When Ghosts Speak - Mary Ann Winkowski [83]
After I pass along what I’ve learned from speaking with a particular earthbound spirit—name and age, manner of death, place of burial—many people go on to find out more about that spirit’s life. In some of these situations, it has turned out that the people did casually know the person who died, or were able to recollect how they might have come into contact.
Nevertheless, in many, many of the houses I visit, living and dead remain strangers to each other. “Well, what’s he doing here?” a puzzled homeowner will ask when I tell her about the ghost of the middle-aged man in her basement who keeps short-circuiting the wiring in her furnace. I can understand her bewilderment completely. How do people end up sharing their homes with ghostly strangers?
I Was Here First
Sometimes people move into houses or apartments that are already inhabited. If a home is empty for only a short while, resident ghosts won’t necessarily leave to seek a new source of energy. Particular earthbound spirits are very attached to a specific place for any number of reasons. As long as they are able to find a source of energy, they may choose to return to an empty home and await the next owner.
If you have recently bought a home and are in the midst of renovations prior to moving in, pay attention to your contractors when they tell you how the work is going. Unexplained delays, unexpected accidents, and an air of tension surrounding the project could be the work of energy-starved ghosts. Renovations can also irritate homebody ghosts, who may become angry at changes being made to what they consider “their” home.
One couple called me after having moved into their dream house. They’d spent months searching for the perfect home and were sure that their eight-year-old twin sons would love it, too. The plan had been for each boy to have his own room, but the pair soon refused to sleep apart. So their parents decided to use the spare room as a temporary playroom while the basement playroom was remodeled. From the beginning, the renovations in the basement were fraught with problems. As soon as the father started the work, everything seemed to go wrong—from misplaced screwdrivers to badly cut lumber and minor injuries. Worse, he felt stifled and extremely irritable whenever he went into the basement. For no apparent reason, the unpleasant feelings seemed to last for hours after he finished his work. Finally, the new playroom was completed, and the boys decided that they wanted their own rooms after all. For about two weeks, everything was perfect. But soon, the twins’ mother started finding the boys asleep in the same bed, and they resisted playing in their beautiful new playroom in the basement.
One day, their mother overheard the boys talking at the bottom of the basement stairs. Their voices sounded frightened and confused.
“I don’t know why she makes us come down here with that guy,” one said.
“She doesn’t know about him, dummy,” the other quipped, then added solemnly, “He scares me.”
“Yeah, it’s really freaky the way he just stands and stares at us.”
“And he breaks my toys!”
Their mother didn’t know what to make of the conversation, but it wasn’t long before she, too, began noticing odd occurrences in the basement. Their newly installed washer and dryer broke repeatedly. Then the bathroom began requiring repairs. She dismissed these incidents and the boys’ comments until the day when the situation took a more serious turn.
The mother was heading down the basement stairs carrying a load of laundry when the two boys came racing up the stairs toward her, clearly terrified. They stopped