These various stories have been told to me over
the years by nearly every family member who has
lived or stayed in the house in question. There
are countless others, but far too many to
document. These are the few stand-out ones.
My grandparents used to own a rather large house,
that was around 100 years old on the outskirts of
Strahan (a small town on the west coast of
Tasmania) and mum, dad and myself would often go
to visit, sometimes staying overnight.
My nan has
often told of a 'presence' that she would feel
around the house. My Pop considered it to
be 'nonsense' until both my mum and uncle
reported that they had felt it too.
Before I begin, I should probably give a quick
description of the house. Upon entering the front
door, you are in a very long, high ceilinged
hallway, with one of the back doors down the
opposite end. On the left are the three bedrooms,
my nan and pops room is the closest, the room
that I would always sleep in is in the middle,
and the room my parents would sleep in is closest
to the back door. On the right, directly across
from the middle room is the bathroom, and just up
from that is the door leading out into the rest
of the house. Nearly all the occurrences seemed to
be in these three bedrooms.
My mum and her brother and two sisters had lived
in the house since they were in their early
teens. My mum and one of her sisters would share
a room, her other sister had her own, and her
brother would sleep out in the rumpus room. This
used to be an old garage, but previous owners had
converted it.
My uncle always said he felt a presence in that
rumpus room, but he never felt threatened in any
way. Any time my nan, my mum or any of her
sisters would go in there though, they would get
a horrible feeling like they were being watched.
Unlike my uncle, it was an extremely threatening
feeling for all the women, and as a result my mum
once didn't go in there for about two years, it
made her that uncomfortable.
The spirit that
inhabited this particular room, it would seem,
was not partial to women.
My nan was turning her bed back one night, and
was about to get in when she happened to glance
over her shoulder and above the cupboards. (They
are the old fashioned, chunky ones that don't
quite reach the ceiling, with about a 2 foot gap.)
She doesn't know what made her look, but when she
did on this particular occasion, she saw two
small hands reaching out towards her. She stood
for a moment staring at them, but when my pop
entered the room, they withdrew back into the
shadows. My nan is a very rational woman, and
didn't mention it to my pop, but later on checked
the space she had seen the hands - there was
nothing there!
Occurrences like that have happened continually,
ever since they had lived in the house. I only
found out recently that upon purchasing the
house, my pop was confronted with a grave
warning - the house was haunted, and he would do
well to take his family elsewhere. As mentioned
before though, my pop was a gruff, 'no nonsense'
kind of fellow, and dismissed it as far too much
superstition.
But by far the most severe occurrence that I have
heard of, happened to my dad whilst he was in the
bedroom that he and mum would sleep in.
As he
told it, he had just put me to bed in the next
room, (I would have been only 6 or 7 at the time,
so it was probably about 8 or 9 o'clock at night)
and was in the room next to it getting his and my
mums pj's out of the suitcase. After he had done
this, he sat on the end of the bed to take his
shoes off, and from where he was sitting, he
looked up to see a white figure float clear
through the back door and into his bedroom!
Apparently he scrambled up the bed in fear, and
came hard up against the wall. Everything was
fine until the ghost/spirit came to a stop at the
end of the bed where he had just been sitting. He
described an incredible crushing sensation on his
chest - similar to that of sleep paralysis -
except he was fully awake at the time! He tried
to call out to my mum who was in the bathroom,
but couldn't, since the weight on his chest was so
heavy. He was gasping for breath, and getting
really worried, when my mum entered the room. As
soon as she walked through the door, the figure
and the crushing sensation completely
disappeared!
Dad didn't tell mum for about two
years, and never experienced anything else like
it in that bedroom or any other part of the
house. He described the figure at the end of the
bed as a young woman in a late 1800's style of
dress, with ringlets in her hair. Her expression
didn't change the whole time she stood there and
just stared straight at my dad.
I'm currently conducting my own research into
the history of the house, but I can find no
evidence of deaths - Suspicious or otherwise -
occurring in the area.
Apart from these strange
phenomenon's happening to the rest of my family, I
always felt uncomfortable in the middle bedroom,
and as though I was being watched.
As a young
girl, I just thought I was scared of the dark and
that my mind was playing tricks on me...but maybe
it wasn't?.
I would love to hear from anyone who has had a
similar experience to any of those listed above,
or who knows anything about the house in
question.
Thank you for taking the time to read
this.
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