I Lived in a Haunted House

Debra and Brenda, sisters

I don’t believe in scary ghosts. I do believe in supernatural occurrences that might seem frightening because we don’t understand them or can’t control them. But as far as Hollywood style-mean, scary ghosts – nah. The ghosts I believe in aren’t scary. Which is why when I moved into a haunted house, I never felt fear. 

I did get irritated when she kept unlocking my back door. The first time it happened, I assumed I’d forgotten to lock it. I usually went out the front door so it seemed a logical conclusion that I’d forgotten to lock the back door before I’d left. And after the second time, I could’ve sworn I’d locked it. From then on, I made a mental note and checked it twice. But often I would come home to an unlocked back door.

She didn’t like metal music. My nephew came to stay with us for a month. When I wasn’t home, he’d crank up the metal. If he stepped outside, she’d change the station. He figured I had a weird radio, but I knew better.

I say ‘she’ because my sister dubbed our ghost, Mary, after my mother-in-law whose house it was before we moved in. When both my in-laws died, we inherited the house. We added two additions to the house – a family room at one end and a large rec room on the back. After my son moved out, my sister moved in for a year and the rec room became her living room. The odd thing about our ghost is that she never ventured into the additions, which added credence to my sister’s belief that she was my mother-in-law. She enjoyed rearranging small items in my sister’s bedroom but never went into her living room. I’d see a shadow in the hall or hear some little noise, but always in the original part of the house.

Rusty in his pumpkin costume

She made herself visible only once. My sister was sitting in her living room, watching television, when a white smoke appeared in the doorway between that room and the bedroom. She hovered there for several moments as if visiting with my sister but wouldn’t enter the added on room. Debra watched and waited, but she eventually just vanished without incident. My youngest nephew, who was six at the time, listened to my sister's story of her ghost encounter. He then patted my sister on the arm and said, “Aunt Debbie, I think that mousse stuff you put on your hair is going to your brain.”

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