CRYING IN THE BASEMENT In 1969 we moved into a home in Westminister, Colorado. We were just renting the home and the landlady did tell us she hoped that we would stay longer than the last tenants. She did not say why they moved so quickly. The house had a very large basement of which made a great playroom for the children. We did not put any furniture down there, just the children's toys. At 1:45 one afternoon, I heard something that heard like women sobbing and talking very softly. Thinking maybe one of the children had taken a radio downstairs, I went down to turn it off, only to find "No radio". Thinking it was only my imagination, I went about my business. The corner the noise was coming from was ice cold, where as the rest of the room was warm, of which I thought was odd. The next day, the same thing happened, and again I checked it out, and still nothing. On the fifth day, my neighbor came over for a visit and I did not mention the noise in the basement, and at 1:45 P.M. the noise started again. She then told me the TV was on downstairs. Knowing there was not a TV down there, I asked her if she would mind going down and turning it off. She gladly went downstairs and came running back up, (she was as white as a sheet) "She said nothing is there". I told her "I know" and that I thought we had unwelcome visitors. She had me go get my two collies and take them downstairs. She told me that animals had like a sixth sense and would be able to tell if we had ghosts. They were fine until I tried to take them to the cold corner of the basement. They tugged away from me and started barking and whining and ran back upstairs. My neighbor and I thought we would wait it out and see what would happen if we stayed around. The children were down there playing. At about 3:00 P.M. we heard the front door open upstairs and heard footsteps on the hardwood floor go across the living room, down the hall to the bathroom. The bathroom door closed and we could hear water running. After a few minutes, we heard the bathroom door open, heard the footsteps once again go down the hall to the living room where they stopped. My neighbor said she was going to have to go since my husband was home, and my children went running upstairs to greet what they thought was their Daddy coming home. I told my neighbor that this was not the first time this had happened, that he was not due home for another four hours, and I asked her not to leave yet. My children came running back downstairs and said, "Nobody is up there". The next day, we had painted the living room and we had placed a fountain in the corner with a hanging swag light above it. We stepped back to admire our finished work, when all of a sudden the swag light stated swinging back and forth and started picking up speed to where it was hitting each wall, and then the fountain flipped in the air and hit the wall, dumping water everywhere, and all the lights in the house started flashing off and on. We called our neighbors to come over to see what they thought. All was quiet for about 30 minutes so we decided to play cards. We set a card table up in the living room and just as we started playing, the lights started flashing off and on in the house. This went on for a long time and I decided since they kept playing with the electricity, that I would put a lantern in the center of the table. The flame kept going out as if someone was blowing on it, and after about a dozen times of lighting the lantern, we finally gave up. The neighbors got real nervous and decided to go home for the evening. The next day, I called an electrician and told them about the problem. They informed me that nothing was wrong with the electricity, that they had been out numerous times before and that the last people that lived there were also having the same problems. The crying in the corner of the basement, the flickering lights, the footsteps across the floor everyday continued on for about six more months and we decided we had some friendly ghosts that were not going to harm us. They were just playful, until one day my little boy was out in the yard playing near a tree, and a small axe came flying out of nowhere and hit the tree just above my little boys head. That did it, I called my landlady and told her we were moving, and told her what all had happened, and now they were trying to harm my children. She said she knew about the ghosts in the house, and that her mother had lived and died there, and she had two older ladies that were always over there with her. She said her mother didn't like changes in her house, therefore, when we painted the walls, she let us know that she did not like it. She also told us that she did not let anyone in her house except her two lady friends. She let us out of the lease and said she was very sorry they had caused us so many problems, that most people only stayed a couple of months or less. We moved the next day, and never went back, however I did call the lady that owned the house about a year later, and ask her if she had ever rented the house again, and she told me that it had been rented three more times that year. She told me that the last people that were in there, were only there a couple of weeks, and while they were at work, the house burnt to the ground, and they were never able to find out the cause of the fire. Submitted From: USA