The Scratcher
UK
July 2004
Hello, the experience I am about to tell you about is something that happened at my last house.
Since these events occured we have moved away to another house in a new town. It was about 6 months ago now and when I found this site I decided to share my story with everyone.
I always had a feeling in my old house, there was something not right from the moment we moved in. We were only there three months when the 'Happenings' began. It began at the beginning of April (we moved in just after Christmas).
My wife and I were sitting in the living room at the time with the TV turned down low, it was my wife who first noticed the strange sound. She tapped me on the shoulder and whispered "can you hear that sound?". I wondered what she was on about, I turned the TV off and listened. I immediately heard what she was talking about. I could hear a strange, loud scratching sound that sounded like it was coming from the walls. My wife was terrified, I thought it must be rats under the floorboards or something like that. Anyway the scratching subsided and we went off to bed, thinking we'd call the pest control in the morning. In the middle of the night I was awoken by a smash, my great nan's antique vase had smashed to the floor from the display cabinet in our bedroom (my wife was also awake at this point). I thought it must have just fallen out, but then I thought how could have it fallen out when the door of the cabinet is on a catch.
I got out of bed and when to examine the smashed vase and then I noticed five scratch marks as if someone had run their hand over the top of the wood and had scratched it. This really scared me as I had heard the constant scratching earlier.
The thing that scared me most was the fact that there could be no real explanation for these marks. My wife wanted to leave the bedroom and go downstairs, she was scared stiff. I took her down and she had a drink of milk from the fridge, we were about to head back up (it was 1:00am) and we heard a loud blood curdling scream that sounded like it was coming from the bedroom. My wife screamed, I just froze, I felt cold and tingly all over. This scream was followed by more scratching, again sounding like it was coming from the walls.
My wife wanted to leave the house but I said it wasn't worth it, it wasn't long till morning, we should just stay up till morning.
Eventually my wife and I fell asleep on the sofa. When we woke up we where totally shocked, there were scratch marks all over the walls, the wallpaper had ripped off in places. This was the last straw, no way were we going to stay in a house like this. We moved out that day to stay at my mother in laws house and put our house up for sale. The wierd thing was when we viewed the report by the housing agents when they went in to prepare the house for the new owners. On the report it said that the house was in lovely condition and that the decor was lovely, but it was scratched and coming off the walls!
Although we never saw 'The Scratcher' as we called it, we still think that house was haunted.
Thank you for reading my story.