Tampa Ghost

My Mother has a ghost in her home in Florida, located on a island in the Gulf of Mexico, north of Tampa Bay. She had just moved into it for a short while, when things began to happen.

Every night at 3:33 a.m. something starts throwing things around in the living room, at least that's what it sounds like. She can hear the chairs being moved around and objects being dropped on the floor, but when my mother gets up to check, everything is in its place and nothing has been disturbed.
After several weeks of this, she finally yelled "Knock it off, I am trying to sleep!" and it stopped for about a month and then it only happened sporadically.

The ghost likes to do things during the day, but they aren't quite as dramatic. Sometimes the TV comes on by itself or there are times when she is watching a channel and she wants to change it to something else and she can't change the channel. She will push the buttons but the channel stays the same, whether she uses the remote or gets up and tries to change it on the TV itself. Eventually, she can change it but it takes a few minutes. The ghost seems to have a few favorite stations it gets stuck on.

The ghost also likes to move things around.

My mother has a stained glass piece of art to hang on the window so the sunlight comes through the colors of the piece, but the ghost doesn't seem to like it as it sets this art piece down on the floor almost every day.

My mother had only one real direct contact with the ghost.

She had a friend over for dinner and the dining area looks out over the water and has windows nearly surrounding the entire room. As they were about to say grace, there was suddenly a loud pounding on the windows right in front of them but there was no one there. They got up and investigated but found no one. When they sat down again, the pounding happened for a second time. They were fairly unnerved, but managed to eat dinner without further incidence.

A few months after my mother had moved in and had all these weird things happening, she found out that the foundation of the house was cracked. Apparently the previous owners had tried to cover it up with cement so that the inspectors would not know the foundation was cracked. The whole house had to be torn down and my mother sued (and won) the previous owners for fraud. She re-built a new and beautiful three story home on the same spot and after it was completed, there was no incidents for months. Then the ghost seemed to come back but only to move the art piece occasionally and to fool with the TV again.

There has been no pounding or rampages in the living at 3:33 a.m. anymore. The grandkids are afraid of the 2nd floor bathroom but other than that, the ghost seems pretty calmed down.

My mother likes to think that the ghost was trying to warn her that the house was faulty and that is why it was so active until the secret was revealed. Now maybe the ghost hangs around because it's such a cool house with a great view of the Gulf of Mexico. Who knows?