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Breakfast & Monopoly

L

linesmachine

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
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Aug 23, 2003
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Never felt the need to post this story until I read another thread about a piece of crumpet (all will be revealed).

I used to work for a property company in Notting Hill Gate, London (2002-2003). The letting (rental) arm of it used to help me house corporate people by showing them and me round flats that they might like to live in whilst they are working in London. One of the companys agents set me up with a "viewing" of a 2 bedroom flat in a block of flats called Camden Hill Towers. So, me and the client took the key and went to have a look round.

It was ok, split level with 2 bedrooms, hard floors and great views. Frighteningly quiet seeing as you were in central London. The communal areas outside the front door, the hallways and lift had the feeling of a 1970s hotel and smelt of cigarette smoke. Someone had just had breakfast and left half eaten toast with jam and marmalade jars left open and knives balanced on the top. They must have just left since a mug of tea was still steaming (it was freezing cold anyway). We looked round the flat and the guy said he hated it. I too didn't like it, at some point it had had access to the communal hallway above but the door had been removed and merely bricked over. It felt impersonal and empty. Annoyingly there was a monopoly board that had been left half way through a game on one of the bedroom floors and we had to step over it all the time. We left and dropped the key back off at the office. The client left and the letting agents all started asking if anything was weird in the flat. They started saying it was haunted and had been on their books for almost 2 years. I said that it seemed a bit weird but nothing bizarre had happened. Me and one of the agents went down the pub after work. I said to her that if it was so haunted how come the current occupiers haven't said anything. And she started laughing and said "it's empty you idiot, thats why there's no beds, no sofas or tables, no fridge, there's not even carpet on the stairs." I told her about the breakfast and monopoly board and she recounted a story of how she had once gone with a client and the guy had refused to enter the flat, saying he felt it was too weird. On locking the door she noticed 2 kids dolls in the sink under water. Later she had phoned the owner who lived abroad to say they were having trouble letting it and could the tenant please tidy up. The owner sounded horrified and said it was empty, had been for 3 years and only 2 keys existed, one of which she had and we the other. The block has a special magnetic entry system and even has a porter for security at the front door so it's unlikely anyone was crashing there illegally. I went back two days later to make see if it was quatters but the place was empty save for a pack of cards in the bathroom sink. I don't think I've ever been so scarred as I was when I was tip toeing round that flat not quite knowing what I was gonna see. After checking each room I legged it as fast as I could back out into the busy Notting Hill Gate.
 
Fascinating.

Have you heard anything more about the place since?
 
:shock:


was the stuff (monopoly, cups, knives etc.) still there when you went back?


anyway, the part i find more disturbing is things in the sink. i don't know why, it's so macabre.
 
My suspicion would be that someone, in cahoots with the building staff, was using the place on the sly while the owners were away.

However, apart from the hastily-abandoned breakfast, there seems to be no real evidence of this. I mean, with an unofficial tenant, you'd be more likely to see shirts hanging up to dry than a pair of drowned dollies. ;)
 
Yeah, or it could have been squatters. Either that or untidy ghosts.
 
escargot1 said:
My suspicion would be that someone, in cahoots with the building staff, was using the place on the sly while the owners were away.
Click to expand...

Could be some staff staying there themselves; they'd know when someone was coming to have a look around. Dolls and, later, cards in the sink could be their way of prolonging the "mystery," and, thus, keep the flat from being let out.
 
Yeah could well be the guards themselves using it as a place to get warm. Let us just hope you don´t show up one day to find a ball bouncing down the stairs.
 
Xanatico said:
Yeah could well be the guards themselves using it as a place to get warm. Let us just hope you don´t show up one day to find a ball bouncing down the stairs.
Click to expand...

I agree with that, the building managers must have some means of getting into the flat, and also know that the flat is empty. They might have been in the middle of a game of monopoly when the door porter radioed to say that the estate agent was on his way up.

Although it doesn't explain the spooky feelings etc.


[Go out of the flat, go directly out of the flat, do not pass go, do not collect your cup of tea and sandwich]
 
I didn't really have time to post an experience I once had looking round houses in that last post.

When we were trying to buy a house in the uk we ended up looking round a lot of places. One of them was an old industrial revolution two up two down red brick house in which there were wooden floorboards downstairs.

When I stood on one particular spot I had a very strong feeling that something was buried under the floor at that point. It wasn't a ghost or anything just an overwhelming feeling of an object being deliberately put under the floor.

That night just as I was fallling asleep I had a kind of waking dream in which I was standing in the house looking outside the front window onto an area of grass. The grass was there in reality but the view out of the window was like an old fashioned black and white movie all grainy and jumping, and absent of colour, although the surrounding house was like a normal dream. I've never had a dream like that before.

On the grass area I saw soldiers in uniforms with long rifles and small backpacks lining up doing some sort of drill with the sense that they were about to go off to war. I was looking at one particular soldier a young guy who I knew lived in this house. The thought went through my head that he had buried a tin box under the floor boards with stuff in it for his mother in case he never came back. I don't know what was in it but I was quite clear that he didn't come back and that the mother never had any reason to look under the floorboards.

I didn't tell my husband about it and we put an offer in for it. Some time later we went round for a second look and to ask some questions, one of the things we asked was if the house was damp proofed. The sellers friend who seemed to know about houses went outside to look and came back saying it had "blue bricks" which was better than damp proofing and meant there was a large hollow space under the floor. I was really surprised to here this and its not something I would have known.

The house fell through so I'll never know.....
 
Breakfast & Monopoly

Spiritdoctor - how frustrating!

It would have been quite something if you were able to lift the floorboards and check.

Mind you I don't know how recent an innovation these 'blue bricks' are. It might be that any building work in recent history might have uncovered and removed any box that may have been there.

As they say, I guess we'll never know...
 
I think the whole row of houses was built with the blue bricks and that they are common in older properties. I was trying to search for a picture or information about blue bricks but found instead a site about items concealed in old houses - http://www.apotropaios.co.uk/dorset_survey.htm

cats, skulls, witch bottles, shoes

Way off topic I know
 
Yeh, shame the sale fell through, would have been great to have bought it and then ripped up the floor to see what's underneath.

As for the responses to my piece regarding the flat in Notting Hill, many thanks. I think the most likely story is the idea that workers at the block have noticed it's long-term emptiness and taken advantage. When I randomly turned up for a viewing the porter probably phoned their mobile and told them to scarper, hence the steaming mug of tea.

Doesn't full explain the dolls and pack of cards in the sink though. Like someone else said, it's a macabre symbol for some reason. As if the objects needed to be cleansed...
 
I found the site about stuff found in old houses to be very interesting. For some reason there seemed to be a whole lot of shoes and mummified cats around. Do any of you know whether there's any superstition related to having a dead cat in your house? Seeing how cats are said to have supernatural powers, perhaps a cat in the attic will protect your house from evil powers. And how about shoes?

Linesmachine:
Thanks for a great story. It reminded me quite a bit of the Japanese "dark water". *shivers*
 
Monopoly, tea, dolls, the smell of cigarettes: It all sounds like local kids are using the place as a den.

Perhaps the previous occupants had children and had an "off the books" spare key cut for them.

When they moved on, the kids bequeathed the now-useless key to the other youngsters in the area to allow them to use the flat as a hangout.

The alternative is chilling. :shock:

maximus otter
 
I think burrying cats protects from evil. This site about cat folklore claims;

In the Dark Ages, a cat was mortared, while still alive, into the foundation of a building to ensure good luck to the inhabitants.

http://members.fortunecity.com/catlovers/folklore.html

(Not exactly lucky for the cat though.)

Shoes - I don't know. In the past they were expensive and could represent a possession belonging to a person, hence using something containing the essence of a person in a spell. This article about hidden shoes links them with fertility and trapping evil spirits and says the practice continued into the 20th century (how fascinating). Perhaps hiding a shoe was what you did if you couldn't get hold of a cat (?)

http://www.channel4.com/history/microsi ... shoes.html

OOh- I feel a real urge to bury a shoe in my house somewhere....
 
Interesting stuff...

Shoes to me represent posession in a different way, i.e. possession of the buidling. Symbologically (is that a word?) they make me think of someone "at home."

As for cats, I agree that historically they seem to follow superstition. Although why I don't know. There is a certain female link with Witches and the like.

Randomly I noticed a sign in the White Horse Pub on Broad Street, Oxford the other day. It basically said that during restoration a broom stick was found in the rafters. None of the builders would touch it so they just built around it. Cool superstitious stuff...
 
Every cat I've ever known has had a shoe fetish. Maybe if you didn't have a cat to bury, you buried a shoe in hopes it would attract a cat! :p
 
Many years ago my folks had a extra wall built in their Dorset house which is about 300 years old. This wall was a cavity wall to one in the dinning room. I can't recall the reason. Anyway as there was a gap of an inch or so between the new and existing wall we put a load of stuff in there. I recall that days paper and my copy of Whizzer and Chips going in there but no cats.
 
When I moved home years ago with my parents and sister, we thought we should get on with cleaning the place up the day we got the keys. My mother and grandmother were scouring down the woodowrk, so I decided to check out the loft. I opened the hatch and grabbed on to the 'skirting boards' (dunno what else to call them, but you get the idea) round the open hole , and pulled myself up

CCRRACKK!!!

Next thing I know, I'm on my arse on the kitchen floor, covered in dust with the skirting in my hand, and old, yellowed newspapers everywhere - the skirting had come off under my weight, and I'd fallen.

I got the step-ladder out to continue my investigations while my sister was straightening out the papers - Look! She shouted - Look at the date!

The old newspapers were from that same day, around 60 years before. I should still have them somewhere, I need to get them scanned.
 
I don't know about burying cats in foundations these days, but i do know the silly things really are that curious :roll: and get themselves stuck beneath floor boards where unfortunately many die. :( the space and atmospherics are often perfect to cause mummification.
 
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