House On Erie Road, Willoughby, Ohio

It took me over 40 years to write about this account with a calm, & analytical frame of mind. Initially, every time my husband, & I 'tried' to write about it we'd get rattled & discontinue it. We wanted to send this account to the well-known parapsychologist, Hans Holzer to add to his files, but we never got around to it. I assume if you're reading this that you're a believer. So, here goes!

One of the most powerful experiences happened in my mid to late twenties shortly after my divorce from Bob, my first husband. I met John as a blind date, & amazingly we immediately clicked. He fell for me at first sight. It was a second marriage for both of us & it took us a few months to get adjusted to each other, but we were so very much alike it was spooky. Pardon the pun!

He was living in a house on Erie Road not too far from downtown Willoughby, Ohio. This particular house I was familiar with since I was a kid. The neighborhood kids, & I used to ride our bicycles past that house on Erie Road in the Summer months. Every time I looked at 'that' house I got the crawling scalp. I could just sense something wrong about it. My gaze was usually drawn to the 3rd floor upstairs window that I, later discovered, was an attic. I felt something up there to be looking back at me & letting me know "yes, I'm here. Just keep riding on!". I instinctively knew the house was haunted. Not just because it was a decrepit, run-down dwelling over 100 years old, but because I just 'felt' it.

Many years later I never imagined that I'd actually be living there with my second husband, & his mother, Mary. Mary was divorced from Tom her second husband & needed somewhere to live. John, & his sister, Jean invited her to live with them. John, & Jean are the ones who originally found the house & rented the upstairs portion. It was an old farmhouse that was converted into up,& down apartments.

However, when John, & I got together Jean had married, & moved out. Mary was a wonderful mother-in-law, & on top of that, she was incredibly psychic. John was psychic, & I, likewise, was slightly psychic. Now, you get three psychic individuals in a haunted environment with an electrical power sub-station in a wooded area not even 80 yards behind the house, & you're looking at paranormal disaster. As we were later to find out.

It started out innocuous enough with very little drawing our attention. We'd just shrug those little things off. However, the more we settled into a home-life routine, the more things began to get noticed. Incidents like apports. That is to say, solid objects disappearing into thin air & turning up in the most unlikely places. When you put a coffee pot on a stove, leave the room for a few seconds, go back, the pot is gone, & cannot be found 'anywhere'. A day later said coffee pot turns up in the refrigerator. Gimme' a break! All sorts of items were going missing to be found hours, or days later.

We'd hear our names called with no one there. Being touched with no one nearby. Hearing sounds that cannot be accounted for. Going away for a few hours, & coming home to the kitchen floor having 2 inches of ice-cold water on it. No water was left running, there was no rain, & the roof didn't leak. We began to doubt our sanity until we 'realized' that the house was, in fact, haunted.

Mary being Catholic sprinkled Holy Water around, but it may as well have been chocolate syrup. In fact, things escalated to a fever pitch. Outbreaks of millions of baby spiders swarming all over the ceiling of John, & mine bedroom. Later, there was the outbreak of millions-no exaggeration-of millipedes. Little wireworms crawling all over the inside, & outside of the house. Even spilling out into the front yard.

Super nightmare.

Another time I was alone in the living room seated on the couch with the dog, Bumpy at my feet, reading a book. Suddenly she rose, stared at the ceiling, began a low growling with all the hackles on her back raised, & trembling against my legs. From the far end of the house, directly over the kitchen, I heard up in the attic, heavy footsteps. It sounded like a very large man with work boots on walking from that end to the living room right over my head. I even heard the boots squeal as they did a 180, and marched slowly back over the kitchen area. That was too much. I tore out of the living room, down the hall, through the kitchen, and into the imagined safety of the bathroom with the poor dog hot on my heels. Her, and I just waited in the bathroom for John to come back home.

We burst out of the bathroom, and I excitedly told him what just transpired. He grabbed a bat, and went up the attic stairs. I followed him. Of course there was no human intruder found. I knew that there wouldn't be either.

In the attic directly behind the railing at the top of the stairs was a tremendous cold cubicle. It was about 5 feet wide, & 8 feet deep. In the Summer months the temperature up there rose to almost 120 degrees. Yet in 'that' one area behind the railing it was like a meat-locker. You could stick your arm in & feel the ice-cold & see your breath. We deduced that the 'thing' was concentrated in 'that' area for the most part. However, it still had the ability to make 'us' miserable.

It began to affect our moods in the most negative ways. We'd fight for the most inconsequential things. Leave the house, and then wonder 'why' we fought in the first place. It even drove John to drinking and charging up the steps to the attic to do battle with it. I managed to sober him up, calm him down, and rationalize with him. We made the decision to sell whatever we could to earn extra money in addition to our work paychecks & get out. If something doesn't want you there you 'cannot' reason with it. Just get out.

When we found a nice mobile home in West Park Cleveland we loaded up the car with all our belongings, and 2 dogs and left so fast that we left a vapor trail behind us. We never looked back.

It took us the better part of a year living in the trailer adjusting to relative normalcy, to stop jumping at our own shadows. This is no Amityville Horror. This really happened. No one would live in the house too long after we left, & it was sold to a preacher that turned it into a Church. Eeeesh! I hope the religious influence has made a dramatic difference, but we wouldn't even 'drive' by that place anymore.

To those of you that are skeptics no amount of convincing will sway you. However, to those of you that are dealing with, or have dealt with something like this, I'm sure you more than understand.