• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Unhappy Houses & Odd Happenings

I sometimes idly fantasise about committing a minor offence so I can go to prison and get the university education I never had a chance to have. When they announced this thing about breaking travel rules being a 10 year prison sentence it was my first thought!

I have been saving up to do an OU course for 17 years now, the bastards keep raising the fees.
I've read some retired people are going to uni with a standard student loan as they know their income will never rise above the £21,000 or whatever it is threshold, after which you have to pay it back...

:D
 
I hope he did. He's not hit the papers again and he'll have been out for quite a while now...
Would it be possible/appropriate to try to contact him again and let him know you still believe in him? Would you be comfortable doing that?
Because of how you described him, it's impossible to not want a happy ending for him.
 
@Gloucestrian I took my degree part time over six years as a distance learner from the University of Hull a few years ago. It meant travelling to Hull once a week (term time only) for six years, which was a bit of a trek, but I got a loan to cover my costs (which I doubt very much I will EVER earn enough to pay back) and a small grant to cover the cost of books. Because I only had to attend in the evenings, it was possible to do whilst holding down a full time job. Any chance you could do the same from a local university?
 
@Gloucestrian I took my degree part time over six years as a distance learner from the University of Hull a few years ago. It meant travelling to Hull once a week (term time only) for six years, which was a bit of a trek, but I got a loan to cover my costs (which I doubt very much I will EVER earn enough to pay back) and a small grant to cover the cost of books. Because I only had to attend in the evenings, it was possible to do whilst holding down a full time job. Any chance you could do the same from a local university?
Well done those who continue their education while working!
 
There are happy houses too. I've recently come across one that needs 'a bit of work' (i.e. gutting and remodelling inside and out) but it SINGS to me.

If I could acquire it and do the repairs it would be a beautiful home for me and my cats and bikes and sewing machines and paints and glue and tools and Techy of course...
 
I was house hunting a number of years ago. I viewed quite a few properties over the space of a few months. On two occasions I got no further than the hall before making up some cock and bull story along the lines of "I've suddenly remembered I have to take the gerbil to violin practice" before leaving. The houses looked fine, neither was old or spooky looking but they just had this really unpleasant/ unhappy vibe to them. A few years earlier my ex husband and I rented a house. I hadn't been able to go to the viewing but even if I had I doubt my ex husband would have turned the place down simply because I felt the house was "off" in some indefinable way. It was large, spacious, modern and I've never been so desperate to move out of anywhere in my life. On the final day, as I descended the stairs for the very last time I suddenly felt something right behind me, it felt like a mass of negative, almost malevolent energy. I remember at the time my ex husband had dismissed my claims that the house felt "wrong", saying it was my imagination but I happened to mention it when I saw him a couple of years ago and he admitted that he'd felt the same way but had been too stubborn to admit it.
 
Stubborn? Naw—once you admit something is real, you have to deal with it! :omg:

I absolutely agree. There's no point pretending that it's all fine and it will go away. He'd actually been desperate to move from our previous home, an RAF married quarter, because of the loud scratching and banging coming from the attic. On that occasion I had called the housing officer in to see if he could find the cause. I remember him looking perplexed and saying, "Well, it not birds or bats or vermin and it's in the wrong place for your pipes." I laughed and said, "Maybe it's time to get the priest round?" I expected him to share the joke but he looked at me with a completely straight face and said, "You wouldn't be the first," Anyway, the house we rented just felt wrong from the very beginning. I wish I could be more specific but it was that feeling of not being alone and not being welcome. I went from being Miss Pollyanna Sunshine to clinical depression and panic attacks. I know it makes no logical sense but I always felt the house played a part. I was so, so glad to move. Unfortunately I'm on the works' computer otherwise I'd add a photo so you could see how innocuous it was/ is
 
I absolutely agree. There's no point pretending that it's all fine and it will go away. He'd actually been desperate to move from our previous home, an RAF married quarter, because of the loud scratching and banging coming from the attic. On that occasion I had called the housing officer in to see if he could find the cause. I remember him looking perplexed and saying, "Well, it not birds or bats or vermin and it's in the wrong place for your pipes." I laughed and said, "Maybe it's time to get the priest round?" I expected him to share the joke but he looked at me with a completely straight face and said, "You wouldn't be the first," Anyway, the house we rented just felt wrong from the very beginning. I wish I could be more specific but it was that feeling of not being alone and not being welcome. I went from being Miss Pollyanna Sunshine to clinical depression and panic attacks. I know it makes no logical sense but I always felt the house played a part. I was so, so glad to move. Unfortunately I'm on the works' computer otherwise I'd add a photo so you could see how innocuous it was/ is
you mention ex -husband...was it the house /depression that killed the relationship or didnt you see your unhappiness wth your spouse and instead "blamed on" the house.
 
Yup, once when my teenage son and I had a vigorous stand-up row a picture SHOT off the wall onto the floor, narrowly missing his face.

This stuff interests me. I was once sitting with a female friend who was very, very, very angry. I can't even remember what it was but I was trying to comfort her. This was difficult because she was so angry she couldn't even speak- so we just were silent for a while. I had some beach stones on a shelf next to where she was sitting. She picked one up and held it in her palm. It cracked in half. A stone about the size of a large bread roll. Cracked and broke open.

She was every bit as shocked and suprised as I was.
 
Last edited:
Why not, loads of other people do!

maximus otter


If you emigrate then you become a citizen - and are rightly entitled to the benefits of that in the same way that you are taxed and subject to laws.

If you are a refugee or an asylum seekers then until your status is clarified then you have very very few options. In some areas you can access the same (sometimes) free English Language classes as the rest of the population. That isn't universal however. Not everywhere allows you to volunteer either.

If you come to study then you have a student visa and people are thrown out for various reasons. Malpractice in the sector is caught, closed down and the perps punished.

So who are all these people coming and studying on grants? @maximus otter you seem to be saying that they aren't legit, that there is something shady about it.

I do hope not. I really do hope not.

Frideswide
 
If you emigrate then you become a citizen - and are rightly entitled to the benefits of that in the same way that you are taxed and subject to laws.

If you are a refugee or an asylum seekers then until your status is clarified then you have very very few options. In some areas you can access the same (sometimes) free English Language classes as the rest of the population. That isn't universal however. Not everywhere allows you to volunteer either.

If you come to study then you have a student visa and people are thrown out for various reasons. Malpractice in the sector is caught, closed down and the perps punished.

So who are all these people coming and studying on grants? @maximus otter you seem to be saying that they aren't legit, that there is something shady about it.

I do hope not. I really do hope not.

Frideswide

“The Student Visa Scandal

Panorama

Panorama goes undercover in Britain's multi million pound trade in immigration visas and exposes the breath-taking frauds that allow bogus foreign students - some with little or no English - to remain in the UK.

Around a hundred thousand non EU students applied to the UK Border Agency last year to extend their stay here but it seems studying is not the main aim for all of them as some simply want to stay on to work illegally.

Reporter Richard Watson unmasks the criminal immigration agents who - in return for cash - secure places at private colleges by arranging forged and fraudulent documents including bank statements that are good enough to fool immigration officers.

The programme reveals how Government-approved exams - designed to weed out those with inadequate English - are being routinely subverted with fake sitters taking spoken English exams for the bogus students and multiple choice tests where they're given all the answers.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/n3csvf5t

maximus otter
 
2014 and it was dealt with and is being dealt with. I'm still involved in the sector - what is your experience of academic admissions?

It looks like an allusion to a trope of the type we Do Not Do Here. Make sure that you do not accidentally give this impression.

Frideswide
 
I've come across a few places with bad atmospheres, but only one really nasty house. I think it must have been late 2001, October or November maybe. I had a day off work, and I’d arranged to visit a friend in his new home on the outskirts of North Belfast.

It was a new-ish maisonette apartment, situated on the upper floor of the building, built maybe ten years previously. My friend had moved in with his partner and their baby daughter a few months before, and it looked like a good starter home, with two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen-diner and bathroom.

The main drawback was the staircase – a steep, narrow flight of stairs leading from the front door at street level up to the apartment, with a 180-degree return a third of the way up, and then opening out onto a small landing beside the kitchen door. Not great for getting a pram up and down, anyway.

The main bedroom was beside the kitchen, looking out the back of the building, and a short corridor then led towards the smaller bedroom at the front, with doors to the bathroom and the living room branching off on opposite sides.

On arrival, my overwhelming impression of the apartment was that of darkness. Not just because it was late in the year and overcast outside; there seemed to be almost a darkening filter over everything in the place. I've seen a few other references here to 'brown light', and that's what it seemed like. The apartment was clean and neatly decorated, but I still didn’t feel comfortable at all.

His partner was at work and the baby was being minded by her grandparents, so we had the place to ourselves. We chatted for a while in the living room, just catching up, with me trying to shake offthe feelings of unease, and then we went into the front bedroom where he kept all his music stuff – records, guitars and the like. It was eventually going to become a proper bedroom for his daughter, but for the time being she was still sleeping in a cot in the main bedroom.

My friend left me to my own devices while he went off to the kitchen to make us both some lunch, so I amused myself by flicking through his LPs and messing around with his guitars. These were exactly the kind of activities I enjoyed – yet the longer I stayed in that room by myself, the more uncomfortable I became. My surroundings seemed to be getting even darker still, and I felt somehow watched – by something that was actively hostile to my presence.

Eventually I had to set the guitar down and hurry out of the room, as the hostility was building to the point that I felt like I was being pushed out.

Slightly shaken, I went down the corridor and leaned against the kitchen doorway, talking to my friend while he was busy at the stove. I didn’t mention anything about what I was feeling.

As I was standing there, trying to act normal, I glanced back down the hallway – and caught my breath as I saw what looked like a tall, dark shadow standing just behind the doorway of the front bedroom.

It was shaped roughly like a human, and it was tall – very tall. Where the head should have been seemed to extend above the height of the doorframe, and I couldn’t see any features, or limbs, or any detail. Just a long, vertical shadow, thicker and darker around the middle section. But it hadn’t been there before, and it definitely wasn’t a trick of the light.

I felt like the figure was watching me, and the sense of hostility only grew. With a rising sense of panic, I looked round to see if my friend had also noticed it, but he was busy chopping something. I turned and looked back down the hall again – but the figure was no longer there, although the sense of being watched persisted.

I felt quite upset, and that something was badly wrong in the apartment – but didn’t know how I could even begin to broach the subject with my friend, who I knew from previous conversations to be a bit of a skeptic about such things. I didn’t want to come across as a crank, and I didn’t know what could even be done about this shadowy figure. So I tried to push it down, forget it, and make an attempt to enjoy the rest of my visit. But I didn’t go back into that front bedroom.

My friend and his family didn’t stay in the apartment for very long; they suffered a number of mishaps, including my friend being hospitalised following a motorcycle accident. A few months later, they moved out and into another house nearby.

He never really talked about exactly why they moved – but he did tell me that they didn’t feel the house was safe, after the pram suddenly fell down the stairs from the landing one day. His daughter was still in the pram at the time. She was unharmed, but no explanation was proffered about exactly how or why the accident happened – and from his expression of unease, I didn’t feel it appropriate to enquire any further.

I was vastly relieved to hear they’d moved out, but still felt horribly guilty that I hadn’t mustered the courage to tell him that afternoon about what I saw and felt.
 
there seemed to be almost a darkening filter over everything in the place. I've seen a few other references here to 'brown light', and that's what it seemed like.
A few years ago I was looking for a new place to live, and one place I looked at had one room like this—it just looked inexplicably dim. It was really weird.
I have no idea if it's a nasty place or not; I just saw the place once and, mostly for other reasons, decided to not move there.
 
It's certainly peculiar that so many different people describe such a similar set of experiences - and while I'm not claiming that what happened to me definitely falls into the realm of the paranormal, I think that sensing this sort of 'darkness/brown light' in a house, or even a single room or passageway in a house or office, is a potential starting point when trying to identify why some buildings seem to give some people the creeps.

I certainly wouldn't rule out infrasound, electrical interference or some other physical/ geological cause as being the underlying factor here, causing sensations of unease and even visual hallucinations. From a cursory check on Google Maps, there are no electrical substations in the vicinity of the property, though it's about 50 metres from a petrol station (with underground fuel tanks) and 75 metres or so away from a builder's merchant with what looks like bulk hoppers of cement and aggregates - so I couldn't rule out mechanical sound waves beyond the threshold of human hearing being a factor here.

At some stage I'll try to broach the subject again with my friend, just to see what he remembers of his time living there. I got the impression that something had really bothered him, linked to the pram going down the staircase - but it's equally possible that my take on what he told me was influenced by my own subjective experience there.

But it'd be interesting if some of these 'brown light' properties could be properly investigated using sound detection equipment, as this could perhaps be the root of some (though, from the experience detailed previously, probably not all) of these bad vibes.

Edited for annoying spacing error.
 
you mention ex -husband...was it the house /depression that killed the relationship or didnt you see your unhappiness wth your spouse and instead "blamed on" the house.

No, they weren't linked. I only refer to him as my ex husband because that's the nature of our relationship now in 2021, we divorced in 2007. We remained happily married for another twelve years after living in that house. When we moved we went on to become parents and had many happy years together with our son who is now almost 30. The depression wasn't the evil machinations of the house of course but there are times when you look for something outside of yourself to blame.. The suddenness of how it hit me should have been a red flag but it took another 20 years to finally be given a diagnosis of Bipolar II, . It wasn't depression that ended my marriage, it was just a drifting apart over the years. We had an extremely amicable divorce and we remain friends.
 
Would it be possible/appropriate to try to contact him again and let him know you still believe in him? Would you be comfortable doing that?
Because of how you described him, it's impossible to not want a happy ending for him.
Probably not appropriate but that said if anyone ever makes a new version of something like Friends Reunited, it might be possible one day - as schools I went to as a kid and also where I taught had shout outs... I managed to find one of my own old teachers there and saw people I had no intention of reconnecting with, trying to find me (ignored em). I did check the schools where I'd worked for old colleagues/favourite kids I taught and to see what everyone was doing now. It's a job like no other in some ways as you've shut in a room all day every day with 30 odd little people, whose lives you become a huge part of and who become a huge part of your life, for a year.

I did hear on the grapevine, later, about the occasional kid I taught and it was always fascinating.
 
It's certainly peculiar that so many different people describe such a similar set of experiences - and while I'm not claiming that what happened to me definitely falls into the realm of the paranormal, I think that sensing this sort of 'darkness/brown light' in a house, or even a single room or passageway in a house or office, is a potential starting point when trying to identify why some buildings seem to give some people the creeps.

I certainly wouldn't rule out infrasound, electrical interference or some other physical/ geological cause as being the underlying factor here, causing sensations of unease and even visual hallucinations. From a cursory check on Google Maps, there are no electrical substations in the vicinity of the property, though it's about 50 metres from a petrol station (with underground fuel tanks) and 75 metres or so away from a builder's merchant with what looks like bulk hoppers of cement and aggregates - so I couldn't rule out mechanical sound waves beyond the threshold of human hearing being a factor here.

At some stage I'll try to broach the subject again with my friend, just to see what he remembers of his time living there. I got the impression that something had really bothered him, linked to the pram going down the staircase - but it's equally possible that my take on what he told me was influenced by my own subjective experience there.

But it'd be interesting if some of these 'brown light' properties could be properly investigated using sound detection equipment, as this could perhaps be the root of some (though, from the experience detailed previously, probably not all) of these bad vibes.

Edited for annoying spacing error.
I think that sad house we lived in maybe did have some underlying, absolutely physical thing like infrasound.

What got me was the elderly neighbour who had been born there and never lived a day of her life anywhere else - and she'd have been in her 80s - saying for her entire life, everyone that moved into our house seemed to have a run of bad luck, appalling things happen, and they'd all move out hastily - emigrate, go to another county entirely, marriages break up etc. I remember when she was telling me this, despite already picking up on the weirdness of the cellar-that-never-was, and the constant low level illnesses we all had - I still thought "OYR" kind of thing - didn't actually really believe her and probably didn't give it too much thought when in the middle of that situation. Only when my marriage ended catastrophically (we're back together now! And were within a couple of years of leaving that house) and I'd moved back to my native county 100 odd miles away, did I think again about the old woman saying nobody ever had good luck in that house.

I just dismissed it in my head at the time, despite already starting to have negative experiences.

We had bought it vacant possession - the previous owner already legged it - and thought we were lucky cos it was £10,000 below it's real value - estate agents just told us the previous owner had moved to Yorkshire for work reasons and we took what they said at face value, at the time. We saw what she'd paid - house cost us £37,000 (1990s) and she'd paid £47,000 for it only a couple of years previously...
 
Last edited:
Back
Top