House Sitting in Ponsonby

I was asked by a good friend to house sit for her for two nights in late December 2004. She lives in an old villa in Ponsonby, Auckland. Apparently it used to be a shop and post office during colonial days.

The first night I couldn't stay due to other commitments, but I called in during the day and fed the cat, checked the house and so on. The house felt still, and a little cold, not entirely as I remembered it in the past. My friend has been going through some fairly hefty emotional issues with her live-in partner so I just put it down to "bad vibes".

The second night I actually stayed the night at the house. My boyfriend Pete stayed with me to keep me company. We watched TV, had a couple of drinks, and ordered a pizza. We ended up having a small argument over nothing. After a while we decided to go to bed.

I was out like a light (the vodka helped I think), but Pete was restless. At around 2:15am he woke me and asked "do you mind if we leave?" I asked why. He told me the following:

He said he woke and couldn't move. Something was playing with his toes (and no, the cat was not in the room). Then something sat on his legs. He still could not move an inch. After a while, and a fair amount of psychological struggle, the heaviness diminished. He then said he heard someone whispering near his ear - incredibly, he thought that the voice said "murderer". I've always had an interest in the paranormal, but have stayed on the fence in terms of rigid belief. Pete, on the other hand, has had a fairly spiritualist upbringing. After hearing the whispering he decided to wake me up (something that took an uncharacteristically long time to do...) and leave.

I personally didn't feel anything except a distinct coldness in the room. We packed in a hurry, but Pete couldn't find his watch. I yelled "where's his watch?!" - the air suddenly became thicker and I was suddenly eager to leave myself! Standing outside next to the car we then discovered that the car remote wouldn't unlock the car (it had been working perfectly all day)! After five tense minutes of standing under the moon, listening to the low rustle of the night breeze I said "oh, this is just ridiculous" and suddenly the car unlocked. We were out of there fast!

I don't know what it was: Pete believes it could be a spirit that was in the house already, or one that was drawn to the house by my friend's troubles. My friend has since said that the cat sometimes looks at a particular door for hours, for no reason. And sometimes she hears footsteps in the kitchen when no-one else is home. These things have never bothered her though.

We agreed that the night had been a bit fraught with bad vibes: the pizza we had ordered was cold, we had an argument (that started in the spare room), and the house was oddly quiet and cool. And then the incident in the bedroom as we slept... I am now leaning more towards belief in the paranormal...