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Things Breaking

Eponastill

Justified & Ancient
Joined
Aug 2, 2002
Messages
1,122
Location
generally on the fringes
Ok, this didn't happen to me, it happened recently to my long-standing good friend, who told me about it last night. His parents live in an old farmhouse (and have numerous weird tales about it, mostly about seeing figures and hearing things). Things can be a bit fraught in the family at the best of times. One day the extended family were round for dinner. During the conversation, a back-handed insult was aimed at someone who wasn't there, but who was actually an in-law of one of those present, and he rightly took exception to it. The atmosphere became super strained and no-one spoke for 10 minutes, apparently. Then (so he said) an expensive decorative plate which had forever lived on a wooden dresser (I think he said dresser... I mean you'd imagine it was propped up so it could be seen), fell on the floor and broke. The implication was that it had no real way or reason for doing so, and that with our previous knowledge of the weirdness of the house, the incident was in response to the appalling atmosphere and was just another mad thing that happened there. I wish I'd quizzed him on whether anyone actually saw it fall (or leap) but I was loathe to spoil the anecdote by quizzing him mercilessly (what kind of fortean am I? rubbish).
I personally might like to interpret it as a sort of spontaneous PK moment triggered by the mental anxiety in the room (I'm quite taken by accounts of poltergeists and not giving them an 'entity' explanation). But maybe his slant would have been more from the 'this house is haunted' angle. Or the sensible rationalist would go for coincidence, of course. If the plate had fallen down when people were just watching the tv, perhaps no-one would have thought quite so much of it (even though it had just as little reason for moving).
Anyway, thought you might like that. I can't think of a similar example that's happened to me though. Perhaps you have your own.
 
An odd incident happened to me just last Wednesday.
We have an ensuite off our bedroom. My wife and I both had the day off, so that meant the chance for us to both have a sleep in.
After waking, we lay in bed for a while talking until I needed to go to the bathroom. On my way there I paused by her dressing table as we were discussing something happening the very next day which neither of us were pleased about.
Standing still, whilst listening to her, something fell onto the table and then onto the floor at my feet. I looked about and found three pieces of resin which we discovered were from a bead, the size of a grape which had just broken into three bits and fallen from one of her necklaces which had been hanging from the tables mirror for months, untouched.
We couldn't believe it, yet it happened right there, right in front of us.
 
This has happened to me and to my family. I've mentioned it before.

Couple of examples -

Once my teenage son and I were arguing vigorously when a picture just above his head on the wall flew off its screw and crashed to the floor in front of him.
It didn't drop, it looked like someone had put their hand under it and flicked it away from the wall. We both jumped out of our skins and realised how silly we were being.

At my last place of work there were about 40 shower and changing cubicles which used to spontaneously lock themselves. Sometimes It was one or two, troublesome enough when customers would complain about it! They'd wrap themselves in a towel and come looking for staff to unlock the doors.

Last thing one night a customer came to tell me her changing cubicle had locked her out in her underwear. I unlocked it and said 'Yeah, they do that! It's the ghost.'
Instead of going off and getting dressed she then followed me to the shower area, asking for more details, and we noticed that ALL the sodding shower cubicle doors were locked. They'd been standing open when the woman had called me and it'd only taken two minutes for me to unlock her cubicle and walk back.

So I then had to go round and tediously unlock them all with my cross-key, cursing.

Things like that happened, I suspected, when I was wound up or angry. If my car failed its MOT, or if I fell out with someone.
We also had other activity there which scared everyone except me. There was a heater set inside a ceiling lining which would switch itself off. It wasn't a trip-switch, it was a manual control which you'd need to climb up a ladder and move the ceiling panel to reach, and nobody was messing about like that.
 
When i was a kid -can't remember how old but id say about 12, we went on a family holiday to a caravan park in North Wales (i'll say Prestatyn) now this was unusual as my dad actually came with us - he never usually did do. So there was Dad, Mum, Sister and myself.
As neither of my parents drove, we were on a coach and as we passed the camp site on the way to the entrance, we all noticed that amongst the rows of caravans, one in particular stood out - it was painted an awful violet colour (this is way before all the fancy big new fangled vans) - obviously we all laughed at this horrible van. YES you guessed - it was OUR caravan for the week!
Now just in case this wasnt bad enough, when we got in the van, it was just as bad inside with loads of tacky ornaments/plates etc which once again we all took the micky out of. However the van got its own back - and we left after about 3 days - getting the train home - baring in mind my parents who were not well off at all and would have had to save up for the holiday - this must have been a hard decision to make. In the night me and my sister would be asleep when the ornaments/plates would fall from their various locations including shelf above your head and would fall either on us or smash on the floor nearby. we obviously got the blame at first but this WASN'T us, I cannot remember my parents making the decision to go home but it must have shook them up also for us to leave so suddenly? This has never been discussed since - not to my knowledge anyway
 
Some years ago my sister in law and her husband who were living in Alaska were having some problems after their only daughter died.
Anyway one day my middle daughter and I were in the lounge when the Alaskan plate we had on the wall suddenly fell down and smashed.
My daughter's nose had also started to bleed.
We thought this was a bit odd but later found out that when it happened the relatives had just got divorced.
 
Once my teenage son and I were arguing vigorously when a picture just above his head on the wall flew off its screw and crashed to the floor in front of him.
It didn't drop, it looked like someone had put their hand under it and flicked it away from the wall. We both jumped out of our skins and realised how silly we were being.
Out of curiosity, did you ever argue with your son again?
 
I have posted this before but it belong here and some folk won't have seen it, so... Apologies to those who have.

1983. Winter. Student party in our student house. Friend cae up to where we lived in the Midlands from London where he was now doing a Masters degree, having just finished his BA that year. We were all still students or unemployed, recent graduates. He was the brainy, successful one amongst us we all knew was going places. Well, he was going places. But not here, anymore.

That night, things kept breaking. A solid, plain, handmade silver ring I'd had since the mid 1970s. Literally just snapped on my finger spontaneously and broke. Then my watch broke (again, reliable - had for years). I was just sitting and talking with people most of the evening. Not doing anything to break anything.

Friend had been drinking orange juice all night because he wanted to drive back to London, at the end of the party. Have since found out I was not the only one to try to persuade him to stay, and 'crash' was the word I used, on our sofa. Someone else tried to persuade him, to drive back next day (a Sunday so he wouldn't be in uni). And I saw him out, still at the front door, trying to get him to stay. Myself and the other person I only recently found out about, were haunted by it ever since.

Friend was adamant he was leaving.

I was probably the last person he spoke to. Certainly the last friend. He drove back to London, car skidded on ice into a lamp-post - within yards of his parent's house - and his neck was broken by his seatbelt.

Have rarely worn a watch ever again. They freak me out.
 
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I'm sorry, Ghost In the Machine. That must have been awful. At least you know you asked him to stay. No-one can make other people's minds up for them.
I guess it can't helped being noticed that the omen of the breaking things is kind of all the stranger / more compelling by them being commonly symbolic of time (with the watch) or in fact timelessness (with a circular ring).
 
Oh heck I never thought of that, Epona.

The ring was like a wedding ring - quite sturdy and just a plain band of silver. So not fiddly or delicate. The watch just a cheap Timex I'd had since I was at school but it had never gone wrong, never had a problem.

And you are right - there was nothing more I could have done or the other friend - who was a friend of one of my housemates - not someone I ever knew at all. Someone told me on FB a while back, that this person had also been wracked with guilt for the intervening years, as I had, and had had the identical conversation with my mate presumably not long before I had it.

That helped me immensely to know I wasn't the only one and I asked mutual friend to tell the other person that it wasn't just them so I hope it helped him.

It's too many years ago for me to recall whether I had a 'doomy' feeling when my stuff was breaking. But in retrospect, it did seem creepy, even if just a coincidence. I've never had a solid silver ring fall apart on me ever again!
 
My elder sister took up cave-diving when she was at Uni - out of the dozen or so fellow diver friends, over half have died in horrible related accidents (not all the bodies were found/recovered). Yet she still sleeps with the light on only because a heavy glass ash-tray flew off her bedroom mantlepiece (she said) in a post-puberty display of telekinesis 50 years ago.
 
A couple of times when I've been especially worried about money I've gone to pay for petrol (both times petrol) only to find that my debit card has been sliced neatly in half about 60% of the way through with absolutely no way of this having been possible by usual means. Unhelpful, but I can appreciate the intention.
 
Great thread, Eponstill.

Like others here. I have a similar story. Rabid argument with my other half, where I remember I was using the phrase "off the hook" a lot, can't quite remember in what context, as I don't remember what we were arguing about now (we had lots of rows last year, 2018 was awful), might have been about his defence not getting him "off the hook" or something similar.

Anyway, massive crash in the hall. Went to look. A large plaster of paris plaque I had hung on the wall was smashed across the floor, having apparently... jumped off its hook!

That might have ended the argument there and then if, when I shared my amazement at this with my husband, he hadn't acted like he didn't get it.
 
The time that really stands out in my mind is when I'd been suffering a serious emotional upheaval. The lightbulbs and fuses in my apartment kept blowing out, one after another. The toaster and grill, too.
 
Recent related (or not) experience of 'fate tempting'...on Saturday night we were printing-out travel tickets via the family standard one-and-only HP laser printer.

Says I, out loud "that printer does very well for us: the toner cartridge has never been changed in four or five years"

(I have NEVER said this before- ever. Nor thought of it. And you know what happens next...)

The very next sheet printed...instant gap down the middle. Illegible print.

Despite no warning whatsoever. No detectable wearout, no hints.....just thousands and thousands of flawless pages. I verbally-state my wonder at its longivity, and it dies instantaneously.

I am being 100% honest and accurate with my statement. Witnessed by my SO, who was sufficiently-spooked by the coincidence to scream, slightly. I gasped in horror...
 
These last few posts have been sobering. Sympathy and condolences to those posting or mentioned in this thread who divorced, lost an acquaintnace, lost a friend, or lost a child. :group:
 
Recent related (or not) experience of 'fate tempting'...on Saturday night we were printing-out travel tickets via the family standard one-and-only HP laser printer.

Says I, out loud "that printer does very well for us: the toner cartridge has never been changed in four or five years"

(I have NEVER said this before- ever. Nor thought of it. And you know what happens next...)
Thank you Ermintruder for a moment of levity! Yes, technology seems to love to give us the finger . . .
 
Sorry to hear about your friend, Ghost in the Machine x
Aw, ta xxxx

He was a sweetheart. A really gentle, kind, nice person. We wrote to his mum after he died, our entire student household, to describe how he'd been that night and how much we all had loved him. (We'd been gently teasing him all night after he told us off, ironically for not wearing our seatbelts when he gave us a lift to the pub, before party started...) He'd not touched alcohol all night, and we told his family that even though we thought they'd know from the inquest, presumably.
 
A couple of times when I've been especially worried about money I've gone to pay for petrol (both times petrol) only to find that my debit card has been sliced neatly in half about 60% of the way through with absolutely no way of this having been possible by usual means. Unhelpful, but I can appreciate the intention.
Thrifty ghost, there!

I was once - not so long ago - totally broke and it was a Sunday. Walked the dog, and there was a tenner on the ground (and I just realised, opposite the church - my late friend, who I felt sure this was - was a christian). She was always hoping to convert me. Didn't work, though...
 
Recent related (or not) experience of 'fate tempting'...on Saturday night we were printing-out travel tickets via the family standard one-and-only HP laser printer.

Says I, out loud "that printer does very well for us: the toner cartridge has never been changed in four or five years"

(I have NEVER said this before- ever. Nor thought of it. And you know what happens next...)

The very next sheet printed...instant gap down the middle. Illegible print.

Despite no warning whatsoever. No detectable wearout, no hints.....just thousands and thousands of flawless pages. I verbally-state my wonder at its longivity, and it dies instantaneously.

I am being 100% honest and accurate with my statement. Witnessed by my SO, who was sufficiently-spooked by the coincidence to scream, slightly. I gasped in horror...
Dismantle it and find the microphone.
 
Thrifty ghost, there!

I was once - not so long ago - totally broke and it was a Sunday. Walked the dog, and there was a tenner on the ground (and I just realised, opposite the church - my late friend, who I felt sure this was - was a christian). She was always hoping to convert me. Didn't work, though...

That's a much more sensible arrangement than my thrifty version! I have no doubt whatsoever though that the ghost in my case is me. As with others above I've had light bulbs blow and objects inexplicably fall during arguments and whenever I'm stressed or angry our laptop won't work, to the point where my usually hugely sceptical spouse is completely accepting and just tells me to move away by a room or two. It works.
 
Sat in the Dungeon in Tottington some years back, just me 2 or 3 others and the landlord,
there was the most all mighty crash, at the end of the bar there was 3 or 4 glass selves all
stacked with glasses, been like that for years, the lot went, no one near them no vibrations or
noise they just went, made us jump a bit,
 
Sat in the Dungeon in Tottington some years back, just me 2 or 3 others and the landlord,
there was the most all mighty crash, at the end of the bar there was 3 or 4 glass selves all
stacked with glasses, been like that for years, the lot went, no one near them no vibrations or
noise they just went, made us jump a bit,
There's the clue... glass shelves, stacked high for years. Eventually they fail.
 
Long ago my mother worked as a psychological counselor in a residential center for “disturbed” adolescents. She told me about a weird incident that happened there. There was some kind of group therapy session in progress and things started getting heated. One young woman got especially upset, something really pushed her buttons and she flew into a furious rage, lashing out and screaming at my mother. As she did, a drinking glass that was sitting untouched on the table between them shattered into a pieces with some force. Although not prone to paranormal beliefs my mother always felt that the glass shattering was somehow caused by the intensity of the emotional outburst.
 
That's a much more sensible arrangement than my thrifty version! I have no doubt whatsoever though that the ghost in my case is me. As with others above I've had light bulbs blow and objects inexplicably fall during arguments and whenever I'm stressed or angry our laptop won't work, to the point where my usually hugely sceptical spouse is completely accepting and just tells me to move away by a room or two. It works.
Carrie? Is that you?
 
I have had odd happenings with light bulbs. One shattered in the bulb holder- exploded and made us jump. Another popped out of the ceiling bulb holder across the room and remained intact! We have also had bouts of various bulbs not working then some time later working again after we didn't bother to change them. This happens a lot and we just tut and sigh about it. Some years back I found a china saucer from a tea set split clean in half in the cabinet from underneath the tea cup resting on it. No reason for it and it still baffles me.

The past couple of weeks I have spent time having to straighten and re straighten the many pictures I have on my walls. Never had a problem before in all the years we have lived here. I am heartily fed up now of having to adjust not just various ones but more or less all of them and I do have a LOT. I am not a perfectionist either.

With regard to things breaking I have the reverse thing happened 2 weeks ago. I took my new shoulder bag with lots of zip compartments out with me and the front 2 zips on the front pocket jammed.Then after much tugging, the zip parted leaving only one zip functioning and a gap where the other failed. I gave up on it as it couldn't be fixed the zip and the teeth had parted if that makes sense. I moaned to Hubby that it was a new bag, wasn't cheap and was a load of rubbish and left it at that Anyhow, a few days later I decide to take it shopping with me and remembered that the front pocket was broken but thought what the heck I will just wedge the working zip across to close it, only to discover it has been repaired and is perfect. I thanked Hubby for fixing it and he said he didn't touch it!

Oh and the flowers smell is back again fixed to one spot... Bluebells this time with no source to explain it.
 
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Long ago my mother worked as a psychological counselor in a residential center for “disturbed” adolescents. She told me about a weird incident that happened there. There was some kind of group therapy session in progress and things started getting heated. One young woman got especially upset, something really pushed her buttons and she flew into a furious rage, lashing out and screaming at my mother. As she did, a drinking glass that was sitting untouched on the table between them shattered into a pieces with some force. Although not prone to paranormal beliefs my mother always felt that the glass shattering was somehow caused by the intensity of the emotional outburst.
A friend worked for years as tesident in a group home for emotionally disturbed teenaged boys temanded by the courts (so they had acted out somehow). and told me that lights were constantly burning out well before expected. She had to keep a large stock on hand
 
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