Not long after moving in we found out we weren’t the only ones living there. Most of us had some ghostly experience during our time there but none seemed to bother anyone enough to want to leave...

We were all delighted the day we moved into our new home. A beautiful 3-storey white house with full basement and a bay window that jutted outwards overlooking the harbor. A very quiet street big enough to hold only three homes and the best house we’d lived in yet. Mind you, this was only our third home and the last one was a rented half of a house.

Not long after moving in we found out we weren’t the only ones living there. Most of us had some ghostly experience during our time there but none seemed to bother anyone enough to want to leave. There was never anything ‘bad’ that occurred, just a friendly reminder we weren’t living there alone. This one particular experience stays fresh in my mind not only because of the eeriness of the experience but the humor in it as well.

It was a lazy Saturday afternoon and my father, brother and myself were in the kitchen chatting when we heard somebody come down the stairs. My mother was upstairs taking a nap. We all assumed she was awake and coming down to prepare supper. Simultaneously we looked down the hallway but there wasn’t a soul in sight. Then we heard the footsteps creak back up the stairway again, but couldn’t see anyone making the noise. We all looked at each other knowingly as we’d each had already experienced ghostly visits in the house.

About a half hour later we heard the footsteps again. But this time it wasn’t the ghost, but rather my mother. As she came through the hallway she said, ‘How can anyone get any sleep around here with you guys trampin’ up and down the stairs all the time?’ We all burst out laughing to think she’d heard it too and was so ready to blame us. We told her it wasn’t us but had heard the ‘visitor’ too. She understood immediately but now she was angry with the ghost. In time she finally did calm down and we continued on with our normal routines.

There were many ghostly experiences in that beautiful old house. We never did find out who lived there or who might be haunting the place but we didn’t mind sharing our home with them either. After all, they were there long before we moved in. It was home sweet home of the haunted kind.

©2001, 2002 Dallas Hodder Franklin