It was right after we moved in, that items started to disappear.
The lights would flicker, and we could smell odd scents in the middle of the day, from seemingly nowhere. Doors would close on their own. Weird things were happening. And at first, we ignored it. All of it.
But let me rewind to the beginning.
Because it’s spooky season, I’m going to share this story. There are things out there that no one ever talks about. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Sometimes things can be explained away. Sometimes, they can’t. Draw your own conclusions, but this is our experience. I’ll try to keep it succinct. There’s a lot to capture here in five years’ time. So if you like a good story, settle in with a hot cup of whatever you like, and read on. I promise it’s worth a spooky fall read.
An aerial photo taken of our home in 1983
Hogwarts, a History: Our home was built in 1976. It’s older than me but not ancient, by any means. It’s a small home on a big lot, and we’ve added on as time has passed. The romantic in me assumed we were purchasing from the original owners, since the inside had never been touched beyond a small painting job and some carpet. The original linoleum discovered underneath the floors felt like little patterned jewels of buried treasure.
This house has passed through quite a few owners – when I looked at the property records, it was 6, including us. So it has a history. I might also mention for the sake of full disclosure, that where we live in Franklin, Tennessee is famous from a historical standpoint and the Civil War. The locals attribute lots of strange activity to the limestone running just beneath the town’s surface, claiming its ‘paranormal’ properties. Our own neighborhood is a part of an old farm, the original farmhouse {built circa 1860} still stands just a street down from us, with an old well. We were told that the houses in our neighborhood were built of reclaimed brick salvaged from the Great Chicago Fire. It’s all very charming and very… interesting.
before – still in the midst of landscaping outside…
Our house, as a whole, definitely had a ‘vibe’ to it from the beginning. It was nothing that we didn’t assume could use some love. I know. Cue the couple from Amityville fleeing the house weeks later with ooze running down the walls. Before we began the renovation, when we brought our family to the house, the dogs refused to go upstairs. We joked throughout the renovation process that we just may find a body in the wall or a clown in the crawlspace. I’d honestly settle for cash, but alas, no luck.
At night, once we’d begun our rehab, it gave off an energy like the outside of a hollow skull. We would stay late for renovations or to let the kids swim with friends in the backyard, and I didn’t like being left alone to walk through the dark house and lock up. I chalked it all up to my usual high strung, wild imagination. It’s what I do. I shook it off.
I was comforted by this rule {that I totally made up in my head} In all the unsolved mysteries/dateline/haunting shows I’ve seen, there’s this: If the house hasn’t been touched since circa 1976-ish, the chance of a haunting probably triples. There has to be a study somewhere that says updated /cared for spaces are a lower risk. Therefore, if I bring it to life again, I’m basically cleansing the house, right? I’m a designer, so fresh fixtures and new drywall are my sage and holy water. Be gone 1970’s paneling and basic witches. We were determined to make this our home and the creepy would leave when we moved in. The vibes would pass.
Little did we know, this onslaught of renovations were stirring something up.
When we did move in, it was like Christmas morning. We were able to renovate the main and upper levels of the house, saving the basement, first addition and outside of the house for later. And EVENTUALLY, our primary addition– still a work in progress. It felt like an eternity with the entire one year process just to sell our old home. Then, to get our kiddos settled took even longer. Months later, we were just grateful to have some normalcy in our lives.
They were so little!
So we ignored it at first, when things started to disappear.
Missing items just seemed like disorganized moving craziness. It sounds insane, but it was always something we were about to need. Something that we’d previously discussed, that had importance. A painted sign for a Christmas shoot. Solar glasses for the eclipse when I know exactly where I placed them, just a few days before. A cute clock for the kids room, that I was sure was in the basement, that we never saw again.
It was so bad, we were starting to get into small squabbles as to where things were placed, and why they were missing. Only to have them reappear, with zero explanation, in a place we had just looked.
Were we losing our minds?
It was a cold, rainy night, when Jamin took our oldest to basketball practice. He was in the fifth grade at the time, our daughter was in third and Malone, first. I was helping Emerson rinse the shampoo out of her hair from her bath, when Malone called me urgently from the main level. Downstairs, I found him sitting alone on the sofa where he’d been reading.
Now he was staring at the basement door.
“What is is, buddy?” I asked him, his little knuckles white from gripping the cushions, his face pale. He had never been skittish before, but I just assumed it was adjusting to the new house.
“I heard a voice,” he muttered, wide-eyed and stock still, staring at the closed door which separated the finished level from the basement/garage area.
“Oh I’m sure it was just the wind or something,” I tried to laugh it off. No big deal. But I found my own eyes drifting to whatever he was staring at.
“NO,” he was adamant, still glaring at the door. “It came from the basement.” He slowly raised his hand to point at the door and beyond. “It was a whisper.”
This was very unlike him. He now had my full attention.
“Did it say anything?” I slowly sat down beside him, wondering what on earth he actually heard.
“It said, Ben.”
He was so certain, I believed him. The freaky part is, that Malone’s first name is Benjamin, though we never call him that. Did something say his name? Did he think something said his name?
I lost my mind for a hot minute, grabbed a baseball bat and turned on the light downstairs to do a quick check. I chickened out about halfway down the stairs, since it was a basement filled with old creepy items and more importantly, giant spiders. It was a death maze of boxes, at best. I told Jamin to hurry up, because there was a definite DAYMON in the crawlspace, and it was after us. He was home shortly thereafter, and after casually looking around {because I pretty much demanded it} we both told Malone there was nothing to worry about. He must have heard the wind or something. Malone argued with us, so we assured him we believed him, but there had to be a perfectly rational explanation.
I mentioned it again once the kids were in bed. Jamin casually responded with, “I don’t know what it was. Maybe it’s that person who died here.”
“Excuse me?”
Cue the blinking white guy gif. I thought he was legit messing with me.
“You know. The owner who passed away here?”
“WHAT.”
There are many times in our marriage I’ll never forget.
This was a moment where I was wondering if we should in fact, stay married.
Apparently, Jamin had this conversation with someone he’d met in the yard one day, who told him a previous owner {as there have been many} passed away here. And Jamin thought that in the craziness of the purchase, move, renovation, and second move, we’d discussed this. No big deal, it happens. I get it. I’d rather pass on at my own home, too. I’d never thought of it until now but it makes sense.
I JUST THOUGHT THIS IS SOMETHING THAT MIGHT HAVE COME UP BEFORE NOW. I’m sure in most old houses, people have passed on, AS HUMANS DO. This home could have multiple ‘passing on’ events, for all we know. I would just like to know about such things before, oh, I don’t know… something BECKONS FOR MY SON FROM THE GREAT BEYOND.
Weeks later, I woke in the middle of the night in our bedroom, to a bright glow coming from the main level. I immediately woke Jamin because nope. If we’re going to be sucked into the portals of Hell, he could go first. #murderbuffer
That’s when we discovered that the pendant lights over the kitchen island had been turned on in the middle of the night. And by we, I mean I peeked around the corner while Jamin took care of it because I’m a total chicken. They work on a normal light switch – recently updated because renovation – and are so bright they illuminate the entire main level. There’s no way we would have forgotten and left them on. They weren’t on when we went to bed. And the idea of our kids doing it, was a no go. We would have heard them because their rooms are right beside ours. It was a new house to them, so going downstairs in the middle of the night alone is not something they would do.
The lights were just inexplicably on.
Great, I thought. It’s a Beetlejuice sitch. Some previous owner is still here because they haven’t crossed over, and they’re MAD THAT WE REDID THEIR HOUSE.
On certain days, I could walk through a space on our stairway and smell the fresh scent of tobacco. Which made zero sense, and the entire HVAC had been ripped our and replaced along with everything else. Stale smoke is different than fresh smoke. I even wondered if someone was living underneath our house. Recently, there was a thing with car thieves in our neighborhood, and a manhunt. They found one perp in a crawlspace of a home, so I wasn’t that far off. We looked. And by we, I mean I made Jamin look as punishment for not telling me about the crawlspace daymon.
That event was accompanied by more flickers of light throughout the house. Paired of course, with unexplained sounds. The smell of something burning {which regularly sends me into a panic looking for a fire, then wondering if I have a tumor of some sort until someone else acknowledges the smell}. Small feet running upstairs, when no one else is home, {our oldest was quite traumatized by that one- with knocks on the wall behind his head}. Music that would play from our home speakers system for no apparent reason. The TV was turned on and blaring when we came back home {yes, we’re sure we turned it off}. Things falling off bookshelves repeatedly.
You know. Totally casual.
I’ve even seen it a few times, whatever it is. A shadow… It’s one of those moments where you wonder, out of the corner of your eye. When your eyesight adjusts to the dark. When you think you’re going totally crazy. And these are just a few things that have happened.
As far as the disappearances go, Jamin frustratingly thought I was the one misplacing things. Until one night, it happened to him with our Go Pro. It had been sitting in the middle of the kitchen table, and now it had totally vanished into thin air. We needed it for a filming deadline, and I’ve honestly never been happier about it, because the last non-believer was confronted with his denial and I was vindicated.
After searching for a while, I finally told him with great cavalier whilst wearing my best “I told ya so” face, that I read about such things. And I may or may not have Googled it. For what it’s worth, Google said to ask for said missing item to be returned. Yes, I did shamelessly look up the possibility of missing things and what that could mean. On a supernatural level.
A level headed gal can only take so much blame. For the record, I also searched early onset dementia. I’m nothing, if not thorough. {And paranoid}.
A rando website told me that “poltergeists steal things” to stir up an “emotional reaction”, which in turn stirs up energy. Which they feed on. A solution for disappearing items, is that you have to stay calm, and ask nicely for said item to be returned.
Sure sure.
In that moment, I rolled my eyes, shut my laptop and walked away. Remember, I’m rational. I’d forgotten about it, until that night, when I jokingly announced the results of said Google search after helping him look for an hour. A momentary loss of insanity and actually doing what my Google search results said, made more sense than searching more. I was over it.
But I didn’t say I wasn’t openminded.
At our wit’s end, we did jokingly ask. What could it hurt?
I carefully cleared my throat and into the empty room I said, “Um, may we please have our Go Pro back?” I think I added a “thank you” in there. And also “Please don’t let me wake up to have you hovering over me, mmmmkkkaaaaay ttthhhaaannnkksssss.”
We laughed and went to bed. Good times. I actually spoke to an imaginary murder clown. We were both officially losing our minds.
It was the next morning when we opened a small kitchen drawer we’d thoroughly searched multiple times the night before, that we found it. Impossible to miss, it was sitting right on top of everything else. In plain sight.
At this point, I was looking for a glitch in the matrix. We didn’t feel threatened, we were just kind of questioning our sanity. Did that actually happen? Did I just misplace that item? Is there a hidden cam where Ashton is about to announce that we’ve been Punk’d? More googling of possible brain issues. Fun times.
Fast forward to multiple months later, when it was time to start our basement renovation. We were thrilled to begin. If you’ve been reading here for a while, then you know that was quite the process for us due to local codes. There was a lot of personal things left behind and junk in the basement and while we cleaned up the big stuff, we found it easier to leave all the little things until it was time. Some old tools here and there. A few personal effects.
A few of these items were photos.
One of those photos sat in a broken frame, and it was of a soldier.
I pulled it from the shattered glass, feeling bad about throwing it away, sad that it was left behind. For some reason, I decided to flip it over.
There, scrawled on the back of the photo in someone’s handwriting.
“Benjamin.”
I had to sit down.
The occasional event occurs, every now and again. Sometimes we still question if it’s the trick of the eye. An electrical flaw. A simple, absent-minded moment. The kids occasionally get spooked, and we remind them everything’s fine. One event or another may be easily explained away. But all of them together, again and again, are things that kind of make you wonder. {Can you blame us?} Let’s break out some sage and holy water and a priest and an exorcism because I’m no longer feeling quite so casual about things dropping through the ceiling, covered in pink slime, a-la Poltergiest.
After a few more months, our house activity seemed to slow down a little. It’s only occasionally now that we experience something bizarre. Something else just happened last week, and it seems to go through seasons of activity. I guess we can chalk it up to one of the hazards of loving a previously owned house. We always say it certainly makes for a good Halloween story. I think whatever it is, doesn’t seem mind us that much. This house has been through a lot of owners, so there are a lot of possibilities. But we do know we stirred something up with our renovation. Some kind of energy.
So that, my friends, is the tale of the haunting of our little white house.
{Or a glitch in the matrix, time continuum, murder clown in the crawl space, alternate universe reality issue, my sanity… whatever you wish to call it.}
Hope you enjoyed our little story. Be sure to check out the other good stories in the comments below, and have a spooky day!
Ohmygosh- I loved this! And your writing- you had me hooked, even though reading murder clown made me want to throw up.
Very similar experiences in the home that I grew up in. My sisters and I survived and almost learned to respect it- if that makes any sense? Now I am wondering what my kids are missing by living in a boring new build in a rural setting. Hmmm.
HAHA! Hope it was a nice little spooky story for ya to get you in the fall mood. Some friends encouraged me to share just for funsies- And yes, it does make sense! It’s actually good to know you weren’t totally traumatized 😀
Fun post Ashley – I hope Ben or mom or family member of his – has moved on. I have a friend who lived in an older home in San Fransisco. She was in her early 30’s and living alone in the house. She felt the house had a ghost as there were always odd things happening, nothing scary – almost like pranks. One of the most notable was an evening after work she had invited her boss and a few co-workers to her house for drinks after work. When she got home she changed her clothes and went downstairs to get things ready. When she ran back upstairs to get something, on every doorknob of the upstairs room doors had one of her bras hanging from it. She was totally freaked out, but was getting used to odd things happening she began laughing it off. She was just glad she went upstairs to use the only bathroom in the house before any of her guests did to find the bras. After living in the house for a while, she ran into a neighbor who mentioned that a little girl had died in the house. After learning that, it all made sense to her – the childish pranks and stuff happening.
WOW that’s crazy! That one might be the funniest ghost story ever, but I’d definitely be checking to make sure a psychopath wasn’t hiding in my house 😀
The house my parents live in and have lived in for the last 29 years is similarly haunted. My parents liked to DIY and renovate rooms and it always seemed to occur when they made changes to the house. When they first pulled up the carpet you could sometimes hear footsteps of someone walking in the hallway on the hardwood floors. You could frequently hear what sounded like someone walking along a hallway upstairs… in a 1 story ranch house with no upstairs. Seriously, my parents thought someone was walking on the roof at night and my brother tried to chase said person off with a baseball bat. We would hear pool balls rolling and hitting each other on the pool table in the basement, when no one was down there or had been down there. The ghost also did not like the dehumidifier that we left in the basement. It was pretty noisy. We would regularly find it unplugged from the wall. So we would plug it back in and, assuming the vibration made it roll away put a box in front of it. Later we came down to find the thing in the middle of the room and the box hadn’t been touched. Again, no one had been down there. One night while sleeping I was awaked by a very large crash that sounded like the china cabinet falling over. I step out of my room to look and my mom at the same time stepped out of her room hearing something similar. We looked all around the house but everything was in place. I could go on about stories of strange happenings but granted this is accumulated over a 29 year period. I am glad you don’t feel threatened and also glad to know that my family isn’t totally crazy. Your writing always gets me hooked all the way to the end. Seriously, you should write a fiction novel.
AHhhh that’s so crazy Amanda! My goal was that other fabulous people would share their stories too, and I LOVE THIS. The footsteps would have scared me to death! Thank you for the fiction compliment ;} And your story reminded me, we’ve actually heard crashes too, and walked around to figure out what it was only to find nothing. Crazy stuff. I’m just glad it’s not just us. We love this house, so I’m glad it’s not mean -whatever it is :}
This. Is. Amazing!! Maybe Ben, the big strong military guy, is just there to watch over you all now! 🙃
HAHA maybe so, Erica! So weird. It just can’t be explained. ;}
My mom lived in a house like this too. We all have crazy stories about things that happened there, but after a while when my mom got less freaked out everything seemed to calm down!
That is crazy Mindy! interesting that things calmed down.
This must be shared at every Halloween!! 🎃🦇 🤣 I know you’ve changed this one up and added a little more here because that morning of the car burglars is burned into my memory for a long time to come! 😳
What was it that happened last week?! Maybe the spooks have gotten settled well into the new space and like it better! 😊 My cousin always said we had a ghost upstairs when we were little & Will does NOT want to move up there. 🤷♀️
*This totally got attached incorrectly as a reply 🙄
Can’t figure out how to change it! 🙃
In my previous house my dog would stare at something that was moving along the perimeter of our bed. Nothing I could see. Once I felt something like fingers walk up and down my spine as I slept. When I was alone with the dog in the lower family room, I would hear the floor creak upstairs in the hallway in different spots. No one else was home at the time. I just talked to whatever it was like I talk to the dog and told it to knock it off and go lay down. I figured that would apply to most anything. Everybody/creature needs a nap, right?
Seriously though, it did creep me out big time.
UM, I NOPED OUT at fingers up and down your spine. I’d be all, ghost while you’re there, can you please make this a deep tissue massage? THANKS. 😀 So funny! Glad you didn’t let it push you around.
Hilarious!!
I love the way you write!
HAHA thanks Suzy! I was hoping it would be a nice mix of spooky and ridiculous. Have an amazing rest of the week!
I looked after a property with an old stone house in eastern PA for a time. The oldest bedroom in the house, directly above the “keeping room”, was 100% haunted. It dated back to the mid-1700s. The people who owned the house never mentioned it to guests who stayed in the room. The next morning, the guests always had stories of feeling like they were being watched, hearing humming, one said it felt like something sat down on the end of the bed but nothing was there. I often found one of the cats staring intently into an empty corner. One day I was walking through the house with a friend who was totally into the paranormal. She was ahead of me and as we moved into the older part of the house, I, all of the sudden, felt a massive heaviness on my chest. My friend whipped around and said ‘did you feel that?’ She had the same sensation and claimed it was the ghost. Afterwards, I found that I often felt that fleeting heaviness when I was in the house. So everytime I went into that bedroom, I would talk out loud, cheerily greet the ghost and explain I was just there to make everything tidy and pretty.
Wow crazy! That house sounds amazing. I’d love to see photos! It’s just really weird – the things we can’t explain. Good for you for being cheery about it! :}
When I was about twelve, my family moved into a house where strange things happened. When we arrived the upstairs was mostly unfinished (the house itself was only a couple years old at that point) but everyone who went up there got a weird feeling about it. Day and night you could hear footsteps like someone was walking around up there. It wasn’t uncommon to hear a crash. Sometimes things had fallen off shelves or art was knocked off the wall, but most of the time there was no explanation for the sound. After the upstairs was partially finished with a bedroom and bathroom my brother moved up there, and when he left for college I took his old room. The footsteps were even creepier when you could follow them around the room where you were sitting. I sometimes heard the sound of a distant radio playing what sounded like music and radio shows from the 30s or 40s even when nobody else was home. Things would get moved to odd places. I once found my wall clock, which had been on the wall for years, hidden under my bed on the other side of the room. It was never all that menacing, just weird. Everyone who spent time there experienced some odd thing or another. In fact, it was my sister-in-law who named the spirit Moonshiner Bill. The neighborhood was built in a forested area once famous for moonshine runners, and since the house was new we figured the spirit must have come from the property. 20 years later he’s not as active as he used to be, but we still hear the footsteps from time to time.
LISA! This is amazing! So spooky! Especially footsteps following you around! Stories like this make me feel a little less crazy haha!
I love your post stories. They always make me laugh out loud. You should write a book. I would be the first in line to buy it. I hope all is well in the house now. lol
Awe this is the sweetest. Thank you. It truly means the world.
You had me hooked! I bet if you ask some realtors they have many a story. We almost bought a run down house once on a street where the other houses were well maintained and there was a park across the street. I loved the location, the lot and could see the potential in this house. After looking at the house 3 times we finally decided it would cost too much for us to fix up and moved on. Our realtor later told us she was so glad we didn’t buy it because it had been known as the “haunted house”. We never had any weird feelings but did think it weird that the realtor never would walk around the house with us. Maybe a year later a friend was over and we were telling ghost type stories and he told us about a time him and his dad went to pray over a house for a family that had been having many issues at home. Long story, but he drove us straight to the very house we had almost bought. We were so freaked out! When we are back in that town we always drive by and check on it. Anyway, very interesting story! How are your kids on it all now???
WOW, Pam! SPOOKY SPOOK!!!! Thanks so much for sharing that story. I love it. That would totally freak me out. I think there’s a fine line between funny things happening, and all out prayers over a house BECAUSE of events. That must mean a lot had gone down. Crazy.
Our kids seem fine as long as we don’t talk about it too much. Our youngest has been skittish since we moved in – He prefers sharing a room with his sister, even though that may come to an end in the next year when we start our addition. I think it will stir things up, with the kiddos feeling unsettled since all our rooms are all together right now. Our oldest had something pretty crazy to happen to him over the summer and he legit freaked out and started accusing us- he thought we were playing pranks on him. We have the agreement within our family not to prank each other, since too much talk of it makes them wary. If something happens, they know to come get us + call it out + ask it to stop.
They’re fine. Everything’s fine. {Cue traumatized autobiographical book release ten years from now} 😀
I love scary stories!! I have none myself, but my husband grew up in a haunted house. It was the original family homestead from 1872. His family settled in Kansas from Ireland. Anyway, each generation to live there always adds on and renovated. Many family members have died there because that’s what you did back then. He said you’d hear people walking around upstairs all the time, doors opening and closing, objects got moved to weird places, etc. They figured the ghosts were family so they didn’t worry about it. Then in 1997, his parents ripped off the old enclosed back porch so they could start a big utility room/kitchen addition. Lo and behold, they found an old well under that old back porch. Per county guidelines, they had it filled in and they built the addition. Well, all paranormal activity stopped. There hasn’t been an event since the day the well got filled. The family all figures there was some connection, but nobody has any idea what (was there a body in the well??? We will never know…). Anyway, great writing and I loved the post 🙂
Thanks Melinda – I love scary stories too, and yours is AMAZING! seriously makes you wonder! wow. thank you for sharing!
Loved this and all of the comments!