About Me...
My experiences began when I was still in a crib. At the time, my folks referred to it as “boogie-man dreams”. However, I was horrified to say the least. Short history,
My mom was adopted by a relative in the family when she was younger. She was very close to her 'adopted father'. They moved down from New Jersey after my dad and mom got married and my mother and her father (my grandfather) bought waterfront property in Crystal Beach, Fl. Together they built a big 3 bedroom 2 bath home. I don't remember my grandfather, but I have always been told that he was very fond of me and there are a few black and white pictures of him holding me when I was a baby. I am not certain as to his death, when or where he died. But after he was gone, the so called dreams started...only they were not dreams. Someone would enter my room after dark and start tickling me. Yes this sounds preposterous I know but I certainly wasn't laughing. Instead I was terrified and would start screaming till either mom or dad would enter the room and of course just before they got there the tickler had vanished. This was almost a nightly occurrence, never deviating from night to night. However, one night it did. This time he entered, I could see a dark shape or shadow and he put his hand over my mouth so I couldn't scream and then proceeded with the tickling. Of course twisting and turning and trying to get away I did eventually holler for help. Again, I was told this was just a dream. And I was beginning to believe it.
After I graduated from the crib to a bed, I had a dream, not the boogie-man dream, but another one that woke me up. I wanted to be a big “girl” and not scream for my parents as they were only dreams after all. So I quietly got up, closed my bedroom door and turned on my light and was sitting in bed looking at one of my children's books when I heard the door knob click. I thought I was in trouble now because mom or dad had found out I was up at 3 a.m. So I was racking my brain trying to think of excuses as to why I was awake with the lights on and when I looked up I didn't see my parents, but rather a older man who was bald wearing a gray type work uniform. As he was opening the door he put his finger up to his mouth to indicate that I was to be quite. Well... that went over like a lead balloon and I started screaming again. Dad came in and wanted to know why the lights were on and what I was upset about. I told him I had had a bad dream and had been up for a little while and that there was a man in the house as he opened my door and tried to come in until I screamed. Oh yes, the door that the man opened, he never fully closed it. I was so terrified and convinced that there was someone in the house that shouldn't be that my dad had to walk with me all over the house and show that everything was locked up tight. I then had him check the closets, bathrooms, any place I could think of that this man could be hiding but there was absolutely no sign. These so called boogie-man dreams continued night after night until by age 8, we moved into a rental house in Dunedin, Fl. That was the end of the dreams. I thought it strange but I wasn't about to question it as I lived in horror and hated nighttime when I was younger.
We stayed in the rental one year and then relocated, also in Dunedin to a house that was really quite unique. It was older, built in 1946 and the history on the house was that the owners had passed and had no current relatives. All of their belongings were still in the house! As a kid of 8, I had a heyday snooping around through all the stuff, clothing, papers, books anything and if I found something of interest it became mine. There was a very small basement, which is a little unusual for Florida. The entrance to the basement was located under the stairwell. An adult could get in there but would have to stoop to get around. My parents never allowed me in there but I do recall seeing many bottles and glass objects in there from peering in through the opening.
A little more on the history, the house, a 2 story home, looked strange. It just wasn't built like you would think a 2 story house should look like. Apparently we found out that two couples came over from England and the man did not think much of the American made products to construct a home. Everything in this house was imported from England! And this man and his friend built it. The windows were a little crooked here and there, there were two balconies that was basically unusable as they were not built steady enough to support much. There was a 2 car garage that had an entrance from the alley out back and over the garage was an apartment for the man's friends. At the bottom of the stairs leading from the garage up to the apartment there was a dutch door, half of the door would open or you could open both sections. The stairs were all wood.
When we moved in, due to the previous owners belongings and furnishings still being there, a lot of boxes and items were stored in the apartment.
Upstairs in the main house were 3 bedrooms, 1 a master bedroom with full bath and a half bath out off the hallway opposite where the stairs came up. Next to the bath there was my baby sisters bedroom and mine was adjoining hers. I would usually leave the door open, but being the prankster I was at that age I would tease the baby and she would get all excited and stand up and start laughing and jumping up and down in the crib. This didn't last long as my mother finally figured out that I was the one disrupting the baby's sleep so she closed the door and said it was to remain closed.
My bedroom had 2 windows that faced the back yard and alley and my third window faced the hallway that led to the apartment. It wasn't long that I once again became terrified. At night strange things began to happen once again.
It should be known that my mother was an alcoholic and my father was either always working or away on overnight trips. They were almost always fighting when they were together.
So I am laying in bed trying to go to sleep when I hear the squeak of the dutch door at the bottom of the apartment stairs. I was wondering if mom had gone out to go up to the apartment to look for something. I heard footsteps, more than one set and I could hear male voices. I knew then... it certainly wasn't my mom! They walked by my bedroom window, and I was paralyzed and scared out of my mind. I heard the screen door open to the apartment and the hard wooden door open and close. Then silence. I got up and ran to tell my mother that someone was up there. Her response to me was “get back to bed, you are crazy”. So I timidly returned to my bedroom only to lay there frightened and hoping that whatever or whoever it was would not come back again. I didn't want to see them or hear them. So I didn't get much sleep at night. This became a nightly occurrence. Sometimes there was just one person and on a couple of occasions it appeared that they would have a light with them shining it back and forth. But always the same, up the stairs, into the apartment. Although I had told both my mother and father countless times about this they showed me that the apartment door was locked and we went inside and nothing looked askew. So after this, once again, I was told I was crazy and needed to see a shrink.
Night after night, laying there in pure terror. I began to talk to myself aloud when I would hear the door open and close and the footsteps on the stairs and I would answer myself back in a different tone of voice in hopes that whoever was out there would think there was more than just one of us in the room. Silly I know, but I was desperate and had limited choices here. Of course, my mother one night was standing outside my door and could hear me talking and wanted to know what was going on. I told her I was scared about the people going into the apartment. Again...' get to sleep! There is something mentally wrong with you!” Dad pretty much agreed so needless to say, I was beginning to think that there was something wrong with me. I started having major problems in school due to the fact that I couldn't sleep at night. Although the teachers were concerned and wanted to know what was going on I wasn't about to mention my visitors at night, if my parents thought I was crazy a complete stranger would most likely agree.
But this wasn't all. Finally my mother started hearing things. Scratching and knocking sounds in the walls. Telephone calls where just a strange static was on the line when you answered it. At this point I had not experienced this and really didn't want to. My father blamed my mother's alcohol on her so called hallucinations. But she didn't let up. She continued to complain and tell him and he would just belittle her until she would hush.
One night, I had to get up to go to the bathroom. I went in and as I sat on the commode right alongside me in the wall was a short rap and then sounded like someone scraping their fingernails on the drywall. All I can say is it was a good thing I was sitting on the commode, otherwise I might have had a real mess! I quickly returned to bed and began to wonder if both my mom and I were crazy or was there really something going on?
The next day I told my father that I too had heard the noise coming from the wall. His response? “Oh you've been listening to your mother to much”. Well, that was a dead end. However, mom believed me but didn't seem like she wanted to discuss it. After all, she probably had no idea what it was. A few months down the road we had a termite inspection and of course they located active damage. We had the house tented. I was hoping that it had been mice or rats in the walls and that the scratching would have ceased, but of course it continued.
At the top of the stairs in the main house to the left was my parents master bedroom. All our doors were equipped with metal round door knobs. It wasn't unusual for me to start to open the door only to feel it being turned in the opposite direction of what I was turning it as if someone was trying to come out at the same time I was trying to go in. Each time this happened I didn't stick around but ran like crazy.
One afternoon, the telephone rang and I answered it as I didn't know where my mother was. When I picked it up all I could hear was the loud crispy static that sent goosebumps up and down my spine. This too I also reported to my parents.
None of the activity slowed down at all. We would hear someone at the screen door to the garage (even though the garage door was closed) and upon immediate investigation would find the screen had been cut near the door latch yet no one was found. This was in daytime also. I was certain that this place was haunted in a big way.
With the constant fighting and bickering, dad running around, mom drinking, it is no wonder that it led to a divorce. During the divorce proceedings they were to live separate. So they agreed that my dad could move upstairs into the apartment. Now an interesting thing about this apartment is that everything in it was extremely small. Almost like a child's playhouse. Even the shower was built low and the appliances were low and easily reachable. I later learned that the builder's friends were midgets so therefore they built the apartment to accommodate them. I actually found this fascinating. My dad however, at 6'1 wasn't to comfortable.
But in the evening, my dad would lay in bed and read the Bible. I would go upstairs to visit him for a while each night and then return to go to bed. I still continued to see and hear our nightly visitors using the stairwell and entering the apartment but at this point I was pretty convinced that I was actually not quite right in the head.
After the divorce I went with my father. Nothing else occurred while I was with him. I was relieved to be free of whatever it had been.
Several years later however, I had a very unusual experience. I was married and had to get up at 4:30 every morning to make breakfast and lunch for my husband who had to be at work by 6 a.m. I didn't mind doing this and was pleased to help. We had been married for several years. My mom passed back in 1981 of pancreatic cancer. She was terrified and had always told us that if we knew she was going to die not to tell her. So we didn't. But between my sister and myself and my brother and is wife we kept a constant bedside visual day and night while she was in the hospital. The day that she passed, strange things happened. My sister was staying in the guest room and the light was turned on and no one around. So I turned it off only to find it back on again in a five minutes. So after several times of turning the light off I confronted my sister and told her to please keep the light off if she wasn't going to use the bedroom. She looked at me baffled and said that she thought I had turned it on and she had turned it off herself a couple of times. Meanwhile, at my brothers house the night of my mom's death they also had strange happenings. They thought they saw a dark shadow sort of float over near the ceiling. They had doors opening that were usually kept closed and they continued to close the doors only to find them open later on. The next day I spoke with my sister in law and she told me about these strange events. I also told her about our lights. Now these people are very professional, one a school teacher and the other working in a highly guarded secretive job. Nothing more happened the next night or in the near future actually.
However, one morning, I had gotten my husband off to work and around 8:30 in the morning decided to lie down and watch T.V. In the bedroom. Laying with my head on the pillow suddenly I felt an almost crushing type feeling encompassing my head. I didn't have any problem breathing but just this strange pressure. I silently told myself to relax and just go with it...meaning whatever happens will happen. There is a nightstand alongside the bed with a telephone. The pressure slowly increased and as I opened my eyes I could still see the furniture and stuff in the bedroom but they looked different...sort of like dots that made it up. But what distracted me was the telephone making a strange clicking noise. I reached slowly for the phone and as my hand hovered over it (never picked up the receiver) I could suddenly hear an open line. Instinctively, and I am not sure how, I just knew it was my mother. So I broke the silence by saying “mom?” Nothing. Again I said it. After the third time I hear her voice and she says “Yes I am here” I was elated. However something told me not to show emotion as it might disconnect our connection. All I could think of to ask was are you ok? Seemed like there was a long pause between her answering as if the distance was far away but she assured me she was fine. Again I asked “are you sure” and she replied “yes I am spending time with cousin Lu Lu” Then out of the clear blue and in a very anxious voice she asked me “How is Nancy?” (Nancy was my baby sister) I thought that was strange but replied that she was doing good. I certainly didn't want to go into detail about her in the middle of a divorce and her husband being in jail. Again, in a worried tone mom asks “Are you SURE she is ok?” Again I said yes and that I would check on her. This seemed to make her happy. Then I asked why. That was when suddenly the pressure from my head was lifted, the view of the room returned to normal yet my arm was still extended hovering over the phone. I was so impressed that I immediately grabbed pen and paper and wrote down everything that had happened as I didn't want to forget any of it.
I finally did talk to my father and told him what happened. He being the devout Christian I figured he would tell me I was out of my mind or dreaming but amazingly he stated that one of our relatives of long ago had some physic abilities and perhaps I had picked up some? He felt that I should tell Nancy what had happened. So I did.
I am not certain to this day that she believed me. But it wasn't but a day or two later that her new boyfriend was struck over the head while at work. Although we couldn't prove it, we felt it was her soon to be ex-husband who had just been released from jail. She did assure me that she had taken precautions though and was not staying alone in the house. Perhaps we avoided something that could have been a disaster. I don't know for sure. A little further down the road my sister was hospitalized with appendicitis.
Another time, also morning, I was in the shower and suddenly I felt this extreme pressure coming on again. I guess I had had time to think about the previous experience and decided I really didn't want to have any part of it. So I fought it off. And in a couple of minutes the pressure subsided and was gone. Gone forever in fact.
I also shared this experience with my brother and sister in law and asked them who Lu-Lu was? They both said they had never heard of such a relative or person. Several weeks later, as my sister in law pilfered through box after box of papers, she found my mom's adoption papers and a little further down found a picture of my mom and another woman and on the back was written my mothers name and cousin Lu-Lu. Interesting.
Later on in life, my dad became ill and his wife filed divorce on him. He had no where to go and we had plenty of room so he was invited to stay here with us. Now my dad, he is or was a very independent man. Not wanting to rely on anyone for anything. He purchased a small travel trailer and set it up on our property and insisted on paying a small fee for rent to cover utilities. There was no way that he would accept no for an answer.
We spent a lot of time sitting around talking and reminiscing of times past. In our discussions the house in Dunedin was brought up and I was shocked to hear what he had to say. He finally admitted to me that he too had had experiences that he couldn't explain, particularly while living in the apartment. He would hear the door open and close and someone sit alongside him on the edge of the bed. He would think it was me coming up for a visit as he laid in bed reading his Bible. He said hello and didn't get an answer so he looked away from the Bible and no one was there yet he could see the indention on the bed of someone sitting there. He did say that it did scare him so much that he went back to reading the Bible and praying. The visitor would rise up and leave for the night. This happened more than once. I was amazed and also a little mad. All this time I had been convinced that I was crazy or something was wrong with me when he himself had been experiencing strange happenings.
So that is my story and why I have an extreme, almost uncontrollable urge to investigate and to help anyone that thinks they may have a haunting, ghost or strange happenings in their home. I have learned not to be frightened as I was when I was a child and I hope to make others understand these occurrences. And above all else, parents!!!! Never ever tell your child they are crazy or mental or anything along that line. If they say something or someone is there and this is a constant complaint then there is a good chance that there is something there. Instead get a qualified investigator to come out and investigate. There are plenty of investigators out there that will be more than happy to check out your home just as we are and this of course is free of charge.