Disclaimer: In 1989 I bought the cassette version of “Appetite for Destruction” by Guns n Roses. It kickstarted a life-long love of foul language that is evidenced by the filth that litters my blog posts, so some of you might not enjoy the gratuitous profanity in here. The moral of the story is that parents really need to monitor what their kids spend their pocket money on. It can fuck them up for life.
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I have a habit of hamming things up on this blog, so sometimes people aren’t sure if I’m having a lend of them or not.
Case in point: if I had a dollar for every person who asked me if I really wear a bum bag I would be one of the richest mummy bloggers this country has ever seen. (For the record, yes I DO wear a bum bag. I would never mock the sanctity of practical accessories).
So, with that out of the way I am going to tell y’all something right now that will sound to any sane person like complete and utter horse shit. But it’s all true.
I lived in a haunted house with a ghost who wanted to kill me.
Grab the nearest crucifix, stuff a pair of spare undies down your bra and tiptoe with me down the hallway of my paranormal suburban hell. (Alternately, atheists can ditch the religious iconography for the latest edition of “The Skeptic’s Guide to Bloggers Who Are Full of Shit” instead).
Here’s how I knew my house was haunted:
#1 I kept finding my kitchen cupboard doors open all the time
Yeah, yeah, I know. TERRIFYING. Call Ghostbusters….
It seems innocuous, but I kept finding my cupboard doors open in the kitchen. Not fully open, like that scene from The Sixth Sense – just slightly ajar. It didn’t creep me out at the time, because I’m absentminded and kind of lazy. My total ineptitude could have explained a lot of this.
Except that it kept happening, even after I started making a conscious effort to close them. (For the record, it doesn’t happen in our new place. Ever. Maybe the ghosts here are lazy fuckers).
#2 Television, lights and electrics would do weird shit
We had weird stuff happening with the electrics but wrote it off as dodgy wiring, and it happened infrequently enough to have more of an “Oh, that’s weird” kind of vibe instead of a “FUCK, THAT’S CREEPY” kind of vibe.
We’d have lights and televisions turning on and off by themselves, sometimes at very strange hours. I mean, our place was only 35 years old and the wiring was totally fine, but no one WANTS to believe that their house is haunted, so we came up with all sorts of logical reasons to convince ourselves that it wasn’t.
Deny, deny, logic, explain. We’re rational people.
But then, shit escalated.
#3 I heard footsteps down the hallway but no one was there
One day I was at home while my two year old was asleep. He was a chronic catnapper so I knew I’d be lucky to get time for a cup of tea and a cursory scroll through Facebook before he made his premature reappearance. Not long after I put him to bed I distinctly heard footsteps coming down the hallway, so I sighed in irritation and got up to meet him.
There was no one there.
I walked down the hallway to see if he’d toddled into one of the other bedrooms. Nope. I stuck my head in his doorway and he was still in bed. Fast asleep.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I heard physical footsteps. The house was silent, the TV and radio were off (DON’T WAKE THE CATNAPPER) and there was no other background noise to confuse things. Creepy as fuck.
#4 I saw the shadow of a little boy ghost
Our bedroom was directly across the hall from my son’s room, and he would often wake up and come into our bed. One night around 3am I was woken by something and sat up. That was rather unusual, as I routinely sleep through Category 5 storms and my children crying at night (I am not proud of this).
The house was dark but my son had a night light in his room, which cast a dim glow across the hallway. I looked towards our open doorway and distinctly saw the shadow of a small boy pass across the door, so I shuffled over to make room for another nightly visit from my rogue three year old.
But the shadow wasn’t followed by an actual body.
I got up and checked his room. He was in bed. Fast asleep.
The rogue shadow did not belong to MY three year old.
(Yes, I am getting chills as I type this, several years later).
(And yes, I know how absolutely batshit fucking crazy this sounds).
#5 I woke up one night and the bed was shaking
God this sounds stupid. I know this sounds fucking stupid. YES, I woke up in the middle of the night one time and the bed was actually SHAKING.
The weird thing was that I remember looking over at my husband and thinking “HOLY FUCK WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING HERE?!” (I deadset thought it was an earthquake) but he was still fast asleep.
I don’t know what else to tell you. My husband didn’t feel it but I did, so I was starting to think that the ghost had it in for me.
I wasn’t wrong.
#6 I woke up one night and someone was choking me
If you’re still here, this is where things get really fucked up and if you didn’t think I was full of shit before you will surely crown me the Queen of Fecal Vomiting henceforth and forevermore.
But, I assure you, all metaphysical attempts to kill me were real.
One night I was abruptly woken with the sensation that someone was choking me. And when I say “sensation” I could literally see the dark outline of a person on top of me with its hands around my throat.
I couldn’t breathe. Or scream. Or make a sound.
I actually thought someone had broken into my house and was strangling me. Its presence was physical. I could see it and feel it. Eventually it released its vice-like grip on my throat and disappeared, at which point I realised that it wasn’t a person. It was a shadow.
It was a. fucking. shadow.
FAAAARK.
I can’t even explain the terrror. It was visceral. I still remember the gutteral rasp of my breathing once the pressure on my throat had been released; the adrenaline mixed with shock and relief. After that I was scared to go to sleep at night, and I’d lie awake shitting my metaphorical pants at every creak and groan the house made.
I was a grown-ass woman afraid of fucking ghosts.
The obvious response was to tell NO-ONE that some sort of spirit-demon had just tried to strangle me and to make a few lighthearted posts on my blog about doing a DIY exorcism to get my kid to sleep better at night. Yeah, to get my KID to sleep better at night…
Me burning sage and carrying a Bible and a cross around, because I am SO super-religious and all that… But fuck me, a ghost had just tried to kill me and it worked in The Exorcist so I Hail Mary’d the fuck out of that house anyway. Weirdly enough, it seemed to work.
Or so I thought….
#7 My HUSBAND woke up one night and someone was shaking him
Now this is where is gets REALLY good.
My husband is a bona-fide skeptic and does not believe in any of this sort of nonsense. If you’re rolling your eyes right now I guarantee you that his would be spinning like the Bingo cage at a seniors-run church fundraiser every time I talked about this shit.
He’s a total non-believer.
Or, he was, until my ghostly friend paid him a special visit.
My husband is a closed book. He plays his cards close to his chest – all those bullshit metaphors. He only offered this information up to me randomly one night when we were resoundingly PISSED on goon bag wine, not long after we’d moved into our new house – and well after it actually happened.
I’d been up at the Gold Coast with the kids a few months beforehand, leaving him at home alone. While we were away one night he was woken abruptly from his sleep too, but it wasn’t because he was being choked. According to my non-believing skeptic huband, he woke up because SOMETHING HAD GRABBED HIM BY THE ANKLES AND WAS VIGOROUSLY SHAKING HIM UP AND DOWN.
That motherfucker kept that little tidbit from me for MONTHS.
Said that he didn’t want to scare me. Dickhead. And finally admitted that I might have been onto something with all this ghost stuff. I mean shit, I was already terrified but if he’d actually told me about his playdate with the poltergeist at least I would have felt a little bit less fucking crazy about the whole thing.
And there concludes my highly-implausible story of paranormal hell. We moved out not long after the incident with my husband (totally unrelated, but I wish the new owners well…) and our new house is pleasingly devoid of malevolent demons who want to kill us. The End.
TL DR; Ghosts. They’re real.
FREEEAKY!!
YEEEESSSS!!
NO. FREAKIN. WAY. 😮😮😮
YES WAY.
I was so freaked out I forgot to applaud you for the sensational disclaimer – gold! 🙂
BAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHA!! I blame Guns n Roses for basically everything that’s wrong with my life. LOL!!
Hoooooooly Shiiiiiiiit!
Fuck yes.
Holy shit. I bet you couldn’t wait to sell that house. I would have been outta there!!
It was totally unrelated, but yes I was so glad to be out of there. And so relieved to realise that this place is completely free of supernatural bad vibes. I feel really safe here. No sense that anything weird is going on at all.
Fark that. I’ve lived in a house with a presence but the stuff you experienced is another level!
Yep, low-level presence I could handle. The malevolent stuff was a step beyond. I still shake my head in disbelief that this stuff even happened. It feels ridiculous to say it out loud, which is probably why I said nothing about it for so long.
Wow, hard core! Did you check there wasn’t a gas leak or some funky hallucinogen in the paint?! I’ve had my share of hard-to-explain brushes with freaky stuff, but physical contact like your experiences is next level! Glad your new place is a lot more peaceful.
BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! I love how you jump to an even less likely scenario than actual ghosts. Maybe our house was an old crack den or something… Meth lab?
Fuck.that.shit. I’m a total sceptic too in most things but there’s just some shit that goes on that we can’t explain. I would’ve packed my bags and moved into the car after those incidents!! That gave me the heebie jeebies lady.
I used to be Team Atheist Skeptic, and then life threw a whole bunch of weird shit at me to make me change my mind…
I would have sold up too. I do figure souls need to go somewhere so ghosts don’t seem implausible.
Yep – I do believe that souls exist, and that they are immortal. I guess they need to manifest somewhere!
I really shouldn’t have read that before I go to bed. I do think there’s things out there, but jeez, what went down in your place was like something out of the exorcist. You’re a braver woman than me, I would have moved out at the kitchen cupboard stage!
Sweet dreams, sweet lady!! xx
Should not have read that while Mr Wallace is away for work…
Heh heh heh… I can’t be held in any way responsible for this.
I wonder how the new owners are enjoying the house?! That’s some freaky shit – glad you got out of there (and that your friend didn’t follow). Add in a clown and I’d be even more petrified xx
HAHAHHHAHHA I know right? I kind of hope to bump into them one day so I can ask them if they’ve had any weird shit happen. The new owner is a single mum with a boy who is about 3 or 4 years old. Should be interesting…
If you tell ghost stories like this while we’re away I’M SLEEPING SOMEWHERE ELSE.
I’m saving all the best ones just for you.
In our previous house (the one Olivia lives in by herself now) Siri woke me up 3 times in the middle of the night with: “I’m sorry I didn’t understand that” and a couple of “how can I help you”. An electric door bell going off in the middle of the night. We were all home and answered the door 3 times and then took up spying from the top front
Bedroom window. We threw the bell out. Let alone the watching “something ” “someone” walk up the stairs. I’m a believer. Glad yours didn’t follow you. Mine didn’t and Olivia has had no incidents. Yeah I’m staying here tonight
OMG that is super creepy! It’s so weird how they can mess about with the electrical stuff like that! Ours has definitely not followed us thank god, and I’d have no idea what to do if it had. It is so much easier to talk about now that it’s all behind me.
Bloody hell!!!! I would have hightailed it out of there quick smart!
I am beginning to wonder though if there is a ghost in the house we’ve just bought. A few of times now I’ve heard noises that can’t be explained and twice the bedroom TV has turned on by itself in the early hours of the morning!! I’m freaking out now!!!!
And P.S. GNFR 4 EVA xx
OMG I hope for your sake that the answer is no!! Might be time to do a prophylactic course of sage burning and “get the fuck out of my house” calling. (AND YES – GNR RULES!)
I believe you. I had a similar experience! Not anywhere where I lived thank goodness. But in an old bed and breakfast in Melbourne. I woke up to someone tapping my leg awake in the night and insat up and an old man in colonial clothes was at the end of the bed. My ex woke to me screaming “get out of our room”. We then heard footsteps and no one was there. The lady in the morning said it was an old boardinghouse for sick men in the early 1900s. I was so spooked. I really think that in some places so much shit goes down that spirits hang around.
Such a freaky experience – imagine waking up to that!! I reckon that old boarding houses, orphanages, prisons and hospitals must have some SERIOUS spirit activity going on. So many people pass through them, and they aren’t exactly the happiest of places!
I’ve never had any sort of interaction with anything other worldly so I’m a sceptic and i will not believe until I see for myself. Having said that, I have heard a few stories like this (but not quite so creepy) so while I don’t believe myself, I would never think you are batshit crazy!
Mate, I was the same as you so I don’t blame you at all!
Far oouuuuuuut!!! That gave me chills. How long did you stay in that house for? I would be getting the hell out of there. I can’t believe your husband didn’t tell you that straight away. I have had two encounters with ghosts. One at a TV station I used to work at where there was rumours of a ghost and another when we were staying at a friend’s beach house. I could feel a pressure right on top of me and couldn’t get up. It was so real and I’ll never forget it.
We were in there for 4 years all up, and it really was a slow process of escalation so by the time we got to the really awful stuff it wasn’t a long time. I just looked back at the old post and the exorcism was done in mid 2013. We moved out in early 2015, so it was probably a year and a half of scary shit! Holy shit to that beach house story. That’s what these bastards do!
Shit. And I mean that in a Holy Shitballs kind of way. I can’t imagine how bloody tired you must have been after that bullshit going on for months! Yay for a non-homicidal house!?
Mate, you can’t even begin to imagine…
What the actual fuck! I am shaking after reading this. I had been totally comfortable in my knowledge that ghosts did not exist. Fuck!! Glad you moved on. x
HAHAHAHHAHAHA! I miss the bliss of that certainty too!
I believe you, I’m freaking out. I too have heard someone telling me to stop banging the vacuum cleaner on the skirting boards in a house 100+ years old. People had died in it and there was a family cemetery in the paddock beside the homestead. Ghost are real, hell yes. I would have moved out WAY earlier. FTS
It’s so interesting just how many people have had these experiences! And once you’ve had them, there is no doubt in your mind whatsoever.
OMG!!!! That is soooo freakin scary!!!! I would of lost my shit once your husband told his story!!! We so need to drink at PB and discuss. I think my new workplace is haunted. I always sing, “honey I’m home” when I open it up (it’s an old Station Masters house done up) – I have no idea why I say that but I like to greet the ghost. I think it’s a she, she moves around in other rooms. I get up to greet people and no one is there. I’m never here at night though. I know of the bed shake at home. I’m always thinking what his Farmer doing??? But he’s fast asleep. Being strangled is just NOT ON!!! I’ve heard that jolt you get when you’re asleep is a lost spirit checking to see if they can go into your body – the jolt is your spirit rejecting that! Farrrrrrrrk! Perhaps we should just talk about rainbows and lollipops from now on!! 😳 x
HAHHAHAHAH happy to talk you through the finer points of my haunting in person! Or maybe we could stick to somewhat safer topics… And ZOMG to your new workplace – will be interesting to see if they are friendly or not!
Ohhh faaaark. This story has a sphincter factor of about a thousand – after the choking incident I would’ve been the fuck outta there! Nothing’s happened to me, although a lot of stuff used to happen to my flatmate. Not in our house, but once we went on a camping road trip up the Queensland coast and the morning we woke up (alone, in our isolated campground) outside 1770 he told us he’d woken up in the wee hours with something sitting on his chest and holding his throat. He looked over at me and our other flatmate and tried to call out to us but he couldn’t speak. We just slept right through it! Though we were all a bit spooked the next morning. And then it happened again in Emerald! He was shockingly blase about the whole thing, though apparently his family has that kind of stuff happen to them quite often. OH HELL NAW.
OMG shit. Just shit. Since posting this blog there have been several people to comment that they or someone they know has experienced that pressure as well! FAAAAARK.
One of my favourite bloggers is on hiatus at the moment but she has the best goddamn spooky stories to tell; some terrifying but some sweet, because all the women in her family (well, besides her, funnily enough) seem to have some sort of ability in that area. I find that stuff fascinating but would completely crap my pants if anything remotely like it ever happened to me. https://006point7ekgo.wordpress.com/2013/10/23/only-the-creepers/
OMG that is a creepy story… In hindsight, our ghost seemed to get more pissed off after my second baby arrived too!! I’d never really made that connection until I read that blog post. Interesting…
OMG OMG OMG – I was reading through, mentally prepping my comment to be GTFO NOW! but saw you have indeed moved and nothing followed you. We lived in an house where the previous elderly owner had died as kids and some weird unexplainable stuff happened (odd noises and the TV changed channel once) but nothing malevolent. I’m down for spirits doing what they gotta do before they cross over but they need to have some chill.
A-fuckin- MEN. GHOSTS NEED TO HAVE SOME CHILL. Thank god we have none here at the new house, or those that linger CBF messing with us.
Was freaked out just reading this!!! This is epic. I think you need to book a spot on The Morning Show; or just buzz straight through to Ellen.
LOL I love Larry Emdur AND Ellen. DON’T MAKE ME CHOOSE!
I have the craziest imagination and I have just worked myself into a frenzy reading this haha. Started reading with my leg hanging of the bed got to the little boy shadow and quickly whipped that bad boy on to the bed and under my blankets!!
I had a ghost that would hover in my door way when I still lived with my mum and one night I woke up suddenly and for no reason and he was in the room which he never did and i watched him setting my alarm clock that i had forgotten to do, he was pretty helpful and never saw him after that.
Oh my god what is it with these ghosts!! So many of them seem to like the bedrooms – when you are at your least attentive and most vulnerable. It’s like they do it deliberately to freak us out…
or help us not be late for work mine totally told me turn my alarm on because I had forgotten such a helpful apparition haha
HAHHAHAHAH like a paranormal personal assistant!
Haven’t read your post yet but I headed straight to the comments to say, BEST DISCLAIMER EVER! Now I scroll back to the top…
Oh fuck that! I think you should add to that disclaimer, do not read this post at night! I’m a complete believer. Argh! Now I have to read lots of things to take my mind off this thing!
Heh heh heh… In hindsight, posting it to social at night was not one of my better ideas….
BAHAHHAHAHHAHHAH! Thank you!
I’ve experienced something sorta the same less the killing part! Lol.. actually lived with a ghost for years. Did not like it and am still freaked the fukk out by them. …
It’s AMAZING how many people feel free to share their stories as soon as I mention it. It happens more often than we think, but people don’t always talk about it because it makes you sound a bit loopy.
Yeah or because it reminds us of a story we had long forgot about! Sometimes other things are at the top of our minds and the mention of anything else brings other memories hence similar stories! Hey btw, i was just wondering since you know what it is like to be a newbie, would you read my last post and give me your opinion? I just wanna know what somebody else thinks since i haven’t had not 1 view yet, please? I appreciate i it, btw again, not interested in money or fame, just would love for someone to listen, i have a lot of experience to talk about, nobody to listen lol thanks
Happy to have a look at it!
Unless it’s because when they hear somebody talking about it, it reminds them of a memory long forgotten and as the memories come back to life, they are urged to tell their similar story
YES! Definitely this.
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, I’ve had a couple of interesting experiences which I’ve blogged about here http://www.middleagedmama.com.au/real-life-ghost-story/ & here http://www.middleagedmama.com.au/message-from-heaven/ xxx
I’ve had a couple of interesting experiences which I’ve blogged about here http://www.middleagedmama.com.au/real-life-ghost-story/ & here http://www.middleagedmama.com.au/message-from-heaven/ xxx
I LOVE both these stories Janet. The first one gave me full body chills and the one about your mum gave me the warm fuzzies. I have no doubt in my mind that it was her way of communicating with you. I mean, that was so specific and not something you would see every day!
PS sorry about the double up on comments, I was on my ipad and it looked like it hadn’t worked but now I can see it did 😉
LOL not a worry! My comments section can be pretty glitchy too!
I too have had a few encounters but never like this. It must have been petrifying!! I would have gotten the fuck out of there ASAP.
HAHAHAHHA and I’m glad we eventually did. And not a moment too soon…
I’m not saying the house wasn’t haunted because I do definitely believe in ghosts having experienced them myself. But the pressure on your chest, not being able to breath or move seing a black shadow has very reasonable scientific explanation. It’s called sleep paralyses. You are basically half awake and half asleep! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis. I used to have them all the time when I was younger. Scary yes, but not paranormal. 🙂
Aaaah yes another friend linked me this too! I think I’d be more than happy to run with that if it weren’t for the wider context of other weird shit going on too. LOL. If it had been just a once off I’d definitely think it was sleep paralysis. Either way, it was still bloody scary. They both suck!
If this had been written by anyone else I’d have thought it was made up. How bloody scary. Twenty years ago, I lived in an old house that had been transported from the goldfields. My dog went absolutely berserk one day at something in my bedroom. He wouldn’t let me go in and stood at the door barring me. All his hair stood on end but suddenly he just stopped growling and walked away. Other weird things had happened in the house too. At least it might mean death is not the end after all.
Mate… Mate…. Too fucking true. And I swear to god, the animals get it too.
HOLY Shitballs – I am two parts terrified but one part wanting to sit you down and drill you for more information. Yes I love ghost movies 😉
Next time we see each other you can have the directors cut version.
I’ve waited MONTHS to read this, because I’m notoriously piss weak. But then Paul decided to tell me that our old house was haunted (we got it cheap because a Hungarian masseuse had died in the kitchen), so I HAD to read. Thank god we’ve both moved since.