Reader Submission: Is My House Haunted?

Things to know before reading: My dad died of lung cancer in 2005, and he always used to say that he’d be with us after he’d gone. I live with my mum, James (brother) and Tim (brother). We suspect that he could be with us, but we don’t think it’s only him. We think something else is in the house too.

The Jigsaw Pieces
A couple of years ago during the Summer holidays, my brother (I was around 15, he would have been 16) bought a jigsaw puzzle. We took only a few days to put it all together apart from a few pieces. They weren’t in the box, but we counted the pieces before we started to make sure we weren’t wasting our time with a puzzle that didn’t have all the pieces. So we knew that they should have all been there. The only people to move the pieces were us, and the box with the pieces remained on the table where everyone could see it throughout the time we were fixing it.

We searched all over for weeks and kept the jigsaw on the table. Over that time, my mum had obviously cleaned up several times, Hoovering all the floors. There’s no way we would have missed spotting any pieces should they have been there. It also rained over those few weeks too, and the ground was still wet for days.

Then we started finding them. First, one under the chair where I’d been sitting for most of the day at my laptop in the dining room. It was suddenly just THERE, directly under my chair. I couldn’t fathom where it had come from. Then another, in the kitchen by the sink on the floor. Then another by the fridge, and, weirdest of all, we found one outside, across the street, on the wet floor. But it was dry, it wasn’t soggy or ruined at all. It hadn’t been rained on, so it hadn’t been there for long. Where were they coming from?

Instinctively, I blamed James. It’s the kind of stunt I thought he’d pull, but he furiously denied it and he was clearly freaked out by the whole thing. After living with him all my life, I just KNEW he was telling the truth. I also knew it wouldn’t be my mum or my older brother, so I was left to wonder what had happened. I had suspicions later that it was my dad, playing a trick on us, since he always used to steal the last pieces of jigsaws to ensure he could finish them first.

The Attic
My brother (I have 4, this one is Matthew) was over, getting Christmas decorations down from the attic for my mum. He was in the attic, and my mum was below on the landing, holding the ladder and looking up into the square opening, waiting for him to pass down boxes of decorations to her.

All of a sudden, there was a flash of light which my mum saw too, and Matt’s scared shout, and then he jumped feet-first from the attic, not even trying to use the ladder. He missed it completely, landed on the landing, and rushed to James and Tim’s bedroom. He sat on the bed, brought his knees to his chest, and began rocking backwards and forwards, tears streaming down his face. He was more in shock than anything, and was muttering “I saw my dad, I saw my dad.”

Sleeping Mum
My mum has a few weird stories from when she’s been in bed. She’s had a dream where she saw herself sleeping, and she was floating with her back to the ceiling. I’ve looked this up, and it’s apparently common to those who have ghostly experiences. Could it be mere coincidence, or could it mean something more?

She’s also woken up to find herself wedge between the bed and the side of my dad’s old computer desk, pillows shoved down there too. She’s never been one to move around much in her sleep, and even my mum who is not a big believer in the paranormal, said it felt weird and not right at all. It was like she’d been pushed, forced.

Finally, she cannot remember if she was dreaming or if she was awake, but my mum said she got up out of bed and went to the bathroom. She opened the door, and my dad was sitting on the closed lid of the toilet. He was dressed in his usual black trousers and white shirt, top button undone. Apparently he looked solid, like he was still alive. He simply smiled, and said to her, ‘I told you so.’ My mum, shocked and therefore scared, ran back to her bedroom and, whether it was her real self or her dream self, she went back to sleep. She still cannot recall if it actually happened or not, but I for one am convinced it did.

York University
This one is short. I was staying at York University as part of a school educational trip, a group called Aimhigher. Anyway, I was in my temporary room in one of the dorm buildings, and I was on my phone, texting my friend in the next room. I’d just showered, and the door to the shower and small bathroom was closed. I glanced up for no reason in particular, and my dad was standing in front of the door, just staring at me. He looked troubled, deep in thought, like he wasn’t ACTUALLY looking at me. I couldn’t look away, and after a few moments, he just vanished. He didn’t fade, he literally just blinked out of sight. I called my mum right afterwards to tell her, and she told me to calm down and get some sleep, so I did.

Taps, Floorboards, Lights, Laughter, Pressure
I’d used the loo, washed my hands in the bathroom sink, and was leaving. I got two steps down the staircase when I heard the tap turn back on. Confused, I went back up, turned it tight, and then went back down the stairs. For a second time, the tap (bearing in mind I’d really tightened it as much as I could) turned back on again. Once again, I went back, turned it tight, and tried to descend the stairs for a third time. The tap didn’t turn on again, it was fine. I don’t know what to make of it, if it was my dad fooling around or if it was something more…sinister.

This was only a few days ago, and since the council are currently in our home putting in a new bathroom, we only have floorboards on our landing and stairs so any carpeting wouldn’t get ruined. I was leaving the bathroom, barefoot after having a bath, and I noticed the floor immediately. A whole floorboard had been lifted and upturned. I freaked out and ran down the stairs after getting quickly dressed in my room, and told my family. They reckon it was a council worker, but why would they do something on the landing where they’re not even working, and why only one floorboard? Also, I would have noticed. I had to walk over it to get to the bathroom from my bedroom. It wasn’t like that when I entered, only when I left.

The Kitchen Light
I was, AGAIN, leaving the bathroom (weird since that’s where my mum apparently saw my dad) and I headed to the small room on the far right of the landing to get some clean pyjamas. My current room was in darkness but the door was open, and as I was passing, I heard the deepest, most spine-chilling laughter I have ever heard. It made my hairs stand on end, and goosebumps covered the entirety of my skin, and I didn’t even get my pyjamas. I ran down the stairs two at a time and refused to go back up alone. There is no way in hell I imagined it. I’ve never heard anything sound so…evil.

I was lying in bed a few nights ago and I couldn’t sleep, which is normal for me. I never sleep at a decent time, I almost always fall asleep well into the early hours of the morning. Suddenly I felt a tightness in my throat, and then a heavy weight pressing me down into the bed. It felt like someone was straddling my chest, was actually sat on my body. I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t move any part of my body. It lasted for about a minute, though it felt like a lot longer, and then it left. Needless to say I didn’t actually get any sleep at all that night.

Also on the subject of pressure, both myself and Tim have felt the bottom of our beds dip with the weight of someone sitting, or perhaps putting a hand there. It always creeps me out, and to this day I have never been able to sleep facing into the room. I always, always sleep facing the wall, as close as I can get to it.

Other things happen all the time. Things move, my brother once saw my dad sitting in the back garden but he was considerably intoxicated so we can’t take his word as gospel, and we’ve had knocking on the window at around 1 a.m. and there has been no one there, no one on the street at all. Also, both me and James wake up all the time with mysterious scratches and a redness to our skin. He once had scratches going from the base of his neck right down his back. It scared the hell out of me.

What can you make of this? Is my house haunted, or is it actually me something is attached to?”

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