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"Thing In The Attic/Cellar" Stories

MOSUGOJI

MOSUGOJI

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Mar 1, 2003
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I've always likes these sort of stories,probably because of my own experiences with "the attic thing" as a little kid.
Living in an old house where the entire upstairs floor is closed off fromt the downstairs and used as a big attic I would hear all kinds of freaky stuff. The unexplained sounds in the night from up there,the muffled voices and whispers and slow clomping footsteps that would cross the ceiling and move slowly down the stairs to the door in the back bedroom that closed off the stairway from the downstairs. My stepbrother and I were like 6 or 7 playing in the back bedroom one evening when we heard the slow deliberate footsteps descend the stairs and stop at the locked doorway. My stepbrother slowly walked over put his head to the door and gently knocked once. Something on the other side knocked back which sent my stepbrother screaming from the room :shock: . There were other incidents there if anyone is interested.
 
Always interested! Post em if you got em!

No experiences as dramatic as your "knocking on the door" but I and others have had various ghostly noises (footsteps etc), for example here.
 
As a kid it always seemed to me it was some sort of monster in the attic and not a ghost oddly enough. There was also the strange feeling of being watched at night from the kitchen window which you would have to pass by to get to the bathroom. There was an incident where a great uncle had come home from WW2 with shell shock and went nuts one day.
He shot his wife in the head and then backed over her head with his car before shooting himself finally. At times it would almost seem like a headless figure was standing in the driveway at night in front of the kitchen window"looking" in. It could have just been the way the moonlight made the shadows from the trees look but it did have an ominous look to the silouette.
 
Been a reader of FT for ages... and have had an account here before, but don't remember its details. :oops:

We used to have strange things happen when I lived with my parents. We would all often hear noises in the attic (footsteps, banging, etc). Eerily, we used to have strange things happen to our Christmas decorations. My parents would take the batteries out of the musical ones after Christmas to store them back up in the attic and in the days following, we'd hear them playing.

Creepy stuff.
 
The footsteps seem to be a pretty popular motif with the attic denizens. Pacing back and forth or up and down the stairs seems to be a good time killer for these entities,along with messing around with the holiday decorations. After all there can't be a whole lot to keep one's self occupied in an attic and I'd assume it would be preferable for whatever it is to keep itself confined to the attic and not go free range all through the house. Unless it's afraid of whatever is in the cellar too and that keeps it where it belongs in the attic.
 
I was always terified of the airing cupboard in my family house. It was on the landing on the stairs, and I always had to run past because I didn't like it. I looked through the keyhole once but got scared just in case something looked back! Its quite strange, because in my mums current home, where I lived for 6 years, I also hate the airing cupboard, which is in the bathroom. It just feels like something evil happened there. The airing cupboard in her house is just an MDF shell round an old hearth.....
 
This subject reminds me of something that happened to my cousin and I when I was around 10 years old and he was 12 or 13. We were in the basement of our grandparents' house, which was a creepy, dark, shadowy old place with lots of boxes and junk piled up everywhere, and very little light except for a couple of dusty windows and a couple bare lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling. I never liked being down there alone, but with my older cousin with me I felt somewhat less uncomfortable. There was a locked up little room in the far corner of the basement which I later learned used to be a bathroom but hadn't been used since my grandparents had bought the house many years earlier. I don't know why they didn't use it, but the door was locked, and through the keyhole you couldn't really make out anything because it was so dark in there. (There was a window but it had been closed up at some point).
My sisters and I and my cousins were always fearful for some reason of being near that door, but that day, my cousin must've felt bolder, because he brought me over to that door and began to pull on the doorknob trying to open the door. I told him to stop, but he kept on turning the knob back and forth. Suddenly, his hand fly off the handle, and he jumped back with a yell. I asked him what happened. He mumbled something about getting back upstairs. Once we were back upstairs, in our grandparent's living room, my cousin told me that something yanked the doorknob on the other side of the door very hard a couple times left and right while his hand was on the doorknob.
I don't know if he was just trying to freak me out or not, but I believed him because he was so startled when it happened. We never spoke about it again, and I don't recall that he ever went back down there by that door again, either.
 
MOSUGOJI said:
As a kid it always seemed to me it was some sort of monster in the attic and not a ghost oddly enough. There was also the strange feeling of being watched at night from the kitchen window which you would have to pass by to get to the bathroom. There was an incident where a great uncle had come home from WW2 with shell shock and went nuts one day.
He shot his wife in the head and then backed over her head with his car before shooting himself finally. At times it would almost seem like a headless figure was standing in the driveway at night in front of the kitchen window"looking" in. It could have just been the way the moonlight made the shadows from the trees look but it did have an ominous look to the silouette.
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my mums house is the same, we hatr gonig into the kitchen when it gets dark you have the feeling your being watched or that if you look at the window or the door someone is going to be stood there, when we were all upstairs in bed you can hear the kitchen lights being turned on and off, the kettle being boiled, cupboard dorrs being opened.

our attic is terrible no one in my family has been in the attic for a year now onlt my brother goes in and thats to get the stuff out for chirstmas.
 
So far we haven't experienced anything strange in this new house we just moved into but the previous one was strange.
My girlfriend used to be creeped out by the cleear where the washer and dryer were. It w as a typical dank cobwebby dark cellar with junk in it so that helped to set the mood. There was an old baby carriage in the cellar that she said would move by itself at least once each time while she was doing laundry. The baby carriage wound up going to the thrift store after about a month of that. The attic there was also pretty active. There would be the usual footsteps and occcasiona thumps. My girlfriend also used to hear the sound of fingers squeaking down the glass og our bedroom window some nights when I would worrk late. I sounded like someone dragging their fingertips down the outside of the windowpane she said.
 
MOSUGOJI said:
My girlfriend also used to hear the sound of fingers squeaking down the glass og our bedroom window some nights when I would worrk late. I sounded like someone dragging their fingertips down the outside of the windowpane she said.
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I wouldn't be worrying about ghosts if I were hearing that! What kind of neighbors do you have?
 
ElishevaBarsabe said:
MOSUGOJI said:
My girlfriend also used to hear the sound of fingers squeaking down the glass og our bedroom window some nights when I would worrk late. I sounded like someone dragging their fingertips down the outside of the windowpane she said.
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I wouldn't be worrying about ghosts if I were hearing that! What kind of neighbors do you have?
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the apt was on the second floor with that bedroom window inaccesable unless someone had a good sized ladder,which she didn't see when she worked up the nerve to look out the curtain. That wasn't the first time strange stuff went on in the apt. When I lived there alone the bedroom closet would open by itself that is until the time the door opened and I whipped a shoe in the closet full force.There was also a strange night last year where I suddenly woke up at 3:05am with the weird feeling something strange was going on. Next thing I knew my phone suddenly rang 3 rings then stopped. That left a very ominous feel to the air. Ten minutes later the phone rang 3 times again. Makes me wonder what would have replied had I answered the phone. On top of it previous tenants had actually left behind their dead father's ashes in the attic. Just before I moved in I was poking around in the attic and found 2 boxes marked HUMAN REMAINS. They did eventually pick up the ashes but who knows what else decided to linger. There is still the sound of someone crying on the back stairway according to the current downstais neighbors which has been mentioned by pretty much mentioned by every tenant who loved there.
 
Our attic has the spirit of an old lodger from way back. Used to hear noises
all the time when i first moved in years ago then my brother who is a medium got a name of a man( Alistair Moffat). This was about two years ago and all as been quiet until last week when my son who is 22 months has been talking about the man in the loft that speaks to him! :shock: :shock:
 
Wow hogster the man in the loft thing sounds pretty wild. Have you ever thought about putting a tape recorder in the loft and see what it picks up?
 
Hey MOS would love to put a tape recorder up in the attic, but i havent owned one of those in about 20 years :D

Will have a think and see if i can lay my hands on anything. According to my bro the spirit is not here all the time, only in visitation so might be a lost cause trying to catch something on tape.
 
You could always try a video camera. You never know, you might capture a little man.
 
A lad I used to work with told me (and he is not the sort to make this sort of thing up - very straight-laced and serious kind of guy) about a house his family used to live in in North Norfolk - I recall him saying it was an old manor house. Him and some mates were playing upstairs in the attic, kind of exploring the place as they were pretty newly moved in. While playing scalextric I think it was, something made one of the lads point to a little door in the corner of the attic. And when they all looked, they all saw the bolt on the door move sideways. There was apparently no way this could have been slid from the other side - and everybody in the house was up in the attic, apart from my friend's mum who was downstairs in the kitchen and a bit freaked out to have all these 10ish year old kids come hareing downstairs scared out of their wits. She actually called the police as she thought someone was in the house. The local policeman came, looked around, confirmed no-one else was in the house and then proceeded to tell her "You do know about this house don't you?" and apparently then related some of the history of the place, which apparently was somewhat odd.

Standard spooky stuff I suppose, but then my friend told me about other things that happened like some of the contents of the dining room consistently being found piled up in the fireplace of that room when they'd got back from a day out - I think this happened more than once; the dog being so petrified one day they came home to find it had crawled out of an upstairs bathroom window, and got down from a first floor roof to be found cowering in the corner of the garden, and - the final straw before they put the place back on the market - my friend remembering his dad getting up in the night twice as he could hear something (crying, I think) in his sisters bedroom but both times finding the girls asleep, then going in a third time followed by a huge commotion as his dad was carrying the girls out of the room and they all piled into a car and drove away from the house. My friends dad told him some years later that the third time he went into the bedroom, he found one of the girls awake saying that the little child outside the window wanted her to go and play with her. The window was on the first floor of the house, and had bars on it. The reason the bars were there was that a child had fallen out of that window many years before and died.

As I read this back to me, it looks rather fanciful, but I am relating it back as genuinely told to me by my old workmate, who I am sure was quite genuine in telling me this.
 
Sounds a bit like a real life version of the film Poltergeist (object stacking, phantom outside window, parents grabbing everyone in the middle of the night and getting the hell out of there).
 
During University my mate and I both worked in different pubs in Cardiff, I worked in a student dive of a place and he worked in a posh place that served the many legal firms that surrounded it. He worked the day shift, turning up at 10am to sort the bar out for 11am opening. When he turned up the landlord was usually there pottering around.

On one morning the dray (beer delivery lorry) turned up and the landlord nipped outside to help the delivery men open the metal hatch outside the pub that had a delivery "chute" down to the cellar. As soon as the hatch was open my mate heard a small commotion so went outside to see what was wrong. The landlord and one of the delivery guys had their heads inside the hatch muttering away and taking a good look inside the cellar beneath them. the second delivery guy was on his knees, clearly having already taken a look inside the cellar already, and was smiling and laughing. My mate asked what was wrong and the landlord replied that nothing was technically "wrong" and waved him down towards the hatch to take a look.

My mate looked inside and saw the large cellar with metal beer barrells all over the floor, most of them on their side. There were around fifty of them. My mate asked what was going on and the landlord said that the night before a delivery he neatly stacks the empty barrells next to the bottom of the shute so they can clear the emptys before loading in the full ones. He said the delivery guys were laughing because they had been met with this scene on opening this pubs hatch several times over the years before and had joked in the lorry on the way over that it had not happened for some time.

When my mate informed me of this (in his mind) uninteresting occurrence I was sat having a pint in his pub waiting for him to finish his shift so we could go out on a weekend night. I was always naturally fascinated by anything strange so when the lanlord came to prop up the bar I asked him about it. He said he was told by the previous landlord that the railway line was only yards away behind the houses on the other side of the street and vibrations caused things to move or fall over. He, however, was not so sure this was correct since there was no notcieable effect when even the coal transports passed on the railway line. He suggested it was something else but never mentioned a paranormal culprit. Unfortunately it was just before the days of easily affordable digtial cameras and the like.

Years later I heard that a new bar man thought the land lord was trying to spook him out as he constantly found the cellar in dissaray. They had agreed some sort of bet which involved the landlord giving over all the keys for the cellar after it was tidied up and then locked to prove it wasn't him doing it. I never heard anymore about as I moved to London shortly afterwards.
 
Sounds like the "Flying Coffins" story only with beer barrels!
 
Is it me, or when a significant number of people recall attic/basement events, attics are remembered from the bottom of the stairs or ladders looking up, while basements are almost always seen from the top of the stairs looking down? Bachelard postulated something similar in The Poetics of Space
 
attics are remembered from the bottom of the stairs or ladders looking up, while basements are almost always seen from the top of the stairs looking down?
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Of course they do as one is down and the other is up... are you suggesting that this has more significance than simply being the way it is
 
linesmachine said:
During University ....I moved to London shortly afterwards.
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Which pub was it? I live in Cardiff now and my bar is DEFINATELY haunted!
 
I grew up in a haunted house...

I grew up in a haunted house. From the age of 8 to 18, we interacted with our ghost, once accustomed to it. We, my brother and I, would see it, as well as hear and gain responses during interactions.

I distinctly remember seeing Jack, the ghost of a former owner, at least 3 times. He would usually appear to us in the room or hallway, but on innumerable occasions, we would hear him banging around in the basement. (This was in Michigan.) He actually would be anywhere in the house, but my dad actually was awakened on the 2nd floor by hearing banging. We weren't home, so didn't hear it. Well, he got out his .45 and went door to door in the house, following the sound to the basement. In the opposite corner, there was a storage area, with only one way in or out. As he approached, he saw the door swinging and slamming. As he approached it stopped. Getting closer, it would slowly open to about 3/4 open. (BTW, this corner was dark, so he couldn't see in) Within about 2 feet the door slammed shut, when it's natural position was about 1/3 open. He grabbed a broom handle nearby and pulled the door open, ready to fire. When he saw no human was there, he got a little spooked, but remembered my brother and I had been telling him Jack just wanted attention. So, he said "Hi Jack, let me go to sleep" in a self mocking way. Well, he heard a double tap on the wood, which he could see no one near, and quickly went up to bed. Over the 10 years, we accumulated dozens of experiences, which would take hours to type. Let me know if you want more!
 
Well, here goes, then.
One of our first 'family' experiences was after going out for the night to a family friend's house. Details elude, but are not a factor to what happened on our return. One important factor: there was no wind that night, as the light rain was falling straight down.

Our single car garage, circa 1925-1930, would normally face so you could drive in from the driveway, as called here in the states. However, ours was rotated 90 degrees counter clockwise, so that the access door and car entry faced right and offset slightly left. It was about 60 feet away from the car as you parked. Therefore, one could see into the only side window directly, as well as being able to see the car access and 'person door'.

Since it stored 'Phred', my dad's old 53 Chevy, it was closed and locked. No one had a key for the exterior tumbler.

As we get home said evening, my Dad noticed the person door was open. Needless to say, he investigated, thinking someone was wanting to steal Phred. (lol) As he approached, with the headlights shining, the door would open further as he approached.

When he was about 5 feet away, the door opened fully and then slammed so hard the windows rattled.I remember that clearly. (There was glass in the top 1/2 of the person door) He returned, getting a tire iron. Keep in mind we could still see all access and exit areas, so no one could have exited without being seen. He returned and examined everything inside and out by opening the car access door. No footprints in the grass or mud, due to rain, no key in the door; nothing. After looking around, he tried to open the person door and couldn't, even from the inside. The lock had seemingly jammed in the locked position.

This is a rather mundane story compared to some of yours, but by no means is this my only one.
 
I'm liking the amount of detail in these accounts... Were these mostly door based experiences? I would have said some kind of draught was responsible, but draughts don't lock doors, do they?
 
No winds don't generally twist the deadbolt. :) Actually, most of my incidents did not involve the basement nor doors. The first time I actually saw Jack, it was about midnight (Why do most of these things occur at night??!) and I awoke with a feeling of needing to look to the foot of the bed. As I looked there, I saw a white mist appear, where a normal man's chest would be. While it was apparent, it was not at all clear. It was more of the typical 'smoke' appearance. Not quite comprehending what was going on, since I was little over 8 years old, I said "Hello?" to which it responded by waving at me with it's left 'arm'! :hello: :wtf:

Well, the only rational thing any 8 year old boy would do is exactly what I did. :roll: I shrieked like a scared 3rd grade school girl, launched out of bed (the top of bunk beds) without hitting the floor before exiting my room at about 90MPH. Literally, I did not hit the floor, as the jump was about 5 feet up and only 7 or 8 to the door. Adrenaline going, I flew into my Dad's room, where he was bolt upright after my ear drum splitting squeal.:shock: Both he and my step mom were extremely curious as to what happened, to put it politely and without the expletive fueled commentary by my Dad.

After about a quart of tears, 15 minuted of oxygen therapy and parental counseling, I got the story out in hits and misses.

Looking back after (mumble mumble) years, I it is excessively comical to me how I reacted. Especially so, realizing that over the next 10 years after that we actually would set traps for unsuspecting friends who didn't believe we had a haunted house. On numerous occasions we would entice the ghost to play along with us and many times he did, much to our incredible entertainment. Two of our close friends at the time actually started getting in on the act. Good times, Good times. :wow: I still laugh... Am I sick, or what?!
 
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