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Family Abandons Home Owing To 'The Watcher'

sherbetbizarre

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NJ FAMILY ABANDONS HOME AFTER RECEIVING TERRIFYING LETTERS FROM SOMEONE NAMED ‘THE WATCHER’
A NJ family has abandoned their $1.3 million home after receiving terrifying letters from someone named “The Watcher.” Since moving in, the family has received numerous written letters from The Watcher claiming the home “has been the subject of my family for decades,” and “I have been put in charge of watching and waiting for its second coming.”

The new owners have several children, and other letters asked, “Have they found out what’s in the walls yet?” and “I am pleased to know your names now, and the name of the young blood you have brought to me,”
http://dangerousminds.net/comments/...receiving_terrifying_letters_from_someone_nam

[The house] has been the subject of my family for decades," the Watcher explains. "I have be [sic] put in charge of watching and waiting for its second coming. My grandfather watched in the 1920s and my father watched it in the 1960s. It is now my time."

"Do you need to fill the house with the young blood I requested?" it continues. "Have you found all the secrets it holds. Will the young bloods play in the basement. Who has the bedrooms facing the street? I will know as soon as you move in."
http://gothamist.com/2015/06/24/nj_house_watcher.php



:eek: “Have they found out what’s in the walls yet?” :eek:
 
Those letters are just terrible! But let's stick around and watch. Either they got cold feet after signing or there is an impending film-script . . .

Let's flee, come to think of it. :p
 
I think I'm move out as well if I had kids .. they should send those letters to the police for forensic tests (unless they wrote them themselves).
 
Those letters are just terrible! But let's stick around and watch. Either they got cold feet after signing or there is an impending film-script . . .

Let's flee, come to think of it. :p

My first thought was that it sounds like some viral campaign for a movie. Oh I'm becoming such a cynic in my old age :)
 
It would be quite freaky and worrying to get those sorts of things especially when there are kids around.

I think I might have mentioned here before that one day in London, when my GF and I returned to her flat, there was a candle burning outside her door and a hand written note. The note was filled IIRC with weird symbols and some quasi-religious text, some sort of warning again IIRC. The worrying thing was that her front door was not street facing. You had to open a security door with a key and then go up a flight of stairs, passed two other apartment doors and then on to hers.

Nothing came of it but in the OP's case, I wouldn't be taking any chances. I'd be straight into my Grandfather's arsenal and tooling up.
 
The house certainly looks like it should be in a horror movie...


 
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Sounds like a combination of the bloke who was sent postcards from all around the world noting intimate details about him and all signed with the stick figure symbol of The Saint, and the couple who kept getting messages through their cable TV from some unseen, menacing person who threatened them and was able to see what they were doing. As far as I know, neither case was solved, so I don't hold out much hope of revealing this nasty prankster.
 
They've been receiving letters written by hand... Do we know if these were delivered by the regular mail service, or could they have been delivered by hand?

Either way there should be ways of monitoring the deliveries and discovering who's behind them.
 
If they're genuine, they're probably being sent by someone who wants to buy the house cheaply.
 
Or someone who's family used to own the house and had to move for one reason or another and now that person resents whomever resides in it
 
Or someone who's family used to own the house and had to move for one reason or another and now that person resents whomever resides in it
Yes!
 
Sadly there are people who find flimsier reasons than that to hold a grudge and start victimising.
 
It would be quite freaky and worrying to get those sorts of things especially when there are kids around.

I think I might have mentioned here before that one day in London, when my GF and I returned to her flat, there was a candle burning outside her door and a hand written note. The note was filled IIRC with weird symbols and some quasi-religious text, some sort of warning again IIRC. The worrying thing was that her front door was not street facing. You had to open a security door with a key and then go up a flight of stairs, passed two other apartment doors and then on to hers.

Nothing came of it but in the OP's case, I wouldn't be taking any chances. I'd be straight into my Grandfather's arsenal and tooling up.

Indeed, these things happen. When I was in my teens and just moved out on my own, I attracted the attention of a local lunatic who stole a pair of my shoes. I only discovered the theft when I head a noise one afternoon and found the shoe, with a crazed letter tucked inside, stuck into the screen door, on fire. Luckily I was in time to put it out, but still. You can't be too careful with these things.

So many houses have been reposessed due to the financial crisis/bad loans over the last few years that I wouldn't be surprised if "the watcher" wasn't someone who'd lost their home and they are taking it out on these people. That is, if it's real.
 
Assuming what we see online is genuine, the law case is against the sellers and an Insurance Company. The family are demanding "compensatory damages, consequential damages, rescission of the contract, an unwinding of the closing and a full refund of the purchase price with interest, treble damages, reasonable attorneys fees, cost, and any other relief the Court deems just and equitable."

Under the charge of emotional distress, they go on to claim, "punitive damages" as well.

Such a threat of massive costs is used to persuade defendants to settle out of court.

I am unused to reading US legal documents but the emotive tone of this one seems tailored for the general reader. :cool:
 
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Does anyone else feel that the thread title should be 'Family abandons home because of the watcher'?

'due to' feels wrong.
 
Guess I was thinking of "The Watcher" as an entity, rather than a person.

Blame too many horror movies :D
 
Neighbor: The New Jersey "Watcher" Struck from Newark
According to a Broaddus family neighbor who claimed to have known the Woods family (who previously owned the house at 657 Boulevard and were recently named in a lawsuit by the current owners) the threatening Watcher letters were sent not from within Westfield, NJ but Newark. The neighbor, who said he was familiar with the Watcher’s notes through firsthand experiences with the Broaddus family and police interviews, added that they were sent via USPS and appeared to have been printed through a computer, as opposed to scarily handwritten.

“In my opinion the police did nothing,” he told me, echoing the sentiment of other neighbors. “The police didn’t seem concerned.” Nearly a year later, the case remains open, and the identity of The Watcher entirely unresolved.
http://gawker.com/neighbor-the-new-jersey-watcher-struck-from-newark-1714236527
 
I am unused to reading US legal documents but the emotive tone of this one seems tailored for the general reader. :cool:

As a U.S. journalist for 30-odd years, I can attest that the "emotive tone" you accurately identify is, indeed, quite common in the language of U.S. lawsuits filed by individuals, as opposed to the ones filed by government agencies, large companies and other institutions. They are written as if summing up to a jury of laymen, and establishing an emotional tone -- of sympathy, of indignation, of outrage -- is as important as establishing facts. Such filings also function as de facto press releases for the plaintiff's side; indeed, plaintiffs often refuse any further comment, directing reporters to the legal documents where their message can be controlled. Any responding documents filed by the defendants will seek to counter the plaintiffs' prevailing tone, either with a dry recitation of facts and law, or with language equally emotive on the defendants' behalf.
 
As a U.S. journalist for 30-odd years, I can attest that the "emotive tone" you accurately identify is, indeed, quite common in the language of U.S. lawsuits filed by individuals, as opposed to the ones filed by government agencies, large companies and other institutions. They are written as if summing up to a jury of laymen, and establishing an emotional tone -- of sympathy, of indignation, of outrage -- is as important as establishing facts. Such filings also function as de facto press releases for the plaintiff's side; indeed, plaintiffs often refuse any further comment, directing reporters to the legal documents where their message can be controlled. Any responding documents filed by the defendants will seek to counter the plaintiffs' prevailing tone, either with a dry recitation of facts and law, or with language equally emotive on the defendants' behalf.

Thanks for that clarification, Andy.

It will be interesting to see how this one plays - if it reaches court. :rolleyes:
 
“Have they found out what’s in the walls yet?”

Trolling someone into tearing open all their walls is what I think.
 
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Following up this odd case*, the first of the Watcher letters is said to have been received on or around 5th June, 2014.

Look at what first aired 8th June, 2014.

The letters abound in resonant gothic phrases like "roamed its halls." Clearly someone likely to be keen on fantasy games and fiction. :confused:

*After the cluster of reports in June this year, a legal hush seems to have fallen on the case.

The potential for a movie and some cinematic ancestors in this article from late June.

Interesting find, James. I can't look at the links right now on this browser, but the name "watchers on the wall" brings back some spooky memories. Way back in the day, my cousin lived near a house that was featured in the (sadly long out-of-print) book Ghost Stories of Texas, in a story called "watchers on the wall" - or maybe it was "in the wall". Anyway, it was the tale of how the shapes of a man and woman appeared in the panelled walls of the house. My cousin went over to see it and it was probably just simulacra, but I always thought it was a title that was chock-full of creepy potential.
 
Four years on, here's a lengthy article on the whole story - the family still own the house but NEVER moved in.

It reads like The Amityville Horror minus the supernatural:

https://www.thecut.com/2018/11/the-haunting-of-657-boulevard-in-westfield-new-jersey.html

The letter continued:

657 Boulevard is anxious for you to move in. It has been years and years since the young blood ruled the hallways of the house. Have you found all of the secrets it holds yet? Will the young blood play in the basement? Or are they too afraid to go down there alone. I would [be] very afraid if I were them. It is far away from the rest of the house. If you were upstairs you would never hear them scream.

Derek and Maria stopped bringing their kids to the house. They were no longer sure when, or if, they would move in. Several weeks later, a third letter arrived. “Where have you gone to?” The Watcher wrote. “657 Boulevard is missing you.”


And Netflix have just paid "seven figures" for the rights:

https://deadline.com/2018/12/the-wa...rights-eric-newman-bryan-unkeless-1202514226/
 
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