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Our Family Home And My Old Workplace

 

I come from a town in the central north island of New Zealand and don't have a scary story as such, just a few things that have happened over the years.

Background first...

When I was around 8 years old we moved into a big old house (apparently the oldest one in our town). My class mates used to joke and call me a witch for living in 'the haunted house'. This house (in which my parents still live in and Dad has renovated beautifully may I add) has a lot of history. It has been moved from its original location and at the previous location it was several different things including a restaurant, doctors surgery and a childcare centre.

From the time these were no longer at the house it became a family house and as far as I know had one owner after it was sold then Dad bought it and rented it out until we moved in a few years later.

There were a lot of stories about our house that I was told but I always shrugged them off as they seemed so farfetched and Dad always told me don't fear the dead, fear the living (this eased my mind and still does when I am scared).

There are 5 bedrooms in the house and all of ours were upstairs. My sister used to very frequently see a white orb type thing in her room and get very uneasy and freaked out. A few of her friends had also seen it and my room quite often used to have a rotting type smell in one of the corners by my bed. This was very sporadic (for instance I would smell it at night time but in the morning it was gone). We had a security alarm that would be set at night before we all went to bed and this went off a few times but when Dad went to check downstairs there would be nothing.

Nothing has ever hurt any of us but there is definitely a certain feeling that comes over me in some of the rooms especially the downstairs bedroom where my partner and I quite often sleep when we go and stay.

That is all that comes to mind for this house at the moment but there is also a restaurant just up the road where I used to work. I did split shifts and when I came back to open up at about 2 in the afternoon I was often alone. Sometimes the kitchen doors would swing by themselves and one time I was writing the specials up on the blackboards in the dining room when I heard distinctive heavy footsteps from the front door right up to the bar. When I went to see if I could help whoever it was, there was no-one there and no-one out the back. That scared the crap out of me and I never liked being in there by myself after that!

Feel free to comment and sorry if I have rambled on! I will answer any questions to the best of my knowledge:)

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The following comments are submitted by users of this site and are not official positions by yourghoststories.com. Please read our guidelines and the previous posts before posting. The author, ilovesodawater, has the following expectation about your feedback: I will read the comments and participate in the discussion.

ilovesodawater (1 stories) (5 posts)
+1
8 years ago (2016-08-21)
Hi Biblio,

That's a good and inexpensive idea thank you! I will see if I can get hold of one, should be able to get it delivered here through amazon. Next time I go and stay there I will ask to stay in that room and pay particular attention to the corner the smell came from.

I will post anything here worth reporting on:-)
Bibliothecarius (9 stories) (1091 posts)
+1
8 years ago (2016-08-08)
Sodawater:
I just had a thought occur to me as I read your comment. It's a rather elaborate one, admittedly, and it may cost you a small amount of money, but you may want to do the experiment to help set your mind at ease, or to determine there is no natural source for the smell.

You may want to consider purchasing a small "blacklight" which illuminates materials in the ultraviolet bands; for some fluids, you'd need to spray luminol first (it's $12 -American- on Amazon; I have no idea if it is available in NZ). Luminol adheres to specific human fluids, such as blood, which don't normally light up under the blacklight, but the property of "chemiluminescence" is part of the reagents' oxidization process, so the two fluids in luminol react with each other briefly, allowing the blacklight user to see any evidence of blood, but the effect only lasts for a short time.

As I said, it was just a thought, and It may yield interesting results. If nothing else, the chitinous exoskeletons of scorpions react to the blacklight anyway, so you may be able to re-purpose the blacklight afterward for pest-control.

Best,
Biblio.
ilovesodawater (1 stories) (5 posts)
+2
8 years ago (2016-08-07)
Hi SDS and Biblio and thanks for taking the time to comment 😊.

The corner of my room where the smell was (maybe still is?) never got any direct sunlight so couldn't be anything to do with that I don't think and there arn't any radiator pipes in the house. I never had any horrible or negative feelings in the house as such but definitely some eerie feelings, however these were usually if I was by myself and it felt like something was behind me but this really could be down to be being a young girl and being a bit of a scaredy- cat back then. I never saw any of the orbs that my sister always said she saw in her room but it was always in her room she saw them not in other rooms in the house.

Next time I go and stay there I will go into my old room and see if that smell still lingers and also pay attention to anything else that goes on. I will keep you posted:)

Bless you both xxx
Bibliothecarius (9 stories) (1091 posts)
+1
8 years ago (2016-08-05)
Greetings, sodawater, and welcome to YGS.

SDS is quite an acute thinker when it comes to examining, debunking, and exploring various experiences, so I'll agree with his suggestion to see if your parents will permit you to investigate a little.

My first question was about the smell. Did it only occur at specific times of the year, such as when the afternoon sunlight may have been focused on that corner of your room for an extended period? Wood, plaster, and fabrics can retain stains and aromas for --in rare cases-- centuries; if the smell only occurs after prolonged exposure to a heat source (sunlight, radiator, etc.), then it **may** have an entirely normal explanation. Heat would cause the retained material to begin to evaporate after prolonged exposure, but the cool of evening & overnight temperatures would stop it from happening. The reason I'm taking the time to explain this step-by-step is just to reassure you, because I've never heard of "a rotting type smell" being associated with a positive or a neutral haunting; they tend toward pipe or cigarette tobacco, roses, lilacs, gardenias, colognes, etc., in other words, familiar or comfortable smells from people who are happy and who continue to behave as they did while they were alive. Rotting smells are much more rare, and are usually associated with unhappiness, oppressive atmospheres, peculiar movements of inanimate objects, and/or the feeling of being watched. I've read of cases when the rotting smells were associated with a sentient haunting by a deceased bad person, a resentful elemental/nature spirit, and suspected "demonic" activity. I do not want to worry you unduly on this point, which is why I'd like you to think through the reasons one particular corner of your room would have a heat source applied for an extended period. If it is where there is a junction for the radiator pipes, or it is getting full-on sunlight during the summer months, but not during the winter, then you may have simply got an odd, but perfectly natural, phenomenon. If there is no simple solution, then I would recommend researching the house's history through town records (tax assessors are fantastic for this!), and I would most certainly avoid trying to do anything dramatic like trying to communicate with it/him/her.

Please, take care; don't stir up anything unnecessarily, as that could have negative consequences for your parents who still need to live in the house.

Best,
Biblio.
sds (14 stories) (1436 posts)
+2
8 years ago (2016-08-05)
Hello ilovesodawater, welcome to YGS and thanks for sharing your experiences. I want to tell you something from my experience. Not all the paranormal experiences are scary and not all sightings are threatening or negative. It just came to my mind when I read the first line of your write-up.

If your parents are still living in the house, why don't you just investigate the matter. The smell you narrated could be, if you have smelt it at night times at frequent intervals, could be residual. May be, since it was quite a old house, oldest from your own words, and after remodelling, might have kindled activities. But you guys never were hurt. And I want to ask, did you have eerie feeling or negative intuitions when you were living in the house about these activities?

Have you seen the Orbs, which your sister and her friends saw? Did any one else in the house saw those Orbs? Was it confined only to her room?

Anyway, if possible, why don't you investigate further in the matter and inform us.

Once again thanks for sharing.

Regards and respects to you.

SDS

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