Haunted Staircase
Joel Welsh, PA, USA
October 2004
When I was about 13 my family moved into an old house in the countryside. We hadn't even lived there for 6 months before my sister and I started to feel like the place was haunted.
The first event happened during a long rainstorm. The roof leaked, so we were all staying in the living room where no water was coming in. Lightning struck and hit our fuse box. My mom was worried about the house catching fire so she made us all move to one of the rooms closer to the door. After a few hours I had to go upstairs to check on our hamsters. I headed into the hallway that leads to the steps. As a bolt of lightning flashed I noticed what looked like a man's shadow heading for the steps. It was not my own, because the shadow crossed my path instead of following it. This creeped me out, so I hurried upstairs and back down.
Almost a year later I was home by myself. I was upstairs in my room. I thought I heard my mom come in the kitchen (which was right below my room) and start going through the pots and pans. I looked out my window and saw that her car was not there. Whatever was down there was not my mom. So I grabbed a pocket knife off my desk for protection and went to investigate. I found nothing. I was spooked, so I decided to stay downstairs and just watch TV till mom got back.
About 30 minutes later I heard noises in my room. Again they were like someone was searching through my stuff. I grabbed my knife again and went back to my room. When I got there there was no trace of anyone having been there. At this point I had had enough and stayed upstairs until my mom came back. I heard noises in the kitchen again, but did not investigate anymore.
Several years later I started feeling a presence on our staircase. The staircase was split into two sections, with a small landing in between. I hated this landing. It always felt like something was there. My sister also felt it. She refused to even use the stairs unless all the lights were on.
It just happened that my sister was friends with the daughter of a lady that worked at the real estate company that had sold us the house. The lady said that there were reports about the house being haunted. She herself would not go in the house. I never was able to find out anymore details about the haunting or the house's history. To this day I still wonder what was there and why it was there.