Haunted Bedrooms

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.