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Ooh-Err... Nasty House

KarlD

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
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307
Some people may have noticed that I am a bit of a sceptic when it comes to supenatural thingies but....
My mate has just bought a new house just down the road from me, its about 1930's artdeco style and it has the most horrendous presence, at least for me it does when you go in the place it just feels horrible you just don't want to stay a minute longer than you have to, and yet my friend and his wife seem quite happy there.
It has got windows with old style steel window frames and for some strange reason I get the feeling that its something somehow to do with those windows. all very odd.
 
Maybe you have latent mediumship abilities and your scepticism is a form of denial? Heh Heh.
No but seriously, do you know anything of the history of the house? Any thing which could be producing subsonic sound?
 
I've experienced something similar, my uncle's house when i was a child used to have my blood running cold. it was a traditional devon long-house, being as you might expect a long, narrow building with a corridor running the length, off which were a bathroom and bedroom at one end and a long living area, kitchen and hallway at the other. the layout on the top floor was the same with the bathroom at one end but with bedrooms running off.

being, as i was, just a child i never mentioned how spooked i felt in the house, i suppose because i didn't really know how to vocalise it, but nothing on earth could entice me to visit the bathroom on the lower floor nor my cousins room at that end. there was also a door at that end leading to nowhere in particular (just a patch of gravel outside) and again i couldnt bear to look at the door in case i caught a glimpse of something - what i don't know - through the glass pane. equally i couldn't bear to look through any of the windows on the corridor side for the same reason. i always felt as though i were being watched in the house (and in the huge garden actually) and it was really very unpleasant.

following a family break up the house was sold and life went on.
some time later i overheard my mother, who i'd always known as a very level-headed and god-fearing woman tell my uncle that she'd always hated the house and gave exactly the same reasons i'd felt.

i've discussed this with her as an adult and she just always felt there was something 'rotten' about the place, although really it should have been idyllic, and im inclined to agree.


returning to the original post, it's strange how a building which has no pre-existing negative points (y'know, not reportedly haunted, a new home, and in my case, actually full of many happy memories aside from the terrible, terrible rottenness!) can fill you with such dread.

do we know anything else about the house's history?
 
Well. ah ha

I don't know about any nasty history of the house or me being a latent medium but aparently the last owners were only there for a year so maybe they didn't like it, or maybe there is a more sinister reason why the left.

Wooooooooo
 
They weren't called Lutz were they?

I can't wait for the book :twisted:
 
I can understand those strange feelings. We once lived in a flat in Brighton that never "felt" right, when we moved out, we were glad. It was there that I got scratches on my face [elaborate on this site somewhere], after that only once more and then never again. Could have been coincidence, could have been something else. I do believe that us humans should listen more to our gut instincts or as the germans say so nicely "ur-instinct", as it is something ancient and not governed by our conscience. Somthing deep down knows that things are not right. Now this could be due to "vibes" or [maybe] "ghosts" or "memories" kept in the place. We don't know but I do believe that feeling is real.
 
Dingo667 said:
I can understand those strange feelings. We once lived in a flat in Brighton that never "felt" right, when we moved out, we were glad.

Oooh where is it?
 
LordRsmacker said:
East Sussex, down the M23 then A23 from London. You can't miss it!

:lol:

Can't be more specific eh? Curiouser and curiouser......
 
There could always be an 'environmental' explanation.
I've mentioned this on here before, but my family home growing up had a horrible atmosphere and I never liked to be on my own there. There was always a sense that you were not quite alone, that you were being watched. So much so in fact that I was constantly going to the front room window to check that there wasn't someone sitting in a car outside the house. I found it impossible to sleep and was in an almost perpetual state of anxiety for the first 2/3 years we lived there. My siblings experienced similar feelings but, interestingly, my dad never felt uncomfortable at all.

On top of this the entire family reported seeing shadowy figures flitting about out of the corner of our eyes, hearing weird noises, things falling from shelves etc etc etc. Then all of a sudden, it stopped. The cessation of all this coincided with the completion of noise-reduction work on a nearby warehouse. People living in the streets nearest to the warehouse had been plagued by a constant low-level background hum coming from the refrigeration units within and had experienced similar feelings of anxiety and 'disquiet' in their homes for years. IIRC, environmental health were called in, a court-case took place, work was carried out and the atmosphere in our house changed over-night.
What with you being of a sceptical persuasion, perhaps you might consider that there's a similar explanation here?
 
Possibly some kind of enviromental thing below concious levels of hearing or whatever.
However when I was three my parents moved into a house which I hated from the moment I set eyes on it, although I don't remember much about it, I refused to sleep and only after they moved out did they find out that someone had commited suicide in the bathroom in a particulary messy manner.
Maybe buildings do retain some 'memory' of strong emotional events and maybe some people are sensitive to them,some houses always seem to be happy places whoever lives there.
My old cat sooty who lived to be 18 still makes the occasional appearance at my parents house.
 
I used to live in an old victorian house that had been converted into bedsits. Every floor had a bathroom, but only the first floor had a bath, which I tended to use during the day when none of the other tenents were home. Now I like a good long soak but I never could in that room. It was always really dark, no matter how sunny it was outside, but the worse thing was the constant feeling that something was hanging from the ceiling. The sensation was so strong that whilst I was in the bath I found myself checking to see if there was anything there several times.
 
EMFs from power lines, ULF sound waves from any one of a number of sources, tectonic mutterings, there are many things that can lead you to 'feel' uncomfortable in a house or place.
Crittall windows are another one - one that will send me screaming down the street, but then, I am a building surveyor by profession. ;)
 
Oooo Crittall windows. My ancestor invented those. I think my great Aunts old house is the only house left with a full set.
 
Blinko_Glick said:
EMFs from power lines, ULF sound waves from any one of a number of sources, tectonic mutterings, there are many things that can lead you to 'feel' uncomfortable in a house or place.
Crittall windows are another one - one that will send me screaming down the street, but then, I am a building surveyor by profession. ;)

I grew up in a house with steel-framed windows, and never experienced anything bad. In fact, I remember it to be a happy place.
 
When I moved to the area I now live in, my husband (then boyfriend) and I viewed lots of houses to rent. We went to one particular house and from the moment I got out of the car I just hated the place. There was something about it which I couldn't quite put my finger on but I knew I would never feel comfortable there. In the garden, I wouldn't got further than the gate as it just gave me the complete heeby-jeebies.

Even now, if I drive past that house it still gives me the willies, even though it has been completely renovated and looks quite different. Coincidently, a train line runs quite near the house which I thought might have been the cause of my discomfort, the current house I live in is quite near the local station and I've always found the noise quite soothing and don't feel any oddness at all caused by the location.

In the house I moved from, I always got the impression that it was a "sad" place and that lots of tears had been shed there. My old neighbour was more than happy to inform me that the original owners of the house lost 2 daughters in a car crash and his marriage had then disintergrated and for a few years it was a very unhappy home. When I moved I was a little sad to leave behind my memories, I was moving on from a failed relationship, but quite relieved to be leaving the actual house.
 
But could EMFs from power lines, ULF sound waves, tectonic mutterings etc simply be the medium by which we as humans can sense entities existing?
 
A logical possibility, but not parsimonious. Given the existence of the environmental factors, we would need additional facts that cannot be explained in that way before we advance.

Reality is under no obligation to be parsimonious, but the principle does give us a handy signpost saying: "Beyond this point, argue at your own risk." If these environmental conditions change something that makes it easier for us to perceive ghosts - or easier for ghosts to manifest to us (which are similar but not identical) - or easier for us to deploy latent psychic abilities in ways that mimic ghosts - how are we to sort out one theory from another? We can have fun speculating, but once a theory that fits all the facts is applied, we are past the point of explanation.

However, since the house in the OP hasn't been investigated for any of those environmental conditions yet, we know we are not in possession of all the facts. The plausible explanation is not necessarily the true one; as anyone who's gone through a long medical or computer diagnostic process knows!
 
PeniG said:
...how are we to sort out one theory from another? We can have fun speculating, but once a theory that fits all the facts is applied, we are past the point of explanation.
The question is the age-old Fortean conundrum. Compare and contrast various competing pseudo-scientific theories... :?

As for "a theory that fits all the facts", well, we've had a few of those here, one or two of which are still 'live'! ;)
 
Sorry, I left out the "simplest" in that. The simplest explanation that fits all the facts is where the sign hangs.

As long as you don't get seduced by "simplicity" into ignoring facts that make things complicated, or into looking for a magic bullet in every case (how likely is it that, for example, all mass extinction events have exactly the same single cause?) parsimony is a handy way to structure a discussion. It shouldn't be the place where it stops. In this case, it's far too easy to say "Oh, that sounds like EMF effects" and never go on to check whether any EMF conditions apply. Even if they do, phenomena may occur which they don't cover (a full-body apparition seen straight on, for example), at which point the question "What if ghosts can use EMF fields?" becomes really, really interesting as opposed to a theoretical beach ball to toss around.

Tossing around theoretical beach balls is fun and I have no desire to discourage anyone from doing it.
 
I remember in my younger years a house that was across the river in York co., Pennsylvania near an old iron-smelting furnace. I always thought it was just somehow ugly and kind of foreboding in a way. I recall it had a line of trees out front and 'no trespassing' signs all over them. The house is no longer there, it was destroyed in an arson about 15 years ago, and I was actually kinda glad...

Later I found out that it was inhabited by a paranoid hermit for years. It was also, I believe, the house that inspired an urban legend a few miles to the south.

I've had similar feelings about the administrative office building at Gettysburg College, which was once a hospital during the Civil War, and also about the library at the college I attended (in Lock Haven, Pa.).
 
A newish admin building that sits on the site of a former children's ward for babies with conditions such as anencephaly, etc has a horrible atmosphere and is locked and empty at night. I sometimes have to go in and turn off a light that someones left on during the day or shut a window and I hate going in.

It's not helped as it's main corridor is curved so you can't see the ends of the corridors. I'm pretty much the only staff member who will go in there at night on their own. I don't normally get freaked out by the spooky but that place unnerves me no end.
 
I sometimes have to go in and turn off a light that someones left on during the day or shut a window and I hate going in.

It's not helped as it's main corridor is curved so you can't see the ends of the corridors.

Brrrr....

You don't have a photo knocking around anywhere I suppose?

I bet it's windowless too :eek:
 
Yes Naughty_Felid, what Andy_X said about photos.... please?
 
Unfortunately the folk I work for are very strict when it comes to posting work-related pics on the internet. Yeah the corridor is windowless at the ends. The worst bit is the basement which has since been converted into office space. No natural light there either apart from one tiny window. You can't see your hand in front of your face at night.

If I have to go down there for any reason, that's the worst bit. Fine if a light is on but it's getting back up to the first floor, with just a torch for company.

Also standing in the darkness resetting the alarms....
 
Well this has been quite a night last night. Another building recently gutted and refurbished has 3 staff on duty over night. The front foyer is secured by a swipe access only, The next door is swipe access with only myself having one access swipe and the senior staff member having the only other card. This means that the senior staff member has to let people in and out of the main building to the front foyer. This door leads to another swipe access door meaning this corridor is secured by a swipe access door at each end and takes about 5 seconds to walk from one door to the next. Once through this third door you are in the main work area.

So to recap the foyer and the main work area are connected by a short corridor with two secure doors at each end.

I was paged around 01:30 in the morning. (I'm the senior guy on this campus during the night), The senior staff member stated that she was with her junior colleague in the main work station. Her colleague, looked up from her desk saw a figure behind the door of the secure corridor, throught the door window. Initially she thought it was a reflection of her supervisor, who was bending down behind the desk so it was impossible it was her. The 3rd worker was through several doors in the opposite direction and never leaves that area. The JC, (junior colleague). Looked up and the figure had vanished. She descirbed seeing the top half of a possibly female figure in pastal green who was turning away from her, in the complete darkness of the corrdior, just some slight illumination of the exit sign.

They both, ( the JC and The Sup), checked the CCTV for the corridor which was in pitch darkness and noticed the screen started to break up and random flashes of light appear on screen. Everything from the foyer to that corrdior was in darkness and the lights are all motion-sensor.

Remember only I had access to that corridor yet I was in another building a mile and a half away and the other swipe was on the Supervisor outside the corridor sitting in the main work station. If it had been a person the motion sensor lights should have picked it up and switched on.

I got down there 10 minutes later, I managed to catch some of the random colours and a couple of odd flashes but nothing else. I can't rewind the CCTV - this has to happen when the building security dude returns after the holidays. I'll let you know if we see this figure in pastel green. We did a sweep of the corrdior and the rooms on it, all were locked and like I say nobody has access to this corridor apart from me and the supervisor. That corrdior is 100% secured and neither of the two doors had been opened according to the door log by either swipe until I came in.

Lots of random bangings have been heard but not an apparition until now.
 
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