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Ghost Stories: Do You Haz?


FundieFarmer

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Nope. No ghosts here. I live out in the sticks, so any noises I hear outside are due to animals and weather. And, I'll just go ahead and say I don't believe in ghosts. Or at least I haven't seen any yet.

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I've had a few strange things happen to me. Lights shutting off while playing on the Ouija board; creepy noises, etc. The most recent one though was kind of funny. I have an 80 pound mutt and he's the biggest baby ever. Well we were home alone and he starts staring at the corner of the room. He's a very observant dog and sensitive to many things. I get up to try to see what he's staring at. He then starts to growl. I'm starting to get concerned at this point. He then runs behinds me to hide and keeps growling! I was freaked out! I called my boyfriend to come home ASAP and got out some sage I had and started burning it. I'm not religious but I tried to remember all the prayers from my Catholic childhood. Haha. I figured it could only help. 

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Good to see that I am not all that alone with my opinion about the non-spookyness of cementaries and don´t have to move this to the Unpopular Opinions thread. :my_biggrin:

 

Cartman99 and Clementine, that´s quite intense! Hypnosis I am a bit afraid of, I heard they could seriously mess with your subconsciousness. Mediums and the like , yes.

 

 

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I don't know if she was a ghost at the time, since she was in a coma, not dead. But, I saw a Dead VIP (not saying who to avoid doxxing, but she was an important leader who died violently), once. See, my best friend's family immigrated from, and remained involved with, their home country. My friend's dad was a huge supporter of VIP and the pro-West/reform movement generally. They knew VIP very well and often spent time with her. Friend's dad got invited to be in the motorcade during one of VIP's appearances.

At the same time VIP was shot, I saw her come into (well, suddenly appear, really) where I was working. Completely solid like you or me, but bleeding and clearly fatally injured. I recognized her from photos at my friend's home, and her signature piece of clothing she always wore. I was alone in the front of the shop at the time, and had just closed and locked up, so even scarier. She stared at me and said, in her language, "[Friend] call Dad," and something about, I can sort of guess, not knowing if he was OK. My language grasp was better than most because I spent a ton of time with Friend's family and learn quickly, but I still couldn't completely understand.

I said, OK, you want her to call him. She nodded, and just disappeared. Not walking, just gone. I later called my friend and told her to call her dad, but I never said what I saw. She's really superstitious and scared of many things, so I don't think she would have listened if she had seen the person.

Also, my grandmother is dying, and a part of me really hopes I will get to see her ghost. We have always been really close, and she's my only biological family to value me for who I am, not what I can accomplish or how I look. I just want to talk with her again.

Have you shared this story before? I feel like I've heard of it before...

It feels just on the tip of my tounge!

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Have you shared this story before? I feel like I've heard of it before...

It feels just on the tip of my tounge!

I think I read it on reddit. 

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Several months ago my real estate agent cousin shared a link to a listing on her FB page for an older house located near Scales Mound, Illinois.  (She's not licensed in Illinois).

Historic Ably House located on 41 acres with 2 Natural Springs. Located less than 15 miles outside of Galena. The home is sold As-Is with a Sound Structure & Seller is offering the Buyer a 1 Year Home Warranty which includes HVAC. The land is mostly wooded. Limestone Bluffs on property are magnificent. The property is in a secluded location. I recommend Buyers Google - Ably House - although usually mentioned in Galena - the home is located in Scales Mound, IL. Buyers need to be provide Pre-approval or Proof of Funds prior to showing. The barn & additional 3 acres can be purchase separately from the neighboring property Owner.

There had been a number of unusual deaths - including murders - at the house and there have been reports of the place being haunted.

http://hubpages.com/holidays/Ably-House-Murders-Myths-and-Truths

I live less than an hour away from there and this was the first I had heard of the place.  If the agent is recommending people go to the Googles for more information on the house I'd say think it through before buying...

The house is still for sale for about $244,900.   

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I love graveyards. They're quiet, and reading the stones is interesting.

Of course, if these people were actually alive, I'd probably find them rather boring. The irony.

That's part of my hobby genealogy)

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That's part of my hobby genealogy)

Mine too.  Always neat to find ancestors or other relatives were buried, and kind of saying to them that yeah they might be gone 50, 100 years, etc but they're still remembered. 

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I have a question for you as an investigator. 

My parents enclosed our garage and turned it into a playroom for me and my brother. We had an old TV out there that we mostly used for playing video games. If you sat in the beanbag chair in front of the TV, and the door to the rest of the house was open, out of your peripheral vision you would see a series of lights moving in one direction at the height of the doorknob. If you turned your head to look at the doorway straight on, you wouldn't ever see anything.

Just for reference, the door to the attic where I heard the noises at night was about a foot in front of this door. The lights were a golden color and the continuous pattern they made was like this: -----------. Have you ever come across anything similar? 

I have never come across anything like that, but I don't think I could offer an explanation for it without being there to have a look.

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My dog and I saw a ghost once at my sister's house.  She lives on her husband's family farm which has been in his family for over 100 years.  They have all had some harmless ghost experiences, stuff like lights turning on or off, footsteps, etc.  Anyway, one day I was at her house visiting my horse who lives on their farm.  It was a weekday, nobody was around.  I was walking along the fence line, heading in the direction of my sister's back yard. My dog was walking directly in front of me. All the sudden he stopped and perked up, like he saw something.  I looked in the direction he was looking in and there was a man leaning on a chair in the yard.  He was dressed in long pants, a plaid long sleeve shirt, and a wide brim hat.  His head was kind of a black or dark grey oval.  I stared and was basically WTF is that for a few seconds then all the sudden the guy vanished and my dog just started walking again like nothing happened.  I gathered my dogs and left.  It was a little bit creepy.  If it had just been me, I would have totally brushed it off as just my imagination or something but the way my dog reacted to it before I did makes me feel like there actually was something there.

And what an odd topic for my first post on FJ.

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As soon as I started talking, I told my mother about where I had lived before I came to her. With a lot of details that were spot on from that country and that era. My mother thought it was scary and tried to talk about other things instead and I eventually stopped talking about it. I have no memory of any of it but has always been drawn to the country where I said I had lived and especially interiors from that era.

Two mediums have told me basically the same story that I told my mother. I haven't looked into it myself, but it would be interesting to try hypnosis and see if something comes up.

 

Same here! i thought I was a weird kid until now. :P 

When I was like 3-5 years old, I told everyone who wanted to hear that I used  to have a twin sister who died before I came to my parents. Apparently, I cried sometimes because I  missed my sister.  At the beginning, my parents thought I had a lot of imagination but I gave more and more details and they freaked out.  At  6, I finally stopped talking about that by myself. If I had to be totally true with you, I sometimes get this feeling that something/someone is missing in my life.

And where I live, we don't really talk about ghosts. But when I was 16,  I slept in my grandma's house. I was in the bed, ready to sleep when I heard this creaking leather chair noise again and again.  No chair was in my bedroom, only a bed and a closet. I knew It used to be an office like 40 years ago but still, I was scared to death! I never slept or went in this room again. 

Edited by LaParisienne
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Fantastic stories!  First, I LOVE cemeteries - wherever we travel, we make a point to visit the local cemetery.  Glasnevin in Dublin is fantastic if you ever have time while there.

When I was around 9 - 12, I had a little psychic talent, I guess.  I could hear telephone conversations (both sides) next door.  I told the neighbors and they thought I was a strange kid, til I quoted an entire conversation for them.... 

Ghosts... well, for 11 years, ex and I lived in a regular ole So Cal tract home, with our neighbors' houses about 35 feet away.... in our bedroom, with the windows closed, I always heard a faint TV or radio.  For years I assumed it was the neighbors', until I really thunk it thru.   Ex and I BOTH saw a greenish fog type thing float from the foot of the bed towards us and then disappear.  Just the one time.

I had a very good friend who was dying of cancer.  I was not aware of his death until 8 hours afterwards.  I was at work, in my office, at the time of his death.  All of a sudden, I was sick.  Like nauseous and trembling.  I thought it was something I ate - til I realized he passed at the same time.  Could just be coincidence.

Last year, in this 100+ year old farmhouse, Mr M and the dog and I were watching TV and we clearly heard something, or someone, walking around in the bedroom above us.   Hardwood floors, no carpet, someone clunking around.  First I thought a mouse, but that would have to be a really big mouse. The killer moment for me was when MarblesTheDog got up, walked over to the stairs and stared upstairs.   Yup, time to investigate.   We found nothing.   Creepy.

In younger years, I swear I astral projected several times.  It used to happen quite frequently and I would end up in other geographic places.  I didn't know what it was for a long time.   It hasn't happened in years, and when it did happen, it was not my choice, it just happened.  Usually at night, trying to get to sleep.   Kinda freaked me out after a while.

"....And I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested!"

 

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How did i miss this thread!  I cannot tell you how much I love ghost stories...I cannot wait to get home and into something ridiculously comfy, grab a beverage, and settle down with this thread.

 

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I'm not sure if these fall into the ghost story category or not...  

The Christmas before my Grandma passed we were up at her house and I happened to glance at her and I had a strong feeling all of a sudden that this was going to be her last Christmas with us.  I later found out from my cousin that Grandma was kind of upset when she found out the date my cousin picked for her wedding - that Grandma knew she wouldn't be around when that date came around.  My feeling turned out to be right, Grandma passed in July of that year.

When my maternal Grandma passed I was out doing some stuff in town.  All of a sudden I felt this really strong need to go straight home.  It was when I got home that I found out Grandma had finally died, and it was right about the same time the urge to go home came upon me.  It wasn't a surprise that she had passed, she had been in bad shape and I knew it was coming pretty soon by the time she did pass.

Then in 2014 I was at work one Monday morning when I all of a sudden had this feeling that something bad had happened.  Then my mom called me, and I had the feeling someone in my family had died.  I was fully expecting my mom to say that it had been my aunt who had cancer, but instead it was my uncle who had seemed to be in pretty good health right up until he went to sleep and never woke up again.  (The aunt in question passed this year).

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Maybe it's me and I am just crazy, but I just moved out of my old house and I hadn't felt better for a while now. Maybe it's just the stress of the move that has gone out, but I don't have the sensation that someone is watching me anymore. Hope it lasts

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I'm not sure if this counts as a ghost story, but it totally freaked me out.  When I was 13, I found my mom's old Oujia Board.  I had never used one before.  I had gone to Catholic school until I was 12, and when I had suggested to my friends there that we buy one and play around with it, my friends were horrified and told me that if we did that we would be "inviting the Devil into our lives." I was really surprised by their reactions, and disappointed. Up until then I guess I thought we weren't taking the whole devil/hell thing seriously? :pb_confused:

Anyway, I had switched to public school right after that and became best friends with a girl who's family had emigrated to NYC from another country.  She was born here, but most of her family was still back home.  She said her grandmother was psychic, and people would come from several hours away to get her advice, or try to talk to their deceased relatives. She said that one time her grandmother had been doing the Ouija board with a shot glass, and the glass had flown out from under her hand and smashed into the wall.  She said her grandmother had told her that she had some psychic abilities, too.  I thought she was joking or bullshitting me. She didn't seem to believe her grandmother and laughed it off.

So one day in July we are in my bedroom with the Ouija board.  It's 100 degrees and humid as anything outside, and I have the window air conditioner on.  I have a thermometer on the wall.  The ac has been running on high for about 48 hours, and it won't get any cooler than about 75/76 degrees in the room because of the high temps and crappy insulation (even with my old desktop computer turned off).  We start playing around with the Ouija board, asking questions. The indicator thingy starts moving.  I assume my friend is moving it. Apparently, we're talking to the spirit of a woman named Angela, who had an abusive husband and committed suicide in my house in the late 1800's.  I'm not taking this seriously at all. But as it continues on I'm starting to feel cold, and my friend has gone very still and is staring off into space somewhere behind me.  

I ask her what she's staring at, and she says quietly, dreamily, "It's her, see?"  I whip around, and don't see anything.  She says, "Her hand is on your shoulder."  I laugh, and I see my breath come out in a puff of white, like it does when you're outside in the winter. The room is freezing, we're both shivering and then I hear a loud bang. I freak out, yell that I'm done with this, grab the indicator thingy from her, get up, turn off the air conditioner. I see that the thermometer says 44 degrees.  I shake my friend, who's still staring dreamily into space.  She snaps out of it, and asks me what's going on, and asks why it's so damn cold in here?  We're both yelling now.  She sees her breath, and my breath, and looks confused.  A minute later my mom, hearing the commotion, opens the door, says "It's absolutely freezing in here," and chews me out for wasting electricity ("Like the heat wave isn't bad enough, who do you think I am, Con-Edison?" :roll: That was our electric company). Then she realizes the air conditioner is off, and asks "What's going on here, exactly, how can it be this cold?"

I'm a very skeptical, logical person.  I don't know what happened, honestly, but it freaked me out, and I never touched a Ouija board again.  My friend swore she didn't remember anything about "Angela."  She did remember the coldness and seeing our breath. If she wanted to play a trick on me, fine, I don't mind a good scare, but I don't know how she could have faked those things.  :shrug:

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A friend got totally freaked out by a Ouija board as well. Said she was with a group of people and the white thingy started moving around on the board all by itself, with nobody's hands on it.  I never touch those things.

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I love these threads. Sorry I am so late to the game. I don't believe in ghosts, but there are occurrences in my life “that make me go hmmmm”. I'll post them each separately so I don't create a wall of text.

 

#1. My freshman year at college, a small, very old, woman's college, originally started to provide bright, impeccably educated wives for the men at the Ivy League University nearby. Anyway the main dorm was four stories high with a cellar below. Originally the fourth floor (the attic really) had been the infirmary. Also as with any very old buildings there had been tragic fires in this building, the most devastating being one that destroyed the fourth floor when there were a large number of patients there due to some outbreak. Students (present) whose rooms were on the fourth floor often woke in the night (when they were ill) to a woman in old nursing garb standing over them. I never experienced that.

What I did experience involved the infamous “red door room” which was/had been somewhere on the fourth floor. I cannot remember why it was painted red, but at some point it was supposedly repainted a standard brown so as not to scare the students about what that particular room was associated with. One Saturday evening 4 or 5 of us (3 freshman, 2 upper classmen) who did not head down to our companion university decided to go on a hunt for this mysterious “red door room”. None of us had been drinking or smoking. Up to the fourth floor we went to look in all the nooks and crannies that a large attic floor tends to have. We were checking dorm room doors for signs of red paint under layers of brown and came to a door without a student assigned to it. It was locked, but one of us looked up and noticed that the wall did not go to the ceiling. Of course being hyped up girls with nothing better to do we decided to see what was on the other side. I think I was hoisted up and looked over the wall to see a bunch of fold up chairs in the space behind it. Just as I was about to drop back down I noticed a door behind the chairs AND THAT SUCKER WAS RED!

I just about shit myself and everyone else was screaming so we decided I would drop down into the space and open the door for the others. We got back to the red door and it was unlocked. I remember us becoming silent and we pushed open the door to find la short under the eaves hallway and a room beyond it. The hall was lined with shelves. Those shelves contained various medical implements which would have been top of the line in the 1800s. There was also a gurney from that time period. It was absolutely insane. We didn't dare pick much up really but we did touch plenty of items and they were solid. We even found another small door off to the right in the room and behind that door was like a storage space (kneewall) and a window looking out onto campus (north). We must have spent fifteen minutes in that room just looking at everything and whispering about why it had just been left there. We couldn't believe these items weren't in a museum somewhere. They were in dusty, but pristine condition. As we left we debated whether to lock the outer door in the partial wall or leave it unlocked for easier access when we brought the RA's up there the next morning. We finally decided that for safety's sake (Saturday night drunk students) we would lock it. It would be easy enough to climb over the wall again.

We went back to our floor (second floor) and I remember us all being so quiet, so serious, so awestruck at what we had discovered. We had found the “Red Door Room” that students had been looking for for decades. Me, a lowly Freshman, had helped find the door! We all went to bed not long after that. Somehow we were exhausted.

Next day, we head back up to display our find. There is the partial wall. Heave self over the wall and let everyone in. Turn around. NO. RED. DOOR. It's a plain brown door like all the others. It's also completely empty except for lots of dust and cobwebs. Not a single sign that anything had ever been stored in that room, much less 100 year old medical gear.

The women I still have contact with and I to this day swear we saw the red door and all the equipment. Everyone else thinks we are really bad pranksters.

 

I guess I wrote a wall of text anyway.

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I love graveyards. They're quiet, and reading the stones is interesting.

 

Of course, if these people were actually alive, I'd probably find them rather boring. The irony.

Same here.  I've visited a few local cemeteries, and it's fascinating to read the inscriptions, and to compare the simple stones to the big fancy expensive ones, and the various items people leave.

 

No ghosts though, nor do I know anyone IRL with ghost stories.  I do have a grandfather clock which used to belong to my grandfather but hasn't really worked right since his passing.  But I'm a firm believer in the adage "correlation does not imply causation".  (Though it can tell you where to look.)

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The thing I get a kick out of most on this thread are all the usual freejinger cynics indulging the more open minded and believing side of themselves

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  • 1 month later...

Wow I am super late to this party but I have many stories that I could share. I have had paranormal experiences since I was a teenager possibly younger but I did not recognize it at the time. Fast forward 20+ years. Due to my earlier experiences, I became a paranormal investigator.  Most times, things can be debunked as background noise, natural creaks and pops of a home, etc.  But then there are the things you cannot explain.

 I belong to a women's group and we own the oldest standing home in our county.  It is, without a doubt, the most haunted location in the county as well.  It was built circa 1845 and was the site of an infamous (for our area at least) shooting/murder during the Civil War.  It is also on the National Historic Registry.  Anyway, we have restored the  home (actually it's an ongoing process) and it's basically a museum. (It's a lovely old home and I love it so much, I got married there in November)  

I have investigated the place numerous times and have heard and seen things I have no logical explanation for.  Matter of fact, we open it to ghost hunters for a fee as away to raise money for the upkeep and restoration.  I have seen shadow people, heard disembodied voices, been touched, and even scratched on two occasions.  

I have tons of stories from this home but I will share two creepy ones now.

Once I was there in the late afternoon with two female friends. I went to the bathroom and heard a man talking. There was a pause, then he spoke again.  I went out into the kitchen and said where is (blank)?  (He is the son of one of the women there and I knew he was coming there later). They both looked at my crazy and said he is not here. I said well I just heard a man talking in the bathroom!! So now, I refuse to look in the mirror when I use the bathroom for fear there will be a man in there with me!  Lol

The scariest thing that occurred there happened to me and another guy on our paranormal team.  I witnessed and have video proof of him getting pulled out of his chair while I was in the room with him during an investigation.  On this same video, you can see four large orbs fly down into my head.  It was one of the most terrifying experiences I have ever had there.  

I have other stories from years past as well. Two places I worked at were haunted. I saw shadow people in both places as well as things being moved around. My best friend since childhood still lives in her family home and we have both heard things there when we were teens.  She still has things happen to this day.  I think it's her deceased parents, and years ago, i think it was her brother who was killed when we were teens. 

ok I will hush for now. Just wanted to add my stories to this thread.

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I don't know that the experiences I've had would necessarily be classified as "paranormal", but I often will be able to know what people are thinking before they voice their thoughts, its most common with my husband and mom, but I do it with people at work often enough. My husband jokes about me being in his head, but has admitted once or twice that he finds it fairly creepy, especially when we first started dating

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Where do I begin?

When I was 8, my grandfather died. WE knew he was sick, but only my parents knew he was in the hospital. Late one night, I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Now, that in itself wasn't unusual, they were wooden stairs in an old house, uncarpeted, and we always heard people going up and down. But these footsteps didn't sound like any familiar footsteps, KWIM? Then my bedroom door opened. Next should have been my mother walking to the window to open the blinds, so that the morning sun would wake my sister and me up. Didn't happen. Scared me. Then the exit door (i had two) to my room unlatched, opened and closed. I had the covers up over my head. Next thing I know the phone is ringing to tell my father that his father had died.  Pap visited his oldest, my dad, and his youngest my uncle, that night before he departed the earth.

I was working as a night nurse in the hospital where I'd gone to nursing school. I saw two different spectres, nurses, gliding down the halls, as I made my rounds, on two different floors. (It was a VERY old building.) One I knew was a ghost because  her clothing was so old fashioned, like the nurse uniforms of the 1800s. The other? I only saw her top half. 

Interestingly, I never saw ghosties in the morgue of that place. The diener left a radio on all hours when he was gone. The radio was turned low to an opera station, and the noises always scared people new to the delivery of dead people to the morgue. One time I assisted with an eye enucleation at 0300 and even the guy from the Lion's Club was freaking out until I told him about the radio.

My FIL died when Mr. Four was a teen, and I never met him. When my MIL died, we cleaned out the house for sale, and I wanted something to remember each by. I chose a scrapbook that MIL had made in high school, and a cookbook. I chose a chair and a toolbox that FIL had made by hand. After that, I had the strangest suspicion that FIL was hanging around in the closet/bathroom, which is where I'd put the chair.

My sister's ex had bought an antique frame complete with photo of old lady, whom they named Sophie. Sophie didn't like me or my sister. When I'd visit, I'd sleep in the basement. One night I was upstairs, had gone to the bathroom, and was getting a drink at her kitchen sink when I was shoved toward the sink. There was nobody corporeal in the lower two levels with me. I had to tell her, Look, lady, I mean you no harm or disrespect. I did go back to sleep that night, on the living room couch, LOL! My sister had to send Sophie to her ex's house because things kept falling off the walls, lights went on and off, etc.

I'm sure I could think of some more, but that's enough..

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Here is Hmmmm #2:  The Trailer From Hell

 

My spouse and I decided to build our home on some of my family's land, but since we had the finances of any other young couple with a baby on the way we did what a lot of us up here did. We bought an old crap 9X47 ft. mobile home complete with olive green gas stove and refrigerator and robins egg blue bathroom, put it on the property and lived in that while we saved a bit and built a bit. All told I lived in the Trailer From Hell for almost 3 years. By the time we moved into our home (15 feet from the TFH) we had two kids, two German Shepherds, and a 14 year old truant brother-in-law. While this was a sort of waking nightmare it merely set the stage for our my troubles.

 

The trailer was truly from Hell. The master bedroom, 9 X 10 without closet, was at one end of the trailer. In addition to the two of us it also housed the X-trol tank and the washing machine. The bathroom was out the door and to the left. It was what we called a shit/shower/shave bathroom , because all actions could be done without moving. The toilet doubled as a trampoline as the plywood slowly shit the bed so to speak and then became a throne with a view (of the ground) until my husband replaced the plywood. Leaving the bathroom and continuing on the “front” door and furnace were to the right. Another two steps and the kitchen was on the left in the shape of a C. Stove, corner, sink, corner, fridge. Table was in the walkway. Another step and one was in the living room and finally the nursery, all 8 X 9 feet of it (it did have a closet). As it was the front of the trailer it had the bay windows with a shelf. None of the windows cranked completely shut. The living room and kitchen were the most extreme and looked lovely in their year round white trash winter plastic film. The walls were about an inch thick, but surprisingly that didn't stop the mice from running around in them at night. It was good to be young, optimistic, and adventurous.

 

All was well aside from the occasional oil tank tip over or the axe through the door one winter when the frost heaved the trailer up and wedged the door shut while the one year old was on the inside and I was on the outside (but that is a story for another day). The problems began in the kitchen.

 

My husband left for work by 6 every morning. He would get up, baby would wake up, baby would be brought to our room, dogs would join us, husband would head out. One morning husband came back to the bedroom to say that he was tired of putting the paper towels away and would I please stop leaving them on the stove. If somehow the pilot light got to the paper towel the trailer would burn down in about 15 minutes. I responded that I did not leave the paper towels out. He said yes I did and that he had been putting them away frequently for a month or so without saying anything, but it was dangerous. I adamantly denied doing it. Repeat the conversation a few times, husband left, I stewed.

 

Over the next few weeks I made absolutely sure those towels were put away every evening. If someone was leaving the towels out it sure as hell wasn't going to get blamed on me. Well the Cheerios box started getting left out. Sometimes nothing was left out, but the burner would be turned on with no flame. I guess those sucky windows were good for something. More early morning arguments ensued.

 

This property had been completely untouched for the last hundred or more years so obviously when we moved there we had no lawn or anything else. I spent many hours working at the clay we called soil to get grass (anything green without prickles) growing for the baby and the dogs. Sometimes when I got home from class the sprinkler was on, often times watering both my grass and the laundry. This might not have been a big deal in a neighborhood, but our driveway was ¼ mile long and our nearest neighbor was almost half a mile as the crow flew. Until one reached the house the driveway looked like an old logging road. Sometimes I came home and found the dogs had been fed. Their dishes were in front of the trailer in the summer and the bag was in the trailer itself. Whoever filled the dishes was VERY generous. Annoying, but not life threatening.

 

Ultimately I could have ignored the water and the dog food, but the items on the stove and the burners turned on with just the gas going were truly frightening. I already had two smoke detectors and a carbon monoxide detector in a 47 foot trailer. I had already planned the escape route for myself, the baby and the dogs and went over it every night before sleeping. I had even accepted the fact that my husband would burn up, because he slept like the dead and babies first. I was refusing to use the stove, wanting to unhook it, husband was just getting belligerent (active alcoholic at the time).

 

One afternoon when I was home with the baby and the dogs I found the burner on. I stopped, turned the burner off, and stood in my shithole kitchen. Then I said, “Look, I don't know what is going on here. I am probably a crazy person. But... I don't mind if you are here, but if you are going to stay you have to STOP doing these dangerous things. Turning the burner on without being lit can kill the baby. Putting the paper towels on the burners can set the trailer on fire. The dogs don't need to be fed, but that isn't dangerous. If you will not stop doing dangerous things you cannot stay. You don't have to leave, but you DO have to keep us safe.” I was very glad no one else was home and that the baby wasn't speaking full sentences. I felt like an idiot.

 

Since that day the stove antics stopped. Never another cereal box or paper towel roll left on the burner. No more feeding of dogs. Interesting.

 

One day as often happened in the woods in bad weather the power went out in the TFH. I had been lying on the couch watching some TV while the baby slept. I had been spread out on the whole damn couch. Not even room for a dog. Late afternoon and no power meant grab a flashlight. Hmmm. Not in the junk drawer, not on the table. Nowhere could I find a fucking flashlight. I looked under things, behind things, in closets, pockets. No flashlight. I was frustrated since I bought them on a regular basis. I finally gave up and went to flop back on to the couch so I could work up a fantastic rage to be unleashed upon my husband when he got home. I stopped in front of the couch, because there, in the middle of the cushion, not in between cushions, but in the middle of A cushion was a flashlight. Standing straight up. A six or seven inch flashlight standing at attention where until the power went out my stomach had been covering. I picked the flashlight up, turned it on, and said “Thank you so much”. And so it continued.

 

*Whatever this was, real, figment of my imagination, Dobby the house elf, I didn't particularly care. The dangerous stuff stopped and flashlights and other needed items started appearing.

My baby is 25 now and we have been in the home for 23 years. I still,on occasion, find the need to say thank you for something. Just in case.

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