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Unhappy Houses & Odd Happenings

As an update. Hubby and I have been offered a move back to house no 2 by renting it off the new owners once it has been done up. We turned it down. I am not putting myself back into a negative situation with unhappy/unpleasant memories, eerie things etc etc.

Very interesting. As mentioned elsewhere, I grew up in a Maisonette between the ages of 5 to 16 and there was hardly a day went by when something odd or Unexplained didn’t occur. I also think this coloured my judgement for the majority of my life in respect of all things paranormal and I became a firm believer. Anything that happened in that place was put down to the ghosts.
Over the years I have become much more sceptical and, though a few things have happened to me which I would find hard to explain, I would now look for a perfectly normal explanation. The chance to go back and live in our old home would let me look at any odd occurrences with an adults/sceptics eyes.
 
Just thought I would pop back in to tell you all of the latest thing this house has done.

Pipe under the bath spouting gallons of water, flooded kitchen, damaged plasterboard ceiling, 400 quid emergency out of hours plumber charge.

We hope to pick up the keys to the new house this coming week...
£400 'call out' charge?!!! Scandalous. That is NOT right!!! You need to report them, or certainly go to your local paper. A 15mm or 22mm copper or plastic pipe (which is what you'll have under your bath) would cost 50p-£1 for a part (connector) to fix the leak (if the leak was in the pipe itself).
I hate rip-off plumbers. I'd love to see a photo of this repair.
 
£400 'call out' charge?!!! Scandalous. That is NOT right!!! You need to report them, or certainly go to your local paper. A 15mm or 22mm copper or plastic pipe (which is what you'll have under your bath) would cost 50p-£1 for a part (connector) to fix the leak (if the leak was in the pipe itself).
I hate rip-off plumbers. I'd love to see a photo of this repair.

The £400 might be the price for the emergency call-out and all the work. Last year I paid an eye-watering amount to have a collapsed drain repaired. As they say, there's a list of three, and you can any two of them - cheap, fast, good.

(The price for our drain problem included having the contents of the sewer blown out under pressure and coating the workmen in effluent and fresh-looking sweetcorn. Funniest thing I've ever seen, money VERY spent.)
 
Very interesting. As mentioned elsewhere, I grew up in a Maisonette between the ages of 5 to 16 and there was hardly a day went by when something odd or Unexplained didn’t occur. I also think this coloured my judgement for the majority of my life in respect of all things paranormal and I became a firm believer. Anything that happened in that place was put down to the ghosts.
Over the years I have become much more sceptical and, though a few things have happened to me which I would find hard to explain, I would now look for a perfectly normal explanation. The chance to go back and live in our old home would let me look at any odd occurrences with an adults/sceptics eyes.

Hello Tempest I know where you are coming from there!

Relatives of mine lived in a haunted house and we often stayed there, experiencing a few odd things ourselves and hearing about about the stuff that had happened to the rest of the familly. Some of the others were really frightened but those who actually lived there took it in their stride in a practical down to earth sort of way. This normalised it for me, took the fear out of it, so while young I never thought to question it. I won't go as far as to say I wasn't nervous but I certainly wasn't terrified as there was never any suggestion that the ghost was a demon or anything.

Looking back I'm glad of that early acceptance, but have now acquired a healthy dose of scepticism! I still find some of the tales fascinating (the jury is still out) but applying a bit of psychology, neuroscience and physics some of the others start to look a bit flakey, even the one thing that happened to me ha!ha!

(I've posted previously about the toilet roll unwinding itself completely, it wasn't scarey and at the time certainly seemed like it had done it itself. However it could have been a badly designed holder and a passing farm vehicle setting up vibrations which I didn't register as I was too fascinated by the, ahem, unfolding scene! Oh and don't let's forget as I had already taken the house ghost to be real it was a neat bit of confirmation bias! To be honest I'd still prefer to believe it was the ghost up to his tricks but if I'm going to put a sceptic hat on for everyone else I've got to put it on for myself!)

Sollywos x
 
Hello Tempest I know where you are coming from there!

Relatives of mine lived in a haunted house and we often stayed there, experiencing a few odd things ourselves and hearing about about the stuff that had happened to the rest of the familly. Some of the others were really frightened but those who actually lived there took it in their stride in a practical down to earth sort of way. This normalised it for me, took the fear out of it, so while young I never thought to question it. I won't go as far as to say I wasn't nervous but I certainly wasn't terrified as there was never any suggestion that the ghost was a demon or anything.

Looking back I'm glad of that early acceptance, but have now acquired a healthy dose of scepticism! I still find some of the tales fascinating (the jury is still out) but applying a bit of psychology, neuroscience and physics some of the others start to look a bit flakey, even the one thing that happened to me ha!ha!

(I've posted previously about the toilet roll unwinding itself completely, it wasn't scarey and at the time certainly seemed like it had done it itself. However it could have been a badly designed holder and a passing farm vehicle setting up vibrations which I didn't register as I was too fascinated by the, ahem, unfolding scene! Oh and don't let's forget as I had already taken the house ghost to be real it was a neat bit of confirmation bias! To be honest I'd still prefer to believe it was the ghost up to his tricks but if I'm going to put a sceptic hat on for everyone else I've got to put it on for myself!)

Sollywos x
We normalised everything, in fact at times we boasted about it. My older brother had friends stay over on more than one occasion and they high tailed it in the early hours of the morning. What terrified some people was almost a daily occurrence for us.
For me I thought I saw a ghost come through the wall one night and screamed until my mum arrived, she said it was a dream and I suppose after a while you convince yourself it was a dream, I would have been about 10 then, give or take a year.
There was always a feeling of apprehension in the place, especially when alone. My most memorable happening was doing the washing up one night, all my older siblings were out and the younger two were playing on the greensward opposite, it was a bright summer evening when, elbows deep in suds, someone tapped me on the shoulder. The younger two got called in and I held them in the lounge until my mum arrived, god did they whinge.
 
There was always a feeling of apprehension in the place, especially when alone. My most memorable happening was doing the washing up one night, all my older siblings were out and the younger two were playing on the greensward opposite, it was a bright summer evening when, elbows deep in suds, someone tapped me on the shoulder. The younger two got called in and I held them in the lounge until my mum arrived, god did they whinge.

Ah yes apprehension is a good way of describing how I felt if ever alone or in a part of the house (it was fairly large and had a cellar and an attic) on my own. I had after all, in spite of having been given to believe that the ghost was 'nothing to be afraid of', realised that some of the other visitors had found it to be really scarey.

Had to laugh at your keeping your siblings in although I don't suppose it was funny for them or you at the time. Hope your mum wasn't too long in coming back! Although you were used to the weirdness it must have been wearing at times and I bet you were glad to leave. I wonder of the new occupants experienced anything? I often wonder if the people who moved in after my relatives had odd things happen. Actually I'd love to know, not that it would prove anything one way or the other but it might join up a few dots and rub out some shading so to speak.

Thinking of your siblings wingeing away reminded me of a not disimmilar occurance. The only time I saw my mum act with something approaching fear ... well obviously she did get frightened but being a good mum was putting on a brave face for myself and sister. It was just us in the house and being younger my sister had been put to bed first but soon she started crying and when mum went to see what was up she said that she ''didn't want to be there on her own as an old man kept coming to look at her''!!!! Mum picked her up hightailed it down the stairs grabbed me rushed out of the front door and didn't stop until the opposite side of the road where we waited until my relative returned. Luckily it was a warm summers night .... I didn't mind a bit, putting off bed time was fine by me I didn't winge one little bit ha!ha!

Said relative just laughed and called us whatever word we were using to mean 'wuss' back in the fifties. Lesson learnt, being scared of ghosts was silly. However this was a bit of mixed messaging for me .... clearly mum had been frightened even though she hid it as well as she could (kids pick up on these things). Ditto with my sister .... mum was puzzled as she'd not been told about the ghost, but kids always know more than their parents think they do. The incident was therefore taken to offer proof of the ghosts existence rather than my sister having a good imagination and was angling to be let out of bed!

However this is a 'jury's out' for me. My sister wasn't a naughty child and wasn't given to wild imaginings. She has no recollection of it at all!

Sollywos x
 
From memory I didn’t find it too wearing to be honest. I didn’t like playing hide and seek and would give up very quickly rather than stay somewhere dark on my own. Our neighbors all reported strange happenings so it was quite common within the whole block.

Although my Mum used to dismiss it all when we were kids she confessed a few years back that the place was haunted and she disliked it intensely.
 
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Several years ago we (me, Mr Migs and Mini Migs, who was about eight - he’s 21 today. I’m so OLD!) went to stay in York for a week. The house was a fairly new town house over three floors, kitchen and dining room on the ground floor, lounge, bedroom and bathroom on the first floor, two bedrooms on the top floor. It was a lovely place, just outside the walls, nicely appointed, cosy. Except the dining room. No matter how warm the rest of the house was, it was icy in there. And even with the lights on, always shadowy. And the feeling in there... was just unpleasant. Mr Migs described it as unbearably sad. We had one meal in there, cleaned up after ourselves, shut the door and hardly set foot in there for the rest of the week. It was a very strong and strange feeling. No strange happenings, just that one room full of sadness. We still talk about it from time to time, me and Mr M being about as sensitive as sticks, it’s something we’ve never really experienced before or since. Mini Migs, however, is shaping up to be the next Derek Acorah, heaven help us all!
 
The £400 might be the price for the emergency call-out and all the work. Last year I paid an eye-watering amount to have a collapsed drain repaired. As they say, there's a list of three, and you can any two of them - cheap, fast, good.

(The price for our drain problem included having the contents of the sewer blown out under pressure and coating the workmen in effluent and fresh-looking sweetcorn. Funniest thing I've ever seen, money VERY spent.)
Well, an expensive job doesn't always mean a good job. In fact it's often the opposite.
A copper or plastic pipe is VERY easy to fix if it has burst/split- not even a blow-lamp is needed as you can use a compression fitting that just requires a small spanner, or even a plastic 'push-fit' which requires no tools at all to fit.
https://www.diy.com/departments/jg-speedfit-push-fit-straight-coupler-dia-15mm

As for your drain, they are also very easy to fix. The hardest part is a bit of digging. Yours does seem an extreme case though and it must be a private sewer as the laws changed in 2011 putting more responsibility on the water company.
https://www.stwater.co.uk/help-and-contact/faqs/what-is-the-private-drains-
 
Well, an expensive job doesn't always mean a good job. In fact it's often the opposite.
A copper or plastic pipe is VERY easy to fix if it has burst/split- not even a blow-lamp is needed as you can use a compression fitting that just requires a small spanner, or even a plastic 'push-fit' which requires no tools at all to fit.
https://www.diy.com/departments/jg-speedfit-push-fit-straight-coupler-dia-15mm

As for your drain, they are also very easy to fix. The hardest part is a bit of digging. Yours does seem an extreme case though and it must be a private sewer as the laws changed in 2011 putting more responsibility on the water company.
https://www.stwater.co.uk/help-and-contact/faqs/what-is-the-private-drains-

It certainly was an extreme case. I wasn't tackling it, and I'm good at plumbing.
 
From memory I didn’t find it too wearing to be honest. I didn’t like playing hide and seek and would give up very quickly rather than stay somewhere dark on my own. Our neighbors all reported strange happenings so it was quite common within the whole block.

Although my Mum used to dismiss it all when we were kids she confessed a few years back that the place was haunted and she disliked it intensely.

Your poor Mum it can't have been easy having to act all dismissive in front of the kids.

Did you ever have any ideas of what it might be?

My relatives were convinced their ghost (with poltergeist tendancies) was the previous occupant who having been known to them as a bit of a recluse had never modernised the house and was showing his displeasure at having his privacy invaded! Perhaps as they'd come to that conclusion the ghost was less scarey for them than a total unknown?

Sollywos x
 
Several years ago we (me, Mr Migs and Mini Migs, who was about eight - he’s 21 today. I’m so OLD!) went to stay in York for a week. The house was a fairly new town house over three floors, kitchen and dining room on the ground floor, lounge, bedroom and bathroom on the first floor, two bedrooms on the top floor. It was a lovely place, just outside the walls, nicely appointed, cosy. Except the dining room. No matter how warm the rest of the house was, it was icy in there. And even with the lights on, always shadowy. And the feeling in there... was just unpleasant. Mr Migs described it as unbearably sad. We had one meal in there, cleaned up after ourselves, shut the door and hardly set foot in there for the rest of the week. It was a very strong and strange feeling. No strange happenings, just that one room full of sadness. We still talk about it from time to time, me and Mr M being about as sensitive as sticks, it’s something we’ve never really experienced before or since. Mini Migs, however, is shaping up to be the next Derek Acorah, heaven help us all!

Ooh, I wonder where you were? I think York is ridiculously haunted. Son's fiancee just moved here and she had two ghostly encounters within a couple of weeks! Probably doesn't matter how new the building is, as any of the land near the town centre will have been lived on for more than a couple of thousand of years...
 
Ooh, I wonder where you were? I think York is ridiculously haunted. Son's fiancee just moved here and she had two ghostly encounters within a couple of weeks! Probably doesn't matter how new the building is, as any of the land near the town centre will have been lived on for more than a couple of thousand of years...
Well, having looked at a map, we were either on Fewster Way or Browney Croft, just before the Foss flows into the Ouse. That’s what we thought- York has been inhabited for so long, and fought over so many times that there’s a good chance someone has died there!
 
Several years ago we (me, Mr Migs and Mini Migs, who was about eight - he’s 21 today. I’m so OLD!) went to stay in York for a week. The house was a fairly new town house over three floors, kitchen and dining room on the ground floor, lounge, bedroom and bathroom on the first floor, two bedrooms on the top floor. It was a lovely place, just outside the walls, nicely appointed, cosy. Except the dining room. No matter how warm the rest of the house was, it was icy in there. And even with the lights on, always shadowy. And the feeling in there... was just unpleasant. Mr Migs described it as unbearably sad. We had one meal in there, cleaned up after ourselves, shut the door and hardly set foot in there for the rest of the week. It was a very strong and strange feeling. No strange happenings, just that one room full of sadness. We still talk about it from time to time, me and Mr M being about as sensitive as sticks, it’s something we’ve never really experienced before or since. Mini Migs, however, is shaping up to be the next Derek Acorah, heaven help us all!
Your experience is very interesting! First I found myself wondering if a little feng shui applied to the dining room would have helped any to diminish the sadness, although I must say that I am totally agnostic about feng shui. Plenty of people swear by it, though.

Which raises a question for me: are feng shui practitioners willing to work on haunted houses (if they know the house's reputation)? Anyone know?
 
Well, having looked at a map, we were either on Fewster Way or Browney Croft, just before the Foss flows into the Ouse. That’s what we thought- York has been inhabited for so long, and fought over so many times that there’s a good chance someone has died there!
Oh right near Blue Bridge. I posted on tother thread I think, this morning about seeing the coppers there in April, about to fish another found drowned out of the river (5 that month). At least one was in the Foss, I think, possibly the rest or most of them, the Ouse... Yes, that little bit of land has had summat on it for a very long time even if those particular buildings are newer. But countless people have gone in to the river(s) at that point, or rather, very close to it on the New Walk path.

I could be wrong but there is still a lot of masoned old stone round there and I think it is close to, if not on, the site of a lost Friary...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York_Franciscan_Friary
 
Oh right near Blue Bridge. I posted on tother thread I think, this morning about seeing the coppers there in April, about to fish another found drowned out of the river (5 that month). At least one was in the Foss, I think, possibly the rest or most of them, the Ouse... Yes, that little bit of land has had summat on it for a very long time even if those particular buildings are newer. But countless people have gone in to the river(s) at that point, or rather, very close to it on the New Walk path.

I could be wrong but there is still a lot of masoned old stone round there and I think it is close to, if not on, the site of a lost Friary...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York_Franciscan_Friary

I tend to believe in a stone tape effect. I wonder if the general sad feeling was a result of so many people choosing there to go into the river, or maybe an influencing factor...
 
Several years ago we (me, Mr Migs and Mini Migs, who was about eight - he’s 21 today. I’m so OLD!) went to stay in York for a week. The house was a fairly new town house over three floors, kitchen and dining room on the ground floor, lounge, bedroom and bathroom on the first floor, two bedrooms on the top floor. It was a lovely place, just outside the walls, nicely appointed, cosy. Except the dining room. No matter how warm the rest of the house was, it was icy in there. And even with the lights on, always shadowy. And the feeling in there... was just unpleasant. Mr Migs described it as unbearably sad. We had one meal in there, cleaned up after ourselves, shut the door and hardly set foot in there for the rest of the week. It was a very strong and strange feeling. No strange happenings, just that one room full of sadness. We still talk about it from time to time, me and Mr M being about as sensitive as sticks, it’s something we’ve never really experienced before or since. Mini Migs, however, is shaping up to be the next Derek Acorah, heaven help us all!
I hope Mini Migs is FAR better than Mr Acorah
 
I tend to believe in a stone tape effect. I wonder if the general sad feeling was a result of so many people choosing there to go into the river, or maybe an influencing factor...

Interesting account Mrs Mig. Did you ever mention it to the owners of the house? Mind you I can see that might be a difficult convo to have for various reasons!

Sollywos x
 
I tend to believe in a stone tape effect. I wonder if the general sad feeling was a result of so many people choosing there to go into the river, or maybe an influencing factor...
Yes, agree on the stone tape. It's weird in that I don't believe in gods, or spirits as such - I mean, I can't bring myself to believe that humans have a spirit that survives death, I think the supernatural has to be some kind of anomaly of physics, a non sentient recording, usually - but I do believe in a kind of pagan idea of 'spirit of place' which is different. There are some places (I'm looking at you, Cornwall) that have a huge spirit of place, for whatever reason. Parts of York the same. And the place where I live, now. It's benign feeling to me but I'm not sure it would be to everyone. Sounds stupid, I know.
 
(I've posted previously about the toilet roll unwinding itself completely, it wasn't scarey and at the time certainly seemed like it had done it itself. However it could have been a badly designed holder and a passing farm vehicle setting up vibrations which I didn't register as I was too fascinated by the, ahem, unfolding scene! Oh and don't let's forget as I had already taken the house ghost to be real it was a neat bit of confirmation bias! To be honest I'd still prefer to believe it was the ghost up to his tricks but if I'm going to put a sceptic hat on for everyone else I've got to put it on for myself!)

Sollywos x
Didn't have a cat did you? Say this because we had a cat which couldn't stand to see a rolled up toilet roll, kitchen roll or similar and would insist on completely unrolling it to the cardboard tube. You had to be quick unpacking shopping and putting this stuff away before he pounced. Clearly he thought it was hilarious. Little beggar.
 
Didn't have a cat did you? Say this because we had a cat which couldn't stand to see a rolled up toilet roll, kitchen roll or similar and would insist on completely unrolling it to the cardboard tube. You had to be quick unpacking shopping and putting this stuff away before he pounced. Clearly he thought it was hilarious. Little beggar.

Well there was a farm cat but she had to work for a living and was not allowed in the house! Your cat was very determined wasn't she!

I was in the bathroom on my own which was a large room in a former bedroom with a slooping floor which creaked under the lino. So just as 'atmospheric' as you'd expect for an old house with the added frisson of knowing that said previous owner would not have approved of such modern things! Oh and the sound of the flush and the filling cistern was a tad alarming to someone who's home arrangement was a bucket and wooden seat in a shed at the end of the garden!

Sollywos x
 
Yes, agree on the stone tape. It's weird in that I don't believe in gods, or spirits as such - I mean, I can't bring myself to believe that humans have a spirit that survives death, I think the supernatural has to be some kind of anomaly of physics, a non sentient recording, usually - but I do believe in a kind of pagan idea of 'spirit of place' which is different. There are some places (I'm looking at you, Cornwall) that have a huge spirit of place, for whatever reason. Parts of York the same. And the place where I live, now. It's benign feeling to me but I'm not sure it would be to everyone. Sounds stupid, I know.

I know what you mean about “Spirit of Place”. The Preseli Hills in West Wales have it too.
Life after death is something I desperately want to be real, specially having lost both my parents over the past few years. I just... have never seen or heard anything that convinces me that it’s possible. And that includes a trip to see the infamous snake-oil salesman Degsy Acorah!
 
Interesting account Mrs Mig. Did you ever mention it to the owners of the house? Mind you I can see that might be a difficult convo to have for various reasons!

Sollywos x

I didn’t- mainly because we didn’t actually see them before we left, and then never got round to it.
And they’d probably have thought I was mad :crazy:
 
Found out something the other week in general conversation that we didn't know about. Not long after we moved in the elderly couple next door both died the same night. We both heard the lady coming home after an evening out bidding someone good night. That was all we had to tell the Police when they asked after arriving in a flurry including a Mortuary Van or whatever they call them and then body bags being loudly carried down the stairs and out to the van you couldn't miss that. We somehow were led to believe that the man who was a rather large hefty chap had suffered a heart attack and fell onto his tiny wife as she slept. Apparently not so. He murdered her then had a heart attack. It was in all the local papers and we missed it as we led very busy lives and obviously it wasn't the done thing to ask the family what happened. We just accepted it as being a double tragedy. I didn't have much if anything to do with them both she was a nice lady but I really didn't like him one bit from the outset. The thought that this happened the other side of our bedroom wall where our beds were situated gives me the creeps and makes me wonder how we never heard a thing as it was a domestic. All these years and we didn't know.:oops:

Edit to add OMG just remembered the large warm patch that I used to have on my side of the bed there...brrrrr! :eek:
 
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