said goodnight casually and turned the corner. There before me stood a little blonde haired boy in a black suit. He was maybe about 4 or 5 years old. I was so caught off guard that I stopped whatever I was saying to my mother in mid sentence. He was gone in a flash.
Again I wasn't scared when I saw him but just confused and startled. I thought I must have been seeing things.
I currently live in a house where one of the previous tenants committed suicide. I do not feel any presence in this house and almost never feel scared or spooked. I am confident that if his spirit was here in this house that I would be aware of it.
My dad sold our old family house several years ago. Sometimes I think about visiting the new owners and asking them if they have experienced any unusual occurrences such as I did.
