Footsteps And Perfume

This is my last experience, at least all that I can think of at the moment. If anymore come to mind I will share them. Hopefully I won't have any more happenings. In my last post, I shared the dream that my Dad had a few weeks before he passed away. I now want to share the experiences that my family and I have had in my house.

After my Dad passed away, my Mom remarried a couple of years later and we moved. We moved two hours away from a big city to a really small town. The house we moved to was a lot older than the one I moved from, it was built around 1920. I still live in this house today. My first experiences in this house that I can remember was about a pitcher. My Mom collects pitchers. You know, like the antique porcelain water pitchers. One day in the summer, I was about 10 or 11, we were watching TV. When all of a sudden one of them flew off the corner shelf and shattered. She was irritated, picked up the pieces and told someone, not me, that she didn't appreciate the mischief and now she was going to have to glue it back together. (Which she did, and still has this pitcher). That particular summer I remember how a trash bag would turn over on its own all the time. No one would be in the kitchen. Again, my Mom would be irritated and have to go into the kitchen and pick up the overturned bag and any trash that fell out. (I don't remember why we didn't have a trash bin at the time, but we didn't). I asked my Mom why was this happening and who was doing it and she said it was the "mischief-not-me- ghost". I don't know if any of you remember a cartoon that came out in the Sunday funnies, I think it may have been Family Circus, but it was about the mom asking the kids who did whatever mess had been made and all the kids would say "not me" and a little ghost was standing behind the kids with the words "not me" written on his front. It was really cute; you would have to see it I guess. Anyway, that is when I aware of the strange things that would happen. Not really strange, more annoying than anything.

Things always got placed in places where they were not placed to begin with. (Now the sock monster was a whole different story, he lived in the washing machine and always ate one sock of a pair... But we all have that little pest...right?) As I grew older I was used to the strange things that got turned over, broken and misplaced. I didn't pay much attention to it. My younger brothers were born, brought home from the hospital and grew up in this house too. Along came nieces and nephews who spent nights on a regular basis and they too learned to just tell this little mischief to behave. But my sister in law was not to be pacified that easy. While cleaning up after a family get together, we were in the kitchen doing the dishes and putting them away. She had put some cups and glasses away in the cabinet earlier and when she started to put the plates in the cabinet she screamed when she opened the door. We didn't know what in the world was wrong with her. She said she put all the cups and glasses in the cabinet right side up and now they were all upside down. My Mom told her maybe she just thought she had put them in that way. My sister in law was adamant that no, she always put them in right side up. My Mom just laughed and told her that the ghost just didn't like them that way because it knew they belonged upside down. Of course my sister in law was bewildered, so my Mom just made light of it and explained about the "not me" ghost. She, of course, didn't believe it, so we continued on with the cleaning. All of a sudden the cabinet door flew off its hinges and flew across the room. She screamed, threw down her towel and ran outside. Even we had never experienced this before. But, again, we really paid no mind to it.

When I was a teenager, you could be sitting downstairs in the living room and hear footsteps overhead in the bedroom. It sounds as if someone walks up the stairs, across the room and then turns and goes back. This happened to be my bedroom. Again, since it happened so much I didn't pay attention. Then a strange thing happened. I was in my room, jamming to some music when I suddenly smelled the strongest, sweetest perfume smell. I at first thought a bottle had fallen off my dresser but when I checked, nothing was spilled, nothing was out of place. I didn't feel scared, but I did have a strange feeling, I felt curious and surprised. As soon as it was there, it went just as quickly away. But it was something that I have never been able to forget.

When I became an adult, I moved out of the house, got married and was raising my daughter. When my daughter was about seven, I bought the house from my Mom and stepdad. By this time I was divorced and it was just me and my daughter. As she grew, she experienced the turning over thing, and misplaced stuff. I told her about the little mischievous ghost and left it at that. I didn't want to say anything about the footsteps and perfume because this was now HER bedroom and I didn't want to frighten her. When she was about sixteen. I was washing dishes one day and she came into the kitchen telling me the strangest thing had just happened to her. She recounted the perfume incident almost word for word that I had told my own Mom when I was about her age. I still didn't tell her that it had happened to me.

I told my Mom about it and she agreed not to tell her either. I did tell her eventually but it didn't scare her. She's like me; she just found it to be really odd.

My current husband lives here with me now along with his son. At first, he was really freaked out about the footsteps and other odd things, but I finally convinced him that it won't harm him. It just likes to play and get into mischief. The perfume thing, well I have no idea what to make of that. My stepson casually mentioned a perfume smell to me about six months ago. He knows nothing of this, my daughter or myself hasn't mentioned it because he stays upstairs now and we didn't want to freak him out.

So, that's it. Nothing else. If I think of more, I will write.