So You've Just Bought A House Where Somebody Got Murdered...

[Ascalon]

Following on from the point made about a traumatic, prolonged death, such as from TB in the past.

I grew up in a house that comprised a fairly old (200+ years) farm cottage that had been extended in two directions. The first one was the interesting one, where the basic footprint of the house had been extended to the left as you looked from the front, and was rasied some two feet above the rest of the house.

We refered to it as the 'top room'. It had its own seperate door and no internal connection to the rest of the house. It was built as a paliative room where the man of the house would be cared for while he declined due to TB.

He died there about 30 years before my father bought the house. We all knew the story as the family, coincidentally, ended up being married into our own. It was not until after I had grown up and left that the room was eventually connected to the rest of the house, as the old cottage walls were four feet thick and made of mud and stone. It was quite the job that was later accomplished, I believe, with very modern machinery, that did not disturb the fabric of the oldest part of the house.

We were a large family, and whenever we heard odd noises or something coming from a room where no one was there (a rarety with a large family and a small house) we said it was old Mr X rummaging about. This was with no sense of horror, or fear.

TB also had struck our own family in the same generation, as my maternal grandmother and a young uncle were both victims.

I don't think anyone ever reported an actual haunting experience in our family from that house, though it sounds like an ideal candidate, for prolonged trauma, suffering and the 'stone tape' conditions.

 

[catseye]

As a side-note, I love floorplans of old places.
Very useful for playing role-playing games.

And writing books.

 

[escargot]

A younger sister of my mother's died at age 4 in the 1930s and was laid out in the family's front room. I'm told that she was so beautiful in death, people came from miles away to visit the grieving family and view her angelic features.

This is the house where it happened, the one with the white rendering.
I sometimes drive or ride past it and wonder what the current owners would think if they knew.

 

[SimonBurchell]

do tell...

Sorry @James_H , I seemed to have missed this.

The main summary of my experiences in the house are here: https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/anyone-seen-a-ghost.621/post-214313

With a follow up here: https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/anyone-seen-a-ghost.621/post-2054318. The link to source material in that post is dead, but you can find it on Wayback Machine here: https://web.archive.org/web/2021102...police-archives/RB1/Pt4/pt4SandyHills70s.html

 

[Enid Coleslaw]

There's an old Channel Four documentary on YouTube about people living in murder houses that I came across recently in case anyone is interested.

 

[Feech23]

And what about houses where violence (not ending in death) occurred? I've always thought that violence ought to impact the atmosphere of a place almost more than death, especially if that death was sudden and not protracted. Almost everyone who lives in a house that's older than about fifty years, will be living in a house where death happened, of whatever kind, and we may never know.

True, I slept this past week in the bedroom where my grandmother died in 1989. Totally different now but I can remember her old brass bed and high dresser but I've never felt scared or spooked in the room. I remember my father used to sit outside the door in the weeks before she died listening to her rambling as they say in Ireland. She was talking to people who had died 30-40 years ago as if they were in the room with her.

 

[brownmane]

There's an old Channel Four documentary on YouTube about people living in murder houses that I came across recently in case anyone is interested.

Good find. The last home that used to be a brothel and the current owners who are trying to run a restaurant and having their clairvoyant friend give cold readings to customers is quite entertaining.

 

[sherbetbizarre]

Slightly different - this is a funeral home not a murder sight - with a unique selling point...

'Probably Haunted:' A look inside the former Millbury funeral home for sale

The former Turgeon Funeral Home in Millbury is for sale with a unique, eye-catching for sale sign that reads "Probably Haunted."

"Honestly, as a consumer, any time I drive by a house this age, built in 1850, that's my first thought," said Erika Eucker, the property's listing agent. "I'm pretty sure that's everyone's first though, that's probably haunted. So, I just thought I'd put in writing what everybody's thinking."

https://fortune.com/2023/09/26/probably-haunted-funeral-home-for-sale-massachusetts-769000/

 

[Yithian]

I admire (but do not share) the insouciance of those who say 'it doesn't matter' or that 'deaths were common in old houses', but surely there's a threshhold to such a mindset?

A fairly natural death of an elderly person I may be able to live with, but a violent, untimely or excessively gruesome murder is a different scenario, psychologically speaking.

Would any of you be angling for a discount on 25 Cromwell Street if it were still standing?

Ghosts or no ghosts, I would be wary of placing myself at the mercy of all those mental associations.

 

[escargot]

I admire (but do not share) the insouciance of those who say 'it doesn't matter' or that 'deaths were common in old houses', but surely there's a threshhold to such a mindset?

A fairly natural death of an elderly person I may be able to live with, but a violent, untimely or excessively gruesome murder is a different scenario, psychologically speaking.

Would any of you be angling for a discount on 25 Cromwell Street if it were still standing?

Ghosts or no ghosts, I would be wary of placing myself at the mercy of all those mental associations.

Life goes on. Memories fade. A house is a house. People need somewhere to live.

 

[catseye]

Life goes on. Memories fade. A house is a house. People need somewhere to live.

Exactly. What is the statute of limitations? A house where murders occured within the last 20 years? 50? Living memory? After all, old newspapers are increasingly be digitised, it wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility to go back through old papers and find that your house had been the scene of a gruesome murder in 1854 or something.

And then what do you do? Move?

(You're up early, Skargy).

 

[escargot]

(You're up early, Skargy).

In the wee hours.

 

[SimonBurchell]

Life goes on. Memories fade. A house is a house. People need somewhere to live.

And they need somewhere to haunt afterwards...

 

[escargot]

And they need somewhere to haunt afterwards...

It's Ciiiiiiiiiircle of Liiiiiiiife... cough

 

[Fanari_Lloyd]

I couldn’t see myself as buying or renting 25 Cromwell St, (had it not been demolished) as it’s too recent and I would be depressed and angry and saddened by what happened there, which would affect me, but if I was in the position to buy a rambling old place and was told someone had been murdered there, then I probably would go for it. If it was 2-300 years ago. Most old places will have seen deaths though not necessarily murders.

On the other hand we’ve talked about places that don’t feel ‘right’ on the forum and I’d always go by that (And that can apply to old places and new builds). Most places do have a feeling.

 

[Robbrent]

I think it's more of the yuck factor rather than the fear of any paranormal activity, although some notorious murder sites seem to suffer or even profit from there association with past murders like The Blind Beggar Pub in London the the site of one of the Kray murders

 

[escargot]

I think it's more of the yuck factor rather than the fear of any paranormal activity, although some notorious murder sites seem to suffer or even profit from there association with past murders like The Blind Beggar Pub in London the the site of one of the Kray murders

There's also the Magdala pub in Hampstead where Ruth Ellis shot her boyfriend. It's rumoured that a later landlord drilled bullet-sized holes in the walls to show to gawkers.

 

[escargot]

We used to have a thread about whether we'd buy a house where a nasty event had occurred. Can remember mentioning that a friend declined the purchase of a nice Peak District house where a former resident had shot his wife dead in the master bedroom. She believed it would reduce the property's resale value.

I thought she was wrong as the murder had been years before and she hadn't noticed a significant difference in the price compared to similar houses. Her money though.

 

[SimonBurchell]

There's also the Magdala pub in Hampstead where Ruth Ellis shot her boyfriend. It's rumoured that a later landlord drilled bullet-sized holes in the walls to show to gawkers.

That's weird - I was just reading about Ruth Ellis this morning after coming across a mention in passing in Haunted Wearside of all places...

 

[escargot]

That's weird - I was just reading about Ruth Ellis this morning after coming across a mention in passing in Haunted Wearside of all places...

I think Ruth is there all the time, in the backs of people's minds.

 

[Spookdaddy]

Thought so:

We have a 'Murder Houses': How Does Violence Impact Sale Prices? thread, which shares some common ground with this one.

Not as specifically connected, but there also maybe some crossover with the Visiting Crime Scenes thread.

Life goes on. Memories fade. A house is a house. People need somewhere to live.

I tend to agree. As I said on one of the aforementioned threads:

I've always suspected that economics and pragmatism will eventually trump any allegedly distasteful history in regard to a property. The percentage drop in value reflects the overall volume of interest, but in the case of individual purchasers, it's purely a matter of leverage - I mean, a house's history doesn't become 20% less spooky, because you got 20% off the asking price...

That said, I tend to trust my instinct - although I'm not totally convinced of it's infallibility:

If I walked into a house knowing it was the scene of a horrible event, and then had a funny feeling about the place, I'd tend to think that the former knowledge had influenced the latter feeling.

If, however, I found out about some wicked history associated with a place after it had already given me the horrors, then I'd probably not be putting down roots.

 

[escargot]

Thought so:

We have a 'Murder Houses': How Does Violence Impact Sale Prices? thread, which shares some common ground with this one.

Not as specifically connected, but there also maybe some crossover with the Visiting Crime Scenes thread.



I tend to agree. As I said on one of the aforementioned threads:



That said, I tend to trust my instinct - although I'm not totally convinced of it's infallibility:

If I walked into a house knowing it was the scene of a horrible event, and then had a funny feeling about the place, I'd tend to think that the former knowledge had influenced the latter feeling.

If, however, I found out about some wicked history associated with a place after it had already given me the horrors, then I'd probably not be putting down roots.

Well found!
Shrewd points made.

 

[Stormkhan]

I couldn’t see myself as buying or renting 25 Cromwell St, (had it not been demolished) as it’s too recent and I would be depressed and angry and saddened by what happened there, which would affect me, but if I was in the position to buy a rambling old place and was told someone had been murdered there, then I probably would go for it. If it was 2-300 years ago. Most old places will have seen deaths though not necessarily murders.

On the other hand we’ve talked about places that don’t feel ‘right’ on the forum and I’d always go by that (And that can apply to old places and new builds). Most places do have a feeling.

Really, to me, this is the point.
Is the reluctance to live in a 'home with awful associations' to do with fear of paranormal residue, or a distaste of the events that took place there?
Is it haunted or it's association with an awful event more the thing?

 

[escargot]

Really, to me, this is the point.
Is the reluctance to live in a 'home with awful associations' to do with fear of paranormal residue, or a distaste of the events that took place there?
Is it haunted or it's association with an awful event more the thing?

It probably varies. The house might be known locally as the 'Murder House' and your kids might get picked on for living there.
Or people might be superstitious and as you say, believe it could be haunted.
The resale aspect certainly may come into it.

Then you'd get the folks who'll slide in there without a care. Like the family in The Canterville Ghost.

I couldn’t see myself as buying or renting 25 Cromwell St, (had it not been demolished) as it’s too recent and I would be depressed and angry and saddened by what happened there, which would affect me,

In the late 1970s there were unsavoury tales about the house in Hattersley where little Lesley Ann Downey was murdered by Brady and Hindley.
It had been built as public housing during slum clearance and was still being rented out by the local authority. Some tenants reported hearing a child crying or seeing one lying on a bed. I read this in the Daily Mirror which also brought us the saga of the Enfield Poltergeist.

The house was eventually demolished because it was hard to let and there were always gawpers around.
I do believe a poster on'ere drove along there and was given the bum's rush by angry locals.

If you try Google Street View along there it whips you past the house. You can't e-gawp.