The Drowned Woman/Old Woman

I was 33 years old at the time. It was 3:00am, I was up as usual not able to sleep. My Hamster named "mouse" was restless too, because he was kicking his wood shavings out of his cage, making a mess on the floor below. I watched him from about 5 feet, his cage was located on my dresser. I figured he'd stop but he kept at it until a nice pile of wood shavings had gathered on the floor. So I got up off my bed and went over to the dresser. Then a smell hit my nose, his cage stunk. So I figured that's why he was kicking out the bedding. So I opened his cage picked him up, kissed his furry tiny head and apologized for not cleaning his cage sooner.

I put Mouse on the floor in my room and let him run free. I took the cage off my dresser, laid newspaper down on my floor. Put the cage on top of the newspaper, then proceeded to remove the steel cage from the bottom tray, to change the shavings.

I had my bedroom door open, Mouse wasn't trained but he was well behaved and never took the open door as an opportunity to explore the hallway. Anyway I was kneeling in my open doorway, with my back to the open door. Every now and then Mouse would freeze in place. Hamsters' suffer from paralysis as they get older. I thought that was what it was.

I continued to clean the cage but then I caught sight of Mouse. He was still frozen, standing on his little hind legs and looking towards the door. I thought it was a bit unusual as 5 minutes passed. Then suddenly I got the "hair standing up on the back of your neck feeling" then it got cold, really cold. I was suddenly fearful, and still,while on my knees kneeling, I turned myself around to face my open doorway.

This apparition came floating out of the bathroom, which was to my left outside my bedroom door. The apparition was a white woman, wearing a white nightgown. She had shoulder length black hair, lightly streaked with grey and parted down the middle. She was also soaking wet from head to toe. I was literally terrified in place, unable to move, run or even scream. In horrified silence, I watched as the "drowned woman" continued to float by. I saw her entire body from head to toe, she was wearing no shoes. And seemingly the gown was leaving water drippings on the floor as she passed by. Then a really horrifying thing occurred, the "drowned woman" turned to look directly at me. The face that was sad and somber at first, turned into this angry, evil frown. I could feel the hate from this spirit. She kept looking at me with hate until she passed by my door out of my sight.

Once it was over I was still too stunned and scared to move. The only thing that would move on my body was my right arm. I managed to lift it and grab my door and swung it shut. My Hamster was an after thought, but I prayed "Mouse" was in the room with me. A few moments later he peeked out from beneath the dresser. I scooped him up in my hand, too comfort us both. I sat in my room the rest of the night, with the light on. Still trying to grasp what I saw.

I never saw the "drowned woman" anymore. The next day I told my Mother, my niece and my sister about what happened. Naturally I was not believed. Then it happened again but differently. My Mother had come upstairs to clean, she had cut all the lights downstairs off except for one in the living room. My sister went down stairs to get her bedroom slippers she'd left downstairs by the sofa. Me and Mom were talking upstairs in the hallway as my sister went downstairs. Seconds later my sister screamed a blood curdling scream, unlike we've never heard since. She was so terrified she came up the steps on her hands and knees, scrambling up the steps for her life. Me and my Mom were shocked and befuddled, as my Mom asked my sister "What's wrong with you?" My sister had tears coming down her face, face flushed red and unable to talk. She just cried and babbled unintelligent words. After about ten minutes we got her to calm down enough to speak. My sister told us that, as she went down the stairs to get her slippers. That as she reached the sofa, and was on her knees retrieving them, something made her look towards the dinning room. As she turned to look, there, coming from the dinning room into the living room was a lady in a nightgown. Except she was very very old and had long grey hair down to her waist. My sister said as the spirit was coming towards her, her arms were outstretched. My sister felt as if the spirit was reaching out for her. My sister said she had an angry, evil looking face. Terrified my sister ran up the steps. It took hours to calm her, but once calm she would not stay in the house. She called a friend and spent the night there. The last appearance of the "drowned woman" was 2 days later. My niece 18 at the time had come over to visit with me. We were upstairs in my room chatting, when my niece had to go to the bathroom.

She was in there for only a second when she came flying out of the bathroom screaming. She ran straight down the steps and out the front door. Confused, I ran down the steps after her, to find her outside the door repeating "I saw her, I saw her, I saw her." After I calmed her, I got her back in the house and asked her to tell me what she saw. Composed, she said she went into the bathroom just to wash her hands. She had not turned on the bathroom light, nor shut the door. The hallway light gave enough illumination to see by. She said as she was washing her hands, she looked up into the mirror. There in the mirror was the face of an old woman, with long grey hair staring back at her, with an evil looking grimace upon her face.

It was 1 day after my encounter that my sister experienced the ghost. 2 days after my sisters experience, that my niece saw the ghost.

What puzzled me most was that, I saw her as a middle-aged woman. My sister and my niece saw her as a much older woman.

After the initial 3 sightings the "drowned woman/old woman" never showed herself to anyone else. But for awhile the faucet in the bathroom would turn on by itself. Sometimes I'd be in my room, or maybe coming up the stairs, and I'd hear water running. I'd go to the bathroom to find the hot or cold faucet turned on and running. Only once was the stopper in the sink and I just happened, to go in the bathroom to catch it just before it over flowed. I'm 39 now and other incidents have happened. The most common being "knocking at the door and no one is there" type of activity.

I've lived in this house all my life with my Mom. And I guess it also has something to do with the fact that behind our house is a cemetery, 3 actually. And I've read up on ghost hauntings etc. I've learned they can become particularly active after a rainstorm. And I do know that some hauntings are simply recordings of events past repeating themselves at a certain time. Whatever caused the "drowned woman & old woman" to appear so many years ago. We've never seen them since. Other relatives, after hearing the story, told us that our homes may well be built over cemetery graves. And that we should check the history of the house. But with those cemeteries out back of the house, we've come to accept the fact that we're not the only ones occupying this house. As long as they don't hurt us, we've learned to live with "the other side" being around.