Stephen Oh, 18

Korean American

La Canada, CA

11/8/2011

            One of my good friends at the University of Southern California swears to me that his old house was haunted. So one night, I sat my friend Stephen Oh, who appeared to be calm at first, and he began to tell me about his haunted house:

“So before I moved to La Canada, I lived in Glendale, California until I was about four years old. And, so like, the reason why I moved was because La Canada is ranked number three in California among other public high schools. However, I was too young to understand why we moved. As I was growing older, my parents and my sisters would talk about our old house and my sisters, who are six and seven years older than me, so that means around the time I lived in my Glendale house they were pretty much in junior high, and talking to them, especially my older sister Stacy, she said some weird things happened in the house. For instance, we had a pool, and there was just one spot in the pool that everyone seems to drown, it was really weird because it really wasn’t that deep, it was about four or five feet deep, and my sisters really good swimmers, but they told me everyone would drown at that exact same spot in the pool. They had friends and family come over and swim, and every single person would start drowning in that exact spot, so my dad had to come in and save the people every single time. So I guess my dad found it weird, so he did some research and tried to find and faults with swimming pool under previous owners, but interestingly enough, he found out that the previous owner’s daughter had drowned in the pool and died. And so, um, basically my dad put a pool cover over the pool, and we never swam again. And my older sister, Stacy, also ran into some weird experiences also. And this didn’t come out until after we moved, when she finally decided to tell our family about the experience. So around second grade, after school she would go to an after study program, so she wouldn’t come back until about seven o clock in the evening. And when she went upstairs to her room, she would always see this figure sitting in her desk, a man in his mid forties just silently sitting there, and she told me when she first saw she freaked out and she would turn on the lights, and as soon as the lights would turn on the figure would disappear. So, at first she told us she thought she was just seeing things. But, she said that it happened every single day for the next two days, everyday coming back from after study. Right after she opened her door to her room, she would see this man, silent, not moving, very serious face, and then she would flick on the lights and he would disappear every single time. What was interesting though, uh she can’t find the words to describe this man, as in like my parents would ask her what color suit he was wearing, describe his facial features, and she literally would choke up and couldn’t find the words to describe him, which was really weird. And when she finally told us about this, she said it was so normal towards the end of the two years that everyday she would expect to see the man and as a second and third grader she kind of pictured him as her imaginary friend or acquaintance. But she did say often times at night, she would get that weird feeling that someone was looking at her. And also, we had a television downstairs and a radio, and my dad would told me also that once a week at 2:30 in the morning that the television would turn on by itself, and so would the radio. And no matter what channel it was on, it would always turn onto the black and white fuzz. So my dad told me that he would go downstairs when it happened and unplug both the television and the radio. Once though when he went downstairs in the morning, both the television and the radio were plugged back in. Secondly, my uncle also lived with us in the hose at the time and we had a shack out back by the swimming pool. My uncle was pretty young back then so then he would come back late night, like you know drunk or whatever. And he said sometimes when he came back, our guard dog would stop whimpering for apparently no reason, which struck us odd because our guard dog would never shut up. And he said, after he eventually moved out, was because one night he was sleeping and he randomly woke up in the middle of the night, and he woke up in scissor lock, where he couldn’t move his body, but he could see. And then he said, it got really cold, and then something started choking, vigorously chocking him, like he couldn’t breathe at all. And he would hear these sounds, illegible sounds of a girl’s voice, but he couldn’t understand what she was saying. And then it stopped all of the sudden, so that night they called the preacher, like a minister. And he came, put up a cross and said prayers and spread holy water and left. And the uncle moved out of there, as soon as the next day. So eventually when I was about four years old, we moved out. But when I was 13, my family and I ate dinner near my old house and we decided to just stop by it. And so we went to the house, parked outside, kind of just admired the new renovations made by the current owners of the house and stuff. And he actually came out and asked us what we were doing, because we were just awkwardly just parked outside of his house. And he told us, and he asked us why we were there. And my dad told him that we used to live there. The guy was actually welcoming and invited us in. And showed us good hospitality and brought us stuff to drink and you know. And my dad was talking to him about all the renovations that he had done, and how nice everything had looked. And my dad asked him about the pool, and the guy said he drained it. And my dad asked him why. And he would say at night, even if it was really a still night and stuff, no wind, there would be ripples across the surface of the water, as if someone was walking on it. And my dad knew that the house was haunted and stuff, so he stopped asking questions and stuff to refrain from scaring the owner. But suddenly, the owner asked my dad, was the house haunted when you lived here? And my dad skeptically said, I don’t think so. And the guy said I want you to be completely honest with me. My dad asked why. And he said cause his little daughter claims to see a man in her bedroom upstairs, which turns out to be the same room my older sister had, and his daughter claimed that, Henry or Harold, I’m not sure, and that he would actually talk to her. Then at night, she would always claim that a monster or some little thing in her closet. And so almost every night he would come and comfort her. And when he would open the closet, he wouldn’t see anything. But the little girl would always run behind him and close her eyes as if she had seen something. And to that day she would never tell him what she saw, no one knows, but that guy was freaking out. And then we left.”

Although Stephen does not remember living at the house, Stephen actually looked scared and relieved he didn’t have to stay in that house anymore. He immediately called his mother and tried to receive the address of the old house from her, but she only gave us the street name, due to privacy issues. However, Stephen said that he still remembers what the house looked at, so we looked up the street on Google maps. Soon, we found the pool, guest house, and the dark house itself. Upon switching upon street view, we were able to see the front of the house, which presented an eerie feeling to me. This story was particularly chilling, because the events that had happened in the house were disturbing to the witnesses. One thing I noticed about this ghost story is that Stephen had claimed that the man sitting at the desk in his sister Stacy’s room was there everyday, and also that everyone who passes a certain spot in the pool would almost drown without aid. It is obvious that the reason why people would drown in this certain spot is because of the little girl who had previously drowned in the pool before Stephen’s family had moved in. Also the event of Stephen’s uncle being caught in a scissor lock proves that the spirits in the house were obviously hostile to the tenants that are living in the house. Oddly enough, the family that moved in after Stephen’s family was experiencing similar occurrences, which adds credibility to the story. I believe these ghosts were hostile to the current tenants of the house, attempting to drown people who swim the pool and scaring little girls. A common theme I find in this story is tragedy, which would be the little girl who had drowned in the pool years ago. I attempted to research for any information on this specific house to try to find explanations for the other events, but unfortunately I was not able to find anything on this house. So from this story, I find that these ghosts are upset that there are people living in their quarters and the violent incidents explain that the current tenants are not welcome. In other words, perform in depth research before buying your next home.

Yen Hoang

Student

University of Southern California

11/9/2011