Something Unpleasant, Unseen

[merricat]

OK! I’m going to write this as it happened, without any guesses as to what it was, exactly, that I experienced.
The truth is I dare say I’ll never know, and that’s fine.

I moved into a small, (rented) terraced house in the north west in October 2013. It was a rushed decision as I had made a sudden move to be closer to my mother and partner after my father passed away in the April of that year.
Having signed the contract after a relatively quick viewing (I knew the area and had decided to take it for that reason alone), I took the keys and visited alone for the first time around a week later.

I wouldn’t say that I felt uncomfortable, but I did regret having rushed into it. Within an hour the taps sprang a leak, the bedroom ceiling began to drip (!), and the boiler wouldn’t fire up. ‘Bastards!’ I thought. Like you do.
The agency responded quickly and attended to the issues, but a sensation of utter dread remained. I put this down to grief, stress and exhaustion.

However, I could smell a dog.

This only occurred close to the long wall which the stairs and kitchen ran against. The carpets were new and the walls repainted. So I guessed the previous tenant had a dog. Still, the sensation was unusual in that whilst being able to smell a dog, I also felt strongly that it was in distress. Again, I had no real option other than to attribute my feelings to stress.

.......

My partner lived a few streets away, so was present quite a bit during that first week. He couldn’t smell the dog so I left it at that.

Around the two week mark something really disturbing occurred. I won’t beat around the bush here, I will just relate the event as it happened. Around 11pm one evening, sat watching Catweasle series 1 on the bed upstairs, my cat sleeping on the pillow beside me woke suddenly with a start. A few minutes later I became aware that my cat was peering fixedly into a full length mirror across the room which reflected the upstairs hallway.
When he didn’t get bored with this, I took notice. I’m somewhat ashamed to say that after a few minutes of watching him wide-eyed and serious I began to feel apprehensive. This might be regular cat behaviour, but it was unusual for him. So I jumped up from the bed and in that excited way you behave when trying to get your pet to follow you, I thought I’d coax him downstairs for some treats. That ought to do it, or so I thought.

As I reached the top step of the stairs, cat a few inches behind me, the atmosphere here felt charged, unusual. I recall this in slow motion, as I began to walk down the stairs the sensation became stronger, and when I looked behind me to check on him he was stuck, as if paralysed mid-step, hair on end. And I mean stuck-up spiky fright-cat type hair. Like a cartoon.

Whilst I’d heard of such things, I’d never actually witnessed anything like it.

I continued down the stairs and close to the bottom I walked into something which felt like (please humour me!) a large, electrified spider’s web. It was most definitely unpleasant, negative, terrifying. I continued to walk through it and it felt as though it covered my entire body, through my clothes and through every strand of my hair. It felt slightly cold, damp and ‘moving’.
I walked into the dining room to the right and it persisted until midway through. At the point where it stopped I felt every strand of hair on my head release, as if it had been stood up.

Fairly terrified and in shock, I gave the cat some treats but he didn’t eat them. He kept to the front downstairs room and stayed there until a few hours later when my partner came to collect us. We never returned.

I gave up the tenancy at the 6th month mark and stayed with my partner until we found a new place. We eventually moved in together and lived quite happily as a little family until my beautiful kitty passed away last week, at 17 yrs old.

His leaving us prompted me to write this account, which I’d intended to do since registering with the forum - it is my only significant experience of this nature.

I’m not so much interested in figuring out what it was, rather I wanted to share it as an experience in itself.
The house is constantly on the market now. It seems to be an unhappy place.

Interestingly, about a year later I had a dream in which the ‘thing’ or force, or energy (call it what you will, but ‘ghost’ doesn’t fit) tried to overwhelm me. Thankfully I managed to ‘will’ the damned thing onto oblivion.

I am happy to leave it there.

 

[merricat]

I forgot to mention, a few weeks later, when returning to the house to pick up some stuff, we found one of my cotton tote bags twisted around a door knob. The handles had twisted so tightly they looked like a solid section of rope, as if stiffened by glue. On taking the bag off the door knob it just flopped back into it’s regular shape.

That was unreasonable!

 

[GNC]

You know that warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you're really comfortable or have a pleasurable shiver? It's been discussed on this forum before. I wonder if you experienced the exact opposite of that? I don't know whether that can be triggered by outside stimulus or its internal, nor do I know if animals experience the pleasurable feeling or its opposite - but it looks that way from your account, doesn't it?

The bag sounds like someone else was in the house for a bit, though. Maybe trying to freak you out, maybe arsing around for their own amusement.

 

[escargot]

the damned thing

Aha, a real-life Damned Thing.

The Damned Thing is the title of a story by Ambrose Bierce from about 1893. The eponymous entity is an invisible force or creature, it's not clear which, that apparently stalks and kills a man on a hunting expedition.

Did you call it that by coincidence or did you recall the title, possibly unconsciously?
Not doubting you, just remarking on the choice of words.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... The Damned Thing is the title of a story by Ambrose Bierce from about 1893. The eponymous entity is an invisible force or creature, it's not clear which, that apparently stalks and kills a man on a hunting expedition. ...

The short story can be accessed at:

http://www.ambrosebierce.org/damned.htm

 

[Ringo]

Aha, a real-life Damned Thing.

The Damned Thing is the title of a story by Ambrose Bierce from about 1893. The eponymous entity is an invisible force or creature, it's not clear which, that apparently stalks and kills a man on a hunting expedition.

Did you call it that by coincidence or did you recall the title, possibly unconsciously?
Not doubting you, just remarking on the choice of words.

Love that story.

 

[onetwothree]

Thank you for sharing that account! I'm a firm believer in cats being able to sense (and maybe even see) stuff that we can't (and in fact, it's how I calm myself down if I suddenly get scared in the night - if my cats are calm, there's nothing to worry about). Are you able to find out anything about the history of the house? It seems clear that something definitely happened there, so it would be interesting to find out.

I'm sorry for the loss of your cat, too.

 

[merricat]

Aha, a real-life Damned Thing.

The Damned Thing is the title of a story by Ambrose Bierce from about 1893. The eponymous entity is an invisible force or creature, it's not clear which, that apparently stalks and kills a man on a hunting expedition.

Did you call it that by coincidence or did you recall the title, possibly unconsciously?
Not doubting you, just remarking on the choice of words.

No I hadn’t thought of that one!
I used to read a lot of ghost stories during my 20’s and early 30’s. It would be nice to go back to them now and reacquaint myself. My favourites were Edith Wharton, Algernon Blackwood and Le Fanu. I think the best of all though were those huge Virago compilations edited by Richard Dalby.

 

[merricat]

Thank you for sharing that account! I'm a firm believer in cats being able to sense (and maybe even see) stuff that we can't (and in fact, it's how I calm myself down if I suddenly get scared in the night - if my cats are calm, there's nothing to worry about). Are you able to find out anything about the history of the house? It seems clear that something definitely happened there, so it would be interesting to find out.

I'm sorry for the loss of your cat, too.

Thank you

Funnily enough I did look into a tiny bit of the history, but prior to the events. I’d been curious about the houses and when they were built, and recall reading about the first married couple who lived there. Nothing unusual to note though.

No idea what to think.

Perhaps it picked up something ..... interesting.....during it’s rental phase.

 

[Ghost In The Machine]

OK! I’m going to write this as it happened, without any guesses as to what it was, exactly, that I experienced.
The truth is I dare say I’ll never know, and that’s fine.

I moved into a small, (rented) terraced house in the north west in October 2013. It was a rushed decision as I had made a sudden move to be closer to my mother and partner after my father passed away in the April of that year.
Having signed the contract after a relatively quick viewing (I knew the area and had decided to take it for that reason alone), I took the keys and visited alone for the first time around a week later.

I wouldn’t say that I felt uncomfortable, but I did regret having rushed into it. Within an hour the taps sprang a leak, the bedroom ceiling began to drip (!), and the boiler wouldn’t fire up. ‘Bastards!’ I thought. Like you do.
The agency responded quickly and attended to the issues, but a sensation of utter dread remained. I put this down to grief, stress and exhaustion.

However, I could smell a dog.

This only occurred close to the long wall which the stairs and kitchen ran against. The carpets were new and the walls repainted. So I guessed the previous tenant had a dog. Still, the sensation was unusual in that whilst being able to smell a dog, I also felt strongly that it was in distress. Again, I had no real option other than to attribute my feelings to stress.

.......

My partner lived a few streets away, so was present quite a bit during that first week. He couldn’t smell the dog so I left it at that.

Around the two week mark something really disturbing occurred. I won’t beat around the bush here, I will just relate the event as it happened. Around 11pm one evening, sat watching Catweasle series 1 on the bed upstairs, my cat sleeping on the pillow beside me woke suddenly with a start. A few minutes later I became aware that my cat was peering fixedly into a full length mirror across the room which reflected the upstairs hallway.
When he didn’t get bored with this, I took notice. I’m somewhat ashamed to say that after a few minutes of watching him wide-eyed and serious I began to feel apprehensive. This might be regular cat behaviour, but it was unusual for him. So I jumped up from the bed and in that excited way you behave when trying to get your pet to follow you, I thought I’d coax him downstairs for some treats. That ought to do it, or so I thought.

As I reached the top step of the stairs, cat a few inches behind me, the atmosphere here felt charged, unusual. I recall this in slow motion, as I began to walk down the stairs the sensation became stronger, and when I looked behind me to check on him he was stuck, as if paralysed mid-step, hair on end. And I mean stuck-up spiky fright-cat type hair. Like a cartoon.

Whilst I’d heard of such things, I’d never actually witnessed anything like it.

I continued down the stairs and close to the bottom I walked into something which felt like (please humour me!) a large, electrified spider’s web. It was most definitely unpleasant, negative, terrifying. I continued to walk through it and it felt as though it covered my entire body, through my clothes and through every strand of my hair. It felt slightly cold, damp and ‘moving’.
I walked into the dining room to the right and it persisted until midway through. At the point where it stopped I felt every strand of hair on my head release, as if it had been stood up.

Fairly terrified and in shock, I gave the cat some treats but he didn’t eat them. He kept to the front downstairs room and stayed there until a few hours later when my partner came to collect us. We never returned.

I gave up the tenancy at the 6th month mark and stayed with my partner until we found a new place. We eventually moved in together and lived quite happily as a little family until my beautiful kitty passed away last week, at 17 yrs old.

His leaving us prompted me to write this account, which I’d intended to do since registering with the forum - it is my only significant experience of this nature.

I’m not so much interested in figuring out what it was, rather I wanted to share it as an experience in itself.
The house is constantly on the market now. It seems to be an unhappy place.

Interestingly, about a year later I had a dream in which the ‘thing’ or force, or energy (call it what you will, but ‘ghost’ doesn’t fit) tried to overwhelm me. Thankfully I managed to ‘will’ the damned thing onto oblivion.

I am happy to leave it there.

Brilliant post.

The mention of the kind of spider's web feeling reminded me of a post on Secret Leeds forums about a bunch of chaos magicians leaving a 'thought form' in the cellar, I think, of a student house in Hyde Park. Which stuck in my mind as I had a boyfriend who had lived at Hyde Park Terrace. And his flat was creepy AF.

Ah, yes - not Hyde Park, that was another one but check out Steve Jones' 'spider god' post on this page:

http://www.secretleeds.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2434&start=10

Check out the post on the following page by someone else involved in the spider thought forms! Maybe a prankster chaos magician lived in the place before you!

Forgot to say but I grew up in a house that had a lot going on, experienced by a number of people including those who'd never been fore-warned - and am a very experienced researcher so I spent a fair bit of time trying to find out from old newspaper databases, etc, if something really 'bad' had happened there. I came up with nada. But the place was so bad I am convinced something happened there. Can't find a thing, though.

 

[Spookdaddy]

Yes, that’s a great story, Merricat – thanks for sharing.

Back in the late 90's I stayed for a few weeks in a house in the shadow of Wandsworth Prison. It was owned by an actress working in the West End. I was there with my then girlfriend, and there was one other male lodger - and a cat.

The cat was around a year old, and completely mental. Only I very soon realised that it wasn't actually completely mental - but in an almost constant state of extreme agitation. It would bumble around doing cat things and then suddenly freeze, crouch, stare at an apparently random section of wall, or a door, or the bottom of the stairs - hackle up, and then shoot off at high speed yowling like a demon. It was sometimes in such a state of panic that it ran into things - I once watched it miss the cat flap in the back door and hit the door itself with a resounding thump (this, by the way, was the middle of the day, in broad daylight).

I know young cats can sometimes behave in this slightly frenetic manner - but this seemed to me to be something more. By way of experiment I once tried to hold on to him as the panic struck - but he fought against me as if his life depended on it and I have no doubt that it was actually frightened, rather than just hyperactive.

I had not liked this house since the moment I walked in the door; it was a nicely presented mid-sized Edwardian building, newly decorated and relatively light and airy - but I was immediately struck with the feeling that there was something not quite right about the place. I didn't want to say anything that would worry my ex - and, although I have an open mind when it comes to the perception of what we tend to rather vaguely call ‘atmospheres’, I'm not entirely sure what this actually entails, and also not so enamoured of my own perceptions that I succumb to them without consideration.

So, I held my tongue, until giving the other male lodger a heart attack as we bumped into each other on the landing after both getting up for an overnight visit to the bathroom. The next day – after me apologising for giving him a start - we got to chatting. He didn’t like the place, either – and hated getting up in the night because the staircase and upstairs landing gave him the creeps. He said (and, apart from the cat thing, this is what brought the episode to mind) that he found the atmosphere quite ominous, and sometimes it felt as if he was looking, and walking, through ‘fuzz’.

I have come to realise that all my experiences of things possibly supernatural have been aural, and there is one such episode that happened while I was at this house - in fact the single palpable incident that occurred, outside bizarre feline behaviour and odd atmosphere. Again, I’m not so sure of myself to be adamant that this was not something else entirely - a waking dream, or even something I was doing myself and unaware of – but, at around 02.00 one morning, I was woken by what can only be described as an intensely horrible groan – long and guttural, and somehow very threatening - coming from the corner of the room by the door, which opened up on to the landing.

I’d say I was a pretty handy unit, and generally not at all a nervous fearful type of person, but this incident had my heart racing; I was also overtaken with the idea that I had to sweat it out - in fact, literally stare it out - in order to prevent whatever had happened from becoming something more, and I made myself concentrate on the precise point I thought the noise had come from until I calmed down. Eventually I did.

I never mentioned this to my ex until well over ten years later, when I bumped into her in Glasgow. Disappointingly, she had no actual incidents to relate – apart from the weird cat behaviour. However, she did tell me that the owner later told her that she’d made a mistake buying the house and should have followed her first instincts. But she never expanded into explaining whether these instincts were based on prosaic matters or something less tangible. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it was the latter.

 

[escargot]

Brilliant post.

The mention of the kind of spider's web feeling reminded me of a post on Secret Leeds forums about a bunch of chaos magicians leaving a 'thought form' in the cellar, I think, of a student house in Hyde Park. Which stuck in my mind as I had a boyfriend who had lived at Hyde Park Terrace. And his flat was creepy AF.

Ah, yes - not Hyde Park, that was another one but check out Steve Jones' 'spider god' post on this page:

http://www.secretleeds.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2434&start=10

Check out the post on the following page by someone else involved in the spider thought forms! Maybe a prankster chaos magician lived in the place before you!

Forgot to say but I grew up in a house that had a lot going on, experienced by a number of people including those who'd never been fore-warned - and am a very experienced researcher so I spent a fair bit of time trying to find out from old newspaper databases, etc, if something really 'bad' had happened there. I came up with nada. But the place was so bad I am convinced something happened there. Can't find a thing, though.

Heh, I was going to reply to this but what I have to say is so weird I'm taking it to PM!

Edit - no I'm not as this poster doesn't accept PMs. Or i can't find the button to click.

 

[Ghost In The Machine]

Now I want to know what the snail had to say!

 

[CuriousIdent]

Intriguing account, Merricat.

I've always felt there was something intrinsically sad and disheartening over some rental properties. The ones which change hands regularly or stay vacant for long periods of time. The ones which the agent tries to sell you on, but has a gloomy vibe to it from the second you step in the door.

I do wonder if the reasoning for such is down to something tragic having happened in a property's past or some kind of accumulation of unhappiness from former residents. Some kind of energy left behind.

When me an Mrs CI moved into our current place one of the first things which one of the neighbours said to us was that they wished us well, because the previous two iterations of residents had had some very bad times there. Financial and marital problems in both cases. We had actually bought it as a repossession, after an attempt to buy it off the previous owners had collapsed the previous year. They were going through a messy divorce, and it turned out that one party had taken out a second mortgage without ever disclosing it to their partner. We only found when we were about to exchange contracts, at which point the whole move collapsed.

We went to some silly hippy dippy superstitious lengths to make sure we purged all negative energy from the place. But in all honesty we probably have rowed more in that house than at any other point in the (almost) two decades we've been together. It was while living in this house that I got diagnosed with cancer, and went through 2 heavy years of treatment. So there is an inevitable amount of negative memory also attached to that. I dread to thing what negative energy we'll leave behind for the next guys when we finally move.

But what you're talking about sounds like more than just negative vibes. The dog smell is interesting. The two smells which are hardest to get out of the very pores of a building are cigarette smoke and pet hairs. You can paint and redecorate, but ultimately both will always find some way of rising back up to the surface.

And they are very distinct and powerful smells. If a house smells of dog it SMELLS of dog. If you've owned or lived with dogs all your life, sure, you may become nose blind to it. But otherwise it is kinda distinct.

Your partner couldn't smell it, but it's really very possible the cat could have. And let's be honest, if a cat sells a dog it's probably going to but it on edge.

Can you recall if the scent was present when you experienced this thing downstairs?

 

[escargot]

Now I want to know what the snail had to say!

You don't accept PMs on here!

 

[merricat]

Brilliant post.

The mention of the kind of spider's web feeling reminded me of a post on Secret Leeds forums about a bunch of chaos magicians leaving a 'thought form' in the cellar, I think, of a student house in Hyde Park. Which stuck in my mind as I had a boyfriend who had lived at Hyde Park Terrace. And his flat was creepy AF.

Ah, yes - not Hyde Park, that was another one but check out Steve Jones' 'spider god' post on this page:

http://www.secretleeds.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2434&start=10

Check out the post on the following page by someone else involved in the spider thought forms! Maybe a prankster chaos magician lived in the place before you!

Forgot to say but I grew up in a house that had a lot going on, experienced by a number of people including those who'd never been fore-warned - and am a very experienced researcher so I spent a fair bit of time trying to find out from old newspaper databases, etc, if something really 'bad' had happened there. I came up with nada. But the place was so bad I am convinced something happened there. Can't find a thing, though.

Thanks very much for the link, this is really interesting. Hadnt heard of anything like this before.

This thing felt ‘clammy’ and all invasive (I don’t mean sexual, though). I’ve also found that since writing the account, thinking about it makes me feel just ever so slightly unsettled. Not afraid, exactly. Which doesn’t surprise to tell the truth as I very quickly laid the experience up after leaving the house and have not given it much thought or analysis since. You just move along, don’t you?

Now, the ‘thought-form’ stuff really fascinates me, although possibly from a more creative (less spooky) perspective - I’m a visual artist and have recently been exploring this concept through my abstract work. However, these particular thought-forms are tied up with the creative process itself, or perhaps with where creative intent or manifestation merge with the unknown/spiritual. I’ve been working on a series called ‘beyond form’ just this week!
Something which has become even more pertinent to me recently, since the loss of my cat.

 

[escargot]

We heard a talk about the spider malarkey in the spring given by someone who was there.

 

[merricat]

Yes, that’s a great story, Merricat – thanks for sharing.

Back in the late 90's I stayed for a few weeks in a house in the shadow of Wandsworth Prison. It was owned by an actress working in the West End. I was there with my then girlfriend, and there was one other male lodger - and a cat.

The cat was around a year old, and completely mental. Only I very soon realised that it wasn't actually completely mental - but in an almost constant state of extreme agitation. It would bumble around doing cat things and then suddenly freeze, crouch, stare at an apparently random section of wall, or a door, or the bottom of the stairs - hackle up, and then shoot off at high speed yowling like a demon. It was sometimes in such a state of panic that it ran into things - I once watched it miss the cat flap in the back door and hit the door itself with a resounding thump (this, by the way, was the middle of the day, in broad daylight).

I know young cats can sometimes behave in this slightly frenetic manner - but this seemed to me to be something more. By way of experiment I once tried to hold on to him as the panic struck - but he fought against me as if his life depended on it and I have no doubt that it was actually frightened, rather than just hyperactive.

I had not liked this house since the moment I walked in the door; it was a nicely presented mid-sized Edwardian building, newly decorated and relatively light and airy - but I was immediately struck with the feeling that there was something not quite right about the place. I didn't want to say anything that would worry my ex - and, although I have an open mind when it comes to the perception of what we tend to rather vaguely call ‘atmospheres’, I'm not entirely sure what this actually entails, and also not so enamoured of my own perceptions that I succumb to them without consideration.

So, I held my tongue, until giving the other male lodger a heart attack as we bumped into each other on the landing after both getting up for an overnight visit to the bathroom. The next day – after me apologising for giving him a start - we got to chatting. He didn’t like the place, either – and hated getting up in the night because the staircase and upstairs landing gave him the creeps. He said (and, apart from the cat thing, this is what brought the episode to mind) that he found the atmosphere quite ominous, and sometimes it felt as if he was looking, and walking, through ‘fuzz’.

I have come to realise that all my experiences of things possibly supernatural have been aural, and there is one such episode that happened while I was at this house - in fact the single palpable incident that occurred, outside bizarre feline behaviour and odd atmosphere. Again, I’m not so sure of myself to be adamant that this was not something else entirely - a waking dream, or even something I was doing myself and unaware of – but, at around 02.00 one morning, I was woken by what can only be described as an intensely horrible groan – long and guttural, and somehow very threatening - coming from the corner of the room by the door, which opened up on to the landing.

I’d say I was a pretty handy unit, and generally not at all a nervous fearful type of person, but this incident had my heart racing; I was also overtaken with the idea that I had to sweat it out - in fact, literally stare it out - in order to prevent whatever had happened from becoming something more, and I made myself concentrate on the precise point I thought the noise had come from until I calmed down. Eventually I did.

I never mentioned this to my ex until well over ten years later, when I bumped into her in Glasgow. Disappointingly, she had no actual incidents to relate – apart from the weird cat behaviour. However, she did tell me that the owner later told her that she’d made a mistake buying the house and should have followed her first instincts. But she never expanded into explaining whether these instincts were based on prosaic matters or something less tangible. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it was the latter.

Hi Spookdaddy, I bolded the above paragraph from your post which struck me as immediately relevant/interesting.
I wonder why we feel impelled to do such things? During or just after such an experience, I highly doubt that we care to analyse our apparent behaviour or responses, instead reacting on a more immediate, self protective basis.
Shortly after my little run-in with the stairwell ‘entity’, I quickly visualised a sort of wall of defence around myself. It didn’t feel as though I’d concocted it either, but rather as if it was already in service and my unconscious just knew it was time to get it on!
To my minds eye it had a visual element - a dense fortress of bright white light. Slightly cube shaped rather than the usual oval or circle. No idea what to make of that.

And.....’in the shadow of WANDSWORTH PRISON’. Do you believe there might be any connection?

Thank you for taking the time to post your account.

 

[merricat]

Intriguing account, Merricat.

I've always felt there was something intrinsically sad and disheartening over some rental properties. The ones which change hands regularly or stay vacant for long periods of time. The ones which the agent tries to sell you on, but has a gloomy vibe to it from the second you step in the door.

I do wonder if the reasoning for such is down to something tragic having happened in a property's past or some kind of accumulation of unhappiness from former residents. Some kind of energy left behind.

When me an Mrs CI moved into our current place one of the first things which one of the neighbours said to us was that they wished us well, because the previous two iterations of residents had had some very bad times there. Financial and marital problems in both cases. We had actually bought it as a repossession, after an attempt to buy it off the previous owners had collapsed the previous year. They were going through a messy divorce, and it turned out that one party had taken out a second mortgage without ever disclosing it to their partner. We only found when we were about to exchange contracts, at which point the whole move collapsed.

We went to some silly hippy dippy superstitious lengths to make sure we purged all negative energy from the place. But in all honesty we probably have rowed more in that house than at any other point in the (almost) two decades we've been together. It was while living in this house that I got diagnosed with cancer, and went through 2 heavy years of treatment. So there is an inevitable amount of negative memory also attached to that. I dread to thing what negative energy we'll leave behind for the next guys when we finally move.

But what you're talking about sounds like more than just negative vibes. The dog smell is interesting. The two smells which are hardest to get out of the very pores of a building are cigarette smoke and pet hairs. You can paint and redecorate, but ultimately both will always find some way of rising back up to the surface.

And they are very distinct and powerful smells. If a house smells of dog it SMELLS of dog. If you've owned or lived with dogs all your life, sure, you may become nose blind to it. But otherwise it is kinda distinct.

Your partner couldn't smell it, but it's really very possible the cat could have. And let's be honest, if a cat sells a dog it's probably going to but it on edge.

Can you recall if the scent was present when you experienced this thing downstairs?

Yes, it is possible that the cat could smell dog, which failing to find any tangible connection between the smell and the incident on the stairway, would appear to have been leftover from a previous tenant.

However, according to the lady next door, for the previous 6 yrs or so the house had been a shared residence, mostly immigrants, short stays, and no pets. I could smell aftershave in one corner of my bedroom which was possibly due to a previous spillage!
The dog only links, to my mind, because nobody else could smell it, and that the smell existed in the same area as the weird stuff.

The scent was always present near the stairs, although I wouldn’t say it was any more so at the time of the incident.

The house was an unusual choice for me, I could have afforded somewhere much nicer at the time. I think it was a matter of moving in a hurry and it being in the right location.
I still pass it occasionally. There’s a miserable looking dog in the garden and I ‘think’ it is currently owned and occupied by one of our local councillors - a sort of ‘England for the English’ type

I’m sorry to hear about the problems you have experienced at the property. I once got it into my head that a certain lovely house that I lived in for 7 years was possibly the cause of a spell of bad luck. In truth I was simply isolated, and the luck followed me out!
However, once we have made an unpleasant association between a place and our wellbeing, it is difficult to exorcise those feelings, and possibly time to move on regardless. Not an easy option for all of us, of course.
I do believe that some spaces absolutely contain ‘energies’ or such which clash with us, or are simply unhealthy. It would be great if we could always ascertain which way it’s going to swing before we move in!

 

[Spookdaddy]

...And.....’in the shadow of WANDSWORTH PRISON’. Do you believe there might be any connection?...

I suspect not. (And, my mistake - it was Brixton Prison, not Wandsworth; I did stay near Wandsworth clink on another occasion).

The house was around 30 metres along a road which ran at right angles to the prison wall - which you could see as you walked up to the front door. I doubt there was any connection, but the bulky presence of Her Majesty's Retirement Home for the Criminous does carry a certain weight - quite ominous on a blustery autumn afternoon.

...I bolded the above paragraph from your post which struck me as immediately relevant/interesting.
I wonder why we feel impelled to do such things? During or just after such an experience, I highly doubt that we care to analyse our apparent behaviour or responses, instead reacting on a more immediate, self protective basis...

I definitely think there's a case for saying that we revert to behaviour based on instinct (of course, whether we are correct to do so is another argument - it may be that those instincts have been set off by mistake). But also maybe it's part of our character too. The idea, even as a kid, that I would hide under the bedclothes if something strange were to happen would have filled me with a kind dread outweighing anything the thing in question might inspire; I'm one of those people who really needs to see what it is I fear* - the idea that it could be out there, while my head is buried under the bedlinen, would have given me the screaming abdabs. In this case I definitely went with the feeling that if I look at it, it will not be able to harm me.

*(My mum always tells the story of when her and my dad had to shoot off to the site of a family emergency - they were only supposed to be gone a few minutes, but things got complicated. I think I was about 11 years old, my two brothers were younger, and we were on our own in the house when we heard a knocking from the cellar. We were all scared to death, but when my parents got back they found us down there - me with a breadknife in my hand, my younger brothers behind me armed with various bits of kitchen equipment. We'd followed our own particular instincts - ironed up, and gone down to confront the 'thing'. Turned out it was my dad's kiln - he was an amateur potter and had recently bought one, and the thermostat clunked in and out with an irregular, resounding, and slightly metallic, clanking sound.)

 

[Ghost In The Machine]

You don't accept PMs on here!

Ooh let me go have a fiddle. I thought I did.

 

[GerdaWordyer]

My husband and I must be the least clairvoyant people ever. Our first house was a "murder house." We didn't find out that the previous owner had been killed there until a neighbor told us months after we'd moved in. The previous, murdered, owner's daughter wanted first refusal if we sold the place, but told us that she could never live there because the house "smelled of death." But the two of us, two dogs, two cats, one bird, were oblivious to any weird sensations or bad vibes for the happy six years we lived there.
In our house-hunting days, we toured a lovely old house (old for Texas is 1910's). The original owner's granddaughter showed us the house and was so purely honest that she told us that she, and others, thought the house was haunted. We felt no weird vibes at all, we were charmed by the house and our worries were that the cost would drain our savings and that our dogs would ruin the nice floors.
But we viewed one 1910's house that did creep us out. Nice and big and as empty as can be. It repelled us. I have wondered forever after what might have happened in that big "family" house.

 

[ramonmercado]

My husband and I must be the least clairvoyant people ever. Our first house was a "murder house." We didn't find out that the previous owner had been killed there until a neighbor told us months after we'd moved in. The previous, murdered, owner's daughter wanted first refusal if we sold the place, but told us that she could never live there because the house "smelled of death." But the two of us, two dogs, two cats, one bird, were oblivious to any weird sensations or bad vibes for the happy six years we lived there.
In our house-hunting days, we toured a lovely old house (old for Texas is 1910's). The original owner's granddaughter showed us the house and was so purely honest that she told us that she, and others, thought the house was haunted. We felt no weird vibes at all, we were charmed by the house and our worries were that the cost would drain our savings and that our dogs would ruin the nice floors.
But we viewed one 1910's house that did creep us out. Nice and big and as empty as can be. It repelled us. I have wondered forever after what might have happened in that big "family" house.

That was post 666!

 

[Clear Light]

In the early nineties, my then girlfriend and I, along with her young child, moved in to a house at 8 Wilton Street, Old Basford, in the suburbs of Nottingham. The house seemed quite ordinary and pleasant enough, but within days, "things" began to happen. First off, an old music box that belonged to my girlfriend began to play of its own accord - I had no idea it was a music box and my girlfriend said the spring had broken and that it had not played for years. I just put it down to the spring righting itself after having been transported from London to our new home, although it refused to work when I tried to make it play. Then the tapping started. We would be sitting in the front room and it would sound as if someone was standing in the centre of the room, spinning round and tapping the walls with a cane. Very odd. Then, one night I was at home alone, sitting watching the TV in the front room, when, from the back room came a strange sound, - I looked round to see a toy tambourine that belonged to my girlfriend's son come rolling in to the room before circling around the room to fall flat right in the middle of the carpet. A couple of times I was sure I saw a black cat in the house, once it seemed to have slunk into the baby's bedroom, but when I went to shoo it out there was nothing to be found. One night we were lying in bed when loud rapping started on the headboard right behind me. At first I thought it was someone next door banging on the wall, but the house we were attached to was unoccupied for the entire time we lived there. The final straw for my girlfriend came one evening when I was coking in the kitchen and could hear the baby crying. I called out to my GF to go and see to the baby but she couldn't quite hear what I was saying so came in to the kitchen to ask what I wanted, carrying the baby in her arms, but we could both still hear the crying coming from upstairs. I went to investigate, but found nothing that could explain the sounds. We moved out soon after...

 

[Swifty]

In the early nineties, my then girlfriend and I, along with her young child, moved in to a house in to 8 Wilton Street, Old Basford, in the suburbs of Nottingham

Fair enough .. OK .. and then what happened ?

 

[Mythopoeika]

Don't keep us in suspense!

 

[Clear Light]

Don't keep us in suspense!

Sorry, pressed post reply by mistake - full story now there!

 

[maximus otter]

...I was coking in the kitchen...

That might explain some weird experiences.



maximus otter

 

[Clear Light]

That might explain some weird experiences.



maximus otter

Not a condiment I am particularly fond of.

 

[Rabbit Will Run]

I definitely think that some buildings soak up emotion. I lived in a small Victorian cottage for a couple of years which had a very unpleasant atmosphere. It was idyllic, overlooking a paddock but just so unhappy. It was a time of upheaval, I was starting a new relationship, I'd just moved away from my family who I missed terribly so I'm very aware I could have been creating this negativity but it honestly felt like it was emanating from the walls somehow. It was definitely not a presence, the house itself just seemed angry and sad and dark. I remember when we went to view the house initially, the current tenants seemed similarly unhappy (not being forced to move out, they'd just had an offer accepted on a house of their own). My partner actually asked one of the tenants "have you been happy here?" and she just seemed completely unable to give an answer. We argued often there and I cried constantly. We moved out last year into another rented property. It was only then that I realised what the atmosphere had been like in the other house. Just a weight and a darkness completely lifted from me. It was definitely a house that I didn't want to go home to, I'd rather stay out for as long as possible than return there for the evening.

It's funny because our current house was previously rented by friends of friends. They alleged the house was haunted and unpleasant to live in but I feel like it's a living breathing thing and has embraced us completely. So that rather ruins my "soaking up emotion" theory! Although I'm sure people can bring their own unhappiness and take it with them when they leave. Our house is happy and calm and bright (even though I'm still homesick!)