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Our Haunted 1947 Bungalow

 

Our 1947 bungalow in Columbia, Missouri, where we lived 12 years ago, had a lot of ghosts for being such a tiny house. There was the man who paced in heavy boots in the living room, just a few yards away from our bedroom. Occasionally, we would hear him at night, stomping back and forth in the living room on the old wooden floor. However, the living room had wall-to-wall carpeting at the time. There was a little dog ghost that would wander around the house. He was not scary.

I was watching television with my husband in our small living room one evening, and saw a slight movement out of the corner of my eye. I glanced to my right, just in time to see the hazy, white dog trot out of the bedroom in a happy sort of way. He disappeared after taking two steps. My husband looked at me in a knowing way and waited for me to say, "Did you just see that?!" He said he had seen the little dog several times, but hadn't said anything because he did not want to frighten me. We found out a year later that the previous owner had buried his dog outside of our bedroom window.

The noise that scared the living daylights out of me was the banging between our ground floor and the partially finished attic. It sounded like someone had a sledge hammer and was smacking the crap out of the insides of our ceiling. It happened once when my husband was on a business trip and a couple of times during the day when we were both home. We thought it was something in the heat ducts - you know how people always try to rationalize these things! [wink] We later found out the floor was solid, hard-as-a-rock wood with no "ducts" between the floors, and there was no reason for that spooky banging.

All these things pretty much stopped when we brought our two foundling cats indoors. The cats were being abused by our creepy next-door neighbors, and we rescued them. I guess the sweet energies of our two furry buddies helped to get rid of these noises. Whatever "it" was stayed in the background. I still felt like a man was watching me when I was in the bathroom at night with the door open. (Our tiny bathroom faced the living room.)

When we went to move, our house started falling apart: our air conditioner died and we found we had mice or bats in the attic crawl space. Those two incidents happened three days before the realtor was scheduled to show our house. On the day of our move, our washing machine pipes exploded and flooded the little laundry room off of the kitchen and our car's gas pump died unexpectedly, stranding my husband at the hardware store parking lot where he was trying to get a cap for the pipes. Only one friend was home at the time - this was before the days of cell phones - and she rescued my husband. I had to stay at home and keep putting plastic buckets under the pipes and then quickly emptying them into the kitchen sink, so our entire house wouldn't flood and ruin the expensive carpeting we had just bought two weeks earlier.

That evening, which was our last night in the house, I was in the bathroom with the door open. Suddenly, I saw a two- or three-foot long shadow glide by. A HUGE bat came out of no where and was flying all around the house. I was scared to death it would hurt our two cats, so I scooped them up in my arms and ran into the bedroom, shutting them inside. My husband got a flashlight and stood on the front lawn, directing the bat out of the house like an air traffic controller, while I sprinted to the back door and opened it, in case the bat flew into the kitchen. We got it out of the house, but really had no idea where it had come from. Our windows were closed, the air conditioner was on, our ceiling was solid with no air vents, as I indicated. It literally just seemed to materialize out of thin air!

My husband had to rent a car, drive me to our new home in Kentucky, and then drive back to Columbia to pick up our broken car after it was repaired. The night he finally left our old home, my husband went around the house, literally talking to it and saying everything would be okay. He walked all around the place and up into the attic, blessing the house. He seemed to have done the right thing, because our house ended up selling within THREE HOURS after we moved to our current home in Kentucky. I have read Russian folk tales about homes having their own "spirit" and if you anger it, such as by moving, they will put road blocks in your way and cause all kinds of mischief. It would appear that was what we had in this tiny 1947 Missouri bungalow!

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Comments about this paranormal experience

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, Watersprite, has the following expectation about your feedback: I will read the comments and participate in the discussion.

Fergie (40 stories) (1159 posts)
+2
12 years ago (2012-01-06)
So sorry to just pitch in here. I just want to help Trix out with her Afrikaans word "goelery", so she may be better understood. A direct translation would be,'ghoulery', more likely meaning, poltergeist activity! Please forgive me for butting in? Lol 😊 ❤
winx717 (2 stories) (31 posts)
+1
13 years ago (2010-10-19)
My boyfriend lives in Columbia and I am there all the time. I am always trying to guess what places may be haunted there, as I haven't found any stories/ledgends there. Thank you so much for sharing! Great story!:)
Watersprite (3 stories) (85 posts)
 
13 years ago (2010-10-19)
KimSouthO, believe me, the paranormal connection with bats occurred to us, too. That thing was scary looking! We visited friends in Columbia about eight years ago, drove by our old home and were glad to see the people who bought the house were still living there. They had kept all the bulb flowers, nice yew bushes and the place still looked tidy, so I'll bet the house is happy! 😉 (A friend who lives in a town nearby said the family is still there, as of last year.)

Cosmogol926, I have a feeling you're right, that the house was on its "best behavior" and helped with the quick sale! 😆

Thanks again for your feedback, and I hope you all have a great week.

Watersprite ❤
KimSouthO (27 stories) (1960 posts)
+1
13 years ago (2010-10-19)
Okay, the bat would have been enough for me. I am more afraid of bats and spiders than I am of the paranormal. Maybe that is the reason these things are so often associatted with the paranormal.

Do you know if the place is still occupied?

Thanks for sharing!
God Bless!
cosmogal926 (9 stories) (1223 posts)
+1
13 years ago (2010-10-19)
Very interesting and enjoyable story. Lots of activity going on in that little bungalow. It does sound like the spirits were upset that you were moving. I think your husband did the right thing by telling them that everything was going to be ok. Glad they up for all the trouble by helping out with a quick sale. 😊 ❤
Watersprite (3 stories) (85 posts)
+1
13 years ago (2010-10-19)
Thank you all for your kind comments. Potterwatcher1997, I was in my early 40's when this happened. I was glad our two little guys, the cats we rescued, were able to chase off the creepy ghosts. Wish they could have prevented the pipes from bursting! LOL:)) We brought them to our current home in Kentucky, and I am happy to say, we don't have anything scary in this house!

Trix, thanks for sharing the story about the haunted house in South Africa. I guess it was a former gaol? We call it a jail in the USA. No wonder it had such awful things going on! I always enjoy reading your stories.:)

Best wishes,
Watersprite ❤
radish54 (1 stories) (51 posts)
+1
13 years ago (2010-10-19)
Greatly entertaining and well write account. Straight to favorites. Thank you for writing and sharing this, and for saving the kitties.
Trix (14 stories) (407 posts)
+1
13 years ago (2010-10-19)
Hi Watersprite, thanks for sharing your story. I believe you. Houses can get that worse. There was a house here in Brakpan years ago. My father was a traffic cop and he went there but didn't go in because when he arrived a wooden cook roller came out of the chimney and went back in again. The people of the house called the cops because they were scared and needed help. Many priests went there to bless the house but they struggled, because the things attacked them. Things was very bad there the old people called it "goelery" in Afrikaans I don't know what you call it in English. Thanks for sharing this very interesting story. Glad you are happy in your new home. Take care. Trix

😉 ❤
Potterwatcher1997 (13 posts)
 
13 years ago (2010-10-18)
Er...what's with all the "and weeped"s? Anyways, very interesting story. How old were you when this happened?
Miracles51031 (39 stories) (4999 posts) mod
+1
13 years ago (2010-10-18)
Any way we can get rid of yohiggins1227? One "and weeped" would be sufficient. That is completely ridiculous.
BadJuuJuu (guest)
+4
13 years ago (2010-10-18)
Sounds like a very active and interesting house. I had such a vivid mental image of the burst pipes and the one-woman bucket brigade lol. I guess the home really didn't want yall to move away. I'm happy that it sold so quickly. Houses can get lonely too.
Also, much respect for rescuing the cats. ❤

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