The Homeowner Ghost

Age: 47

Context:

My mother always believed in God and held religious values. Whenever I would ask her about spooky things or if she believed in ghosts she would always answer with “Don’t seek out such things.” It wasn’t until recently she revealed an odd occurrence with a spirit that involved me many years ago. 

Interview:

Me: So when did this occurrence happen?

Informant: It was 2009. You were two years old and we had just bought the house. We knew from the realtor the owner of the house (an old woman) had passed away and her heir had sold it to some house flippers before we bought it. 

Me: Do you think there was a possibility she passed away in the house?

Informant: I rather not think about that.

Me: Alright so how soon after did you see the ghost?

Informant: You mean spirit. Well before it happened there was one bit of information I found important. One time our neighbor needed me to move my car so he could park on the street. I told him I’d move it if his daughter watched you. She did just that and when I came back from moving the car she told me “Wow the inside of the house looks so different. I used to take care of the woman who lived here before. The walls all used to be pink inside and outside.” Which did make sense since paint started chipping outside and it was all pink under. Anyway, when you saw the spirit-

Me: Wait, I saw it?

Informant: Yes. Your father worked all day so it was just me and you. It was summer and the house had no AC so I would have us hang out in the back room of the house that always stayed cool in the latter half of the day. We were playing with your toys when you left the room to chase the dog down the hallway. I called out for you to come back and when you did you had a big smile on your face. You told me “Mami, there’s an old lady waving and smiling at me.” I thought you were joking with me. I peeped my head out and saw nothing. I kept asking “Are you sure there’s someone there?” You were serious and kept saying “Can’t you see her?” I could tell you weren’t joking and I got spooked so I shut the door and waited till your father came back home. The dog didn’t bark or growl so I assumed it was a friendly spirit. 

Me: Do you have any idea who the spirit could’ve been?

Informant: I think it was the old woman who owned the house before. I assume she wanted to check up on who was living in her house and was happy when she saw a small child. The dog wasn’t growling or barking so it must have been a good spirit. I mean who else could it have been?

Analysis:
I believe the ghost of the previous owner was the spirit I saw. She might have been upset house flippers painted over her pink walls for a new family to move in. I think she wanted to see who changed and now occupied her old space. I also believe that her smiling and waving at me was her accepting our presence in her space and moving on. When I asked my mother again if she believed in ghosts she answered this time saying “I’ve always believed in spirits but never had any experience until that day. I don’t seek out things like that.” I have no recollection of this event or have seen the woman since. 

Protective Ghost

Age: 49

So we bought the house from my old boss, Kelly, actually, who I worked with at Leo Burnett, and she had told me this story about the house before we bought it. She just basically said the house was kind of haunted, but not in a bad way, and she explained a couple of different situations. One was that in the middle bedroom, in Alistair’s bedroom, when she had her twin boys when they were babies, and they were crying in the middle of the night, it was like 2 AM or something, and she went to put her son Seamus back in the crib, and when she set him in the crib, the crib moved away from the wall by like half a foot. And she picked him up out of the crib, and then she eventually put him back in the crib, and it did it again.

It sounds terrifying, but she wasn’t scared. She had this feeling that it was her grandmother, and that her grandmother was comforting her in this time of need, where she was so exhausted with the babies, because her grandmother also had twins, and she could just, like, feel her presence, and she said it was very comforting.

So that’s kind of the context before we moved into the house. And the other thing about the house is that it was built in, like, the early 1900s, like 1912 or something like that. And, during the Great Depression, it was actually a boarding house, meaning the second floor of the house, there were individual bedrooms that were rented out, and they actually walled off, um, the stairs so that you couldn’t go into the living room on the main floor. That is why they put in a second entrance to the house as well on the side, so you could go in to the side, and you would basically enter on the landing of the stairs and just go straight upstairs. So anyway, um, it was a boarding house during the Great Depression. All of the bedrooms had a little mirror on the inside of the closet. And so it was just a little weird. It had some quirks, and they all had locks on the doors as well.

Okay, so when we first moved into the house. Alistair was sleeping in that middle bedroom, and Dad was out of town. I can’t remember where Dad was, and I was in the basement because we didn’t have a TV on the main floor back then. I was watching something on TV, and I had the baby monitor on, and all of a sudden, there was this, like, this really weird noise coming out of the baby monitor. It was this sort of metallic, just this super weird noise and it didn’t stop. The noise was just this ongoing buzzing, kind of. So I immediately went upstairs to check on Alistair, and when I was opening the door, first of all, the door felt like it was, like, stuck or something, and then it did open. And, um… What I saw was that the light was on full blast. He had this little, like, I don’t know if you remember, but it was, like, a bright green little lamp from IKEA. It has, like, an on-off switch on the cord, and it shines this really weird and bright green color. So it was shining bright green out from underneath the door. Oh, I forgot to mention that. I could see the light was shining bright green out from underneath the door before I opened it, which was totally freaky. 

And the light, I did not leave it on, and there’s no way it was turned on. And he was a baby. It was not… he couldn’t have reached it. There was… it was very strange. And I was, like, totally freaked out. So I immediately unplugged the light, and the craziest thing was that the plug was, like, burning hot, right on the wall where the crib was. I instantly felt like it was a sign.

So my immediate thought was thinking about Kelly and what she had said about her grandma, and I think this person or whoever, um, whatever the spirit was, was, like, trying to warn me, uh, because the electricity… it was all cloth wiring, which can burn a house down. And that was, like, the first time I really became aware of the wiring in that house and how dangerous it could be, and it always freaked me out the entire time we lived there. But anyway, that was my takeaway, was that this ghost was, like, protecting me, and protecting my baby, just like it had sort of done for Kelly in that same room.

And there’s some other weird stuff, too, in that house. Like, for instance, when you were little. You were, like, 18 months old and you said something so weird. I know what it was, because I posted about it on Facebook at the time, and it comes up in my Facebook memories and I still laugh about it. Out of nowhere you said, “Mom, there’s ghosts in here.” And that was in your little bedroom way in the back. And I totally believed you, and you’re a very, very sensitive person. You always have been, and I believe you do have, like, that kind of a gift. But also, you did watch a lot of Scooby Doo with Alistair at the time, so who knows, but I believed you. (laughs) But…yeah, it totally freaked me out that you said that in your teeny tiny voice. Like, what? You were too young to understand the concept of ghosts, I thought, but I just kind of knew you were serious. You and your brother are both this way with your giftedness, in IQ and other things, so, yeah, I believed you, and I still do. You totally have that gift, and many autistics, like, feel things others do not. There’s all this research now about autism and telepathy, and, like, parallel universes they travel to and stuff. It’s so cool, so who knows, but I believe it all.

But anyway, there was nothing scary in that house except for in the basement. Don’t you think? It had a little bit of a weird vibe in the laundry room, especially. But upstairs, I just always felt that we had like a friendly ghost that was looking out for us, or that’s what I told myself. But it definitely felt like there was a presence in that house. Ok, that’s it.

When is this story told? To whom? Where does it take place?

Vanessa told this story to me, Audrey, on April 24, 2025. The story takes place in the house I grew up in from ages 0 to 12 in Oak Park, IL. The house was built in 1912, and it was used as a boarding house during the Great Depression, with the rooms on the 2nd floor rented out to various individuals. 

What does the teller think of the story?

She enjoys telling the story. She gets very animated and excited retelling the story. You can tell it really made an impact on her, and it was a significant event that occurred, which is why the memory has stuck with her all these years. She believes in ghosts and thinks she can sense various energies. Our current house is a large old house built in 1905. Whether the house is haunted comes up in conversation all the time. She can sense and feel things about houses, especially, but she is not a person who likes or gravitates toward anything scary at all. I think she suppresses a lot of the things she can sense to protect herself. But this story is clearly a good/funny memory about a house that she loved. 

My thoughts – what do I think of the story?

The story is entertaining and totally believable, especially for me, because I have my own stories from that house. So basically she thinks the ghost turned the light on so that she would unplug the light and notice the burning hot cord and learn about the sketchy cloth wiring. The way that she associates the ghost with protection is an interesting theme with her that I have noticed comes up in other situations. For instance, she also talks about a bird, a cardinal, that visits a tree outside the window in our family room every day. She thinks the bird is her grandmother, just looking out for her. It brings her comfort. I think it’s sweet. She is a positive person, and she is looking for the positive almost always, even in her own ghost story. I think she believes spirits hang around to look after and protect their people. She isn’t religious, but in this way she is spiritual. 

Boston Tour Ghost

Age: 49

In the spring of the year 2000, I was on tour with my band Del Rey, alongside our friends’ band, Planes Mistaken for Stars, all up and down the east coast for a few weeks. And on this tour, we had a show one night at this place called the Middle East in Boston. We do the usual, we both play our sets, great show, hang out afterwards. The night gets, you know, a little bit later, and it’s time to head out and find a place to crash. We usually all get hotel rooms together, or, you know, crash in somebody’s house on couches and sleeping bags or wherever we can. This particular night, me and one of the guys from the other band, Jamie, uh, were also friends with another guy who was an old roommate of ours back in Chicago, who now lived in Boston and wanted he and I to come stay at his house and like hang and catch up or whatever in a non-punk rock show venue. So after the show, Jamie and I get in the car with our old friend, his name’s Jody, and go to stay at the apartment that he’s now living in in a neighborhood in Boston. As we get to his apartment, this is late at night. Uh, it’s a really old neighborhood in Boston, and the apartment buildings that are on the street all look very, very old, probably like they were originally built in sometime in the late 1700s. So we go up to this, uh, upstairs apartment in this old building, and we’re getting ready to just hang and chat a little bit before we crash. We’re all kind of hanging out in his room, listening to music, talking, smoking cigarettes. And he tells us about all the weird things that have been happening in his apartment. He’s telling us about a picture in the hallway that consistently falls off the wall and onto the floor, in the middle of the night. He’s telling us how this happens on a regular basis. It’s every other night this happens and only at night. And how every time he puts it back on there, he checks the nail, he checks the picture, it’s not too heavy, it’s sturdy, it’s solid. There’s nothing about this picture that should be falling off the wall. Yet it continues to happen. He goes on to explain that other weird things have been happening in this apartment. Things are left in one place but then found randomly in another spot that he knows he didn’t move them to. Things go missing. He hears weird noises, he hears weird voices. Uh, daytime, nighttime, uh, doors open and shut. He kind of continues just telling us about, you know, this list of weird sort of odd happenings in this apartment that he notices are just really regular and starting to creep him out. About two to three minutes after he finishes telling us about these things that are going on in the apartment, something happens. So, we’re sitting in his room, where he’s telling us these stories about the things happening in his apartment. We’re listening to music on a stereo. The door is completely shut, and it shut all the way to where it’s latched inside the strike plate inside of the doorway, whatever you call it. So, it’s caught, so you can’t just push the door open. So, as we’re sitting there, a couple minutes after he finishes telling us this, the doorknob turns, unlatches, opens the door slowly as we all watch it. The three of us each saw that doorknob turn, unlatch and open inward. About the exact same time as that’s happening, the stereo receiver dial, the volume dial, turns itself down all the way to off, which we all also saw in unison. So, these two events happened right before our eyes, and right after he had just finished explaining, all of the weird, creepy, ghostly things that have been happening in this apartment. So we flipped like every light on, run out into the main living room area, kind of just look at each other in shock and disbelief, and awe, and, you know, made sure we all we saw what we saw there, right? So, after a little while, we had to kind of calm down, sort of try to laugh it off or whatever. We had to get some sleep because we had to get up and get off to the next city the next morning. But that’s one, uh that I’ll never forget and it’s uh, I guess a story that all three of us will remember for the rest of our lives.

Context: When is this story told? To whom? Where does it take place? 

The story is told on Tuesday, April 28, 2026 to me by Michael. The story actually takes place in Boston, Massachusetts in the spring of 2000.

Their thoughts: What does the teller think of the story?

Michael mentions that this story still sticks with him to this day and I think he likes re-telling the story because it seems to have really had an impact on him. He also mentions that he has had conversations with the same people who had this experience with him multiple times over the years. As someone who has previously said has a good number of ghostly or creepy stories, he chose this particular one based on his feeling that it was one of the more memorable as well as creepy experiences in his life. 

Your thoughts: what do you think of the story?

I think this story is interesting because it seems to be related to this old late 1700s apartment building in Boston, and hints at something ghostly that could possibly have been happening for over 200 years in this place. I also like that there were three people all experiencing the same odd events simultaneously. I think that might make it more compelling, and even creepier. I also found it interesting that the two ghostly experiences that happened, the door opening and the stereo volume being turned down, both happened after his friend just finished telling them about all the other haunted and ghostly types of things happening in the apartment.

Perry in the Book

Age: 19

Context:

This story was told to me by my friend during a hangout in their dorm a few weeks before finals. They recalled a childhood storybook about Perry and connected it to knocks they heard during their summer family visits to their lake house. The memory remained vivid because of how long the noises continued and how closely they seemed tied to the story.

IL:

“So every summer, my family would go up to our lake house in the mountains for a few weeks. We’d been doing it ever since I was a kid, and I always stayed in the same room upstairs. It was kind of old and creaky, but I loved it.

One summer when I was ten, I got there and noticed there was this new book on the bookshelf in my room. I swear it hadn’t been there before. It was this children’s storybook about a ghost named Perry. The cover was creepy as hell, like this little white ghost smiling in front of a bedroom door.

My mom read me the book before I went to bed, and the story was about Perry going around at night knocking on doors and hiding under beds. And in the book, it said that if you heard three knocks in the middle of the night, you’d know Perry was there.

That absolutely freaked me out, but I kept going anyway. I think because I wanted to know what happened. And then, like two nights later, I woke up in the middle of the night and heard it.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Three knocks. Slow and spaced out. Right on my bedroom door.

I literally froze. I just stared at the door and pulled the covers over my head. I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. I was so scared it was actually Perry.

The next morning I asked my parents if they had knocked on my door, and they were like, no? Why would we do that? And I didn’t even tell them why because I felt stupid.

But then it kept happening. Not every night, but for like a week that summer.

Always three knocks.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

And it was always late. Like after everyone was asleep. I remember lying there waiting for it because I was so scared, and every tiny noise in that house started freaking me out.

One night I finally got brave enough to open the door right after I heard it, and there was nobody there. The hallway was empty. My parents’ room was down the hall and their door was shut. My little brother was asleep. There was just… nothing.

After that week, it stopped. Completely. No more knocks for the rest of the summer.

And the weirdest part is, the next year when we went back, the Perry book was gone. I looked for it because I wanted to prove to myself it was real, and it just wasn’t there anymore.

So yeah, logically it was probably just the house settling or something because it was old, but… hearing three knocks exactly like in the story for a week straight? That still creeps me out.”

Interviewer:

“Do you think reading the book made you notice sounds you normally wouldn’t?”

IL:

“Probably. I mean, I was ten and terrified. My brain was probably connecting everything to Perry. But the fact that it was always three knocks is what gets me. Like if it had just been random noises, whatever. But three? Exactly how the book said? That’s weird.”

Interviewer:

“Would you read the book again if you found it?”

IL:

“Absolutely not. No shot. I am not risking hearing three knocks again.”

The Informant’s Thoughts:

He finds this story unsettling not because he truly believes a ghost was knocking on his door, but because of how perfectly the events lined up with the book. At ten years old, hearing exactly three knocks, the same warning described in the story, felt too specific to dismiss in the moment. Even now, he recognizes there was probably a logical explanation, like the house settling or tree branches hitting the walls, but the timing still lingers in his mind.

What disturbs him most is the strange appearance and disappearance of the Perry book itself. He remembers finding it on the shelf that summer as if it had always been there, only to never see it again the next year. Looking back, he wonders if he simply forgot what the cover looked like or imagined parts of it through fear, but he cannot shake the vividness of the memory.

To him, the experience feels like one of those childhood moments where imagination and reality became tangled together. He does not fully believe it was supernatural, but he also cannot hear three knocks in a row without immediately thinking of Perry.

My Thoughts:

I think the setting contributes significantly to the story’s believability. A mountain lake house in the summer already feels isolated and unfamiliar compared to everyday life. Old houses make noises, hallways seem darker, and the quiet of the mountains amplifies every sound. In that environment, the line between natural and supernatural becomes easier to blur.

The disappearing book adds another layer of mystery. Whether it was misplaced, thrown away, or simply forgotten, its absence transforms the memory into something harder to verify. Without the physical object, the story becomes less about evidence and more about memory, what was real, what was imagined, and what fear may have altered over time.

As a piece of folklore, this story is fascinating because it demonstrates how ghost stories can create their own “evidence.” After IL learned the rule of Perry’s three knocks, every similar sound became part of the legend. In that way, the story itself almost functions like a haunting, shaping the way reality is interpreted long after the book is gone.

The Baby Monitor

Age: 19

Context:

This story was told to me during a car ride at night back from a camping trip with friends. Everyone started going around and telling creepy or weird paranormal experiences they’ve had and when the topic shifted to technology the informant went on and told this story about their experience with their baby sister’s baby monitor as a kid.

CL:

“So this happened when I was around fifteen, and I still don’t really know what to make of it. My baby sister had just been born, so my parents had one of those baby monitors set up in her room, the kind that only does audio.

My room was right next to hers, and since she cried a lot at night, I got used to hearing little noises through the monitor when my parents left it on in their room or in the hallway.

One night, I was home alone babysitting while my parents went out to dinner. My sister was asleep, and I was downstairs watching TV. Everything was normal. Then I heard the monitor crackle. At first I ignored it because it always made static noises.

But then I heard someone whisper. Like… an actual whisper. I couldn’t make out what it said, but it sounded like a woman’s voice. I muted the TV and just sat there listening. Then I heard it again. Really soft, like right into the monitor. It sounded like, ‘It’s okay… go back to sleep.’ I froze. I remember staring at the monitor and thinking maybe my mom had come home without me hearing, but I would’ve heard the front door or footsteps. So I ran upstairs. My sister was asleep in her crib. Nobody else was in the room. I checked the closet, under the crib, the bathroom, everything. Nothing.

I grabbed my sister and brought her downstairs with me because I was so freaked out. I called my mom crying and told her to come home. She thought I was overreacting until they got back. My dad brought my sister upstairs and plugged the monitor back in to prove it was just static or interference or whatever. And then we all heard it. The monitor crackled and this voice came through. ‘Shhhhhh…’ Like right into it. My mom literally unplugged it immediately. The next day my dad bought a new monitor and threw the old one away. And it never happened again.

Later, my dad said it was probably signal interference from another house because the monitor was old and not encrypted or whatever. Like maybe someone else’s monitor or a walkie-talkie got picked up. But… I don’t know. The voice sounded like it was in the room. Not through a machine. It sounded close. Like someone leaning over her crib.”

Interviewer:

“Did the voice sound threatening?”

CL:

“No, honestly that’s what made it weirder. It sounded calm. Like soothing. If it had sounded creepy, I think I would’ve just assumed it was in my head. But it sounded… normal.”

Interviewer:

“Do you think it was paranormal?”

CL:

“I don’t know. Probably not. The interference thing makes sense. But hearing it with my whole family there made it harder to brush off.”

The Informant’s Thoughts:

She does not fully believe the event was paranormal, but she remains disturbed by how clearly she remembers the voice. The fact that it happened twice, once when she was alone and again in front of her parents, validated her fear in the moment.

She says what scared her most was not the possibility of a ghost, but the idea that a real stranger’s voice could somehow reach into her house and speak to her baby sister. In some ways, that felt scarier than anything supernatural.

My Thoughts:

I think what makes this story so creepy is how realistic it feels. Unlike a lot of ghost stories where someone sees a full figure or something impossible happens, this one has an explanation that actually makes sense. The signal interference idea is believable, which somehow makes it even scarier because it could happen in real life.

I also think the fact that the voice sounded calm instead of threatening makes the story way more unsettling. If it had been some distorted or obviously creepy voice, it would almost feel fake. But the fact that it sounded normal and soothing makes it feel more personal and invasive.

I find it interesting how technology changes the way ghost stories are told. Instead of hearing strange voices in a hallway or through the walls, now people hear them through baby monitors, phones, or speakers. It’s like modern devices create new ways for people to interpret weird experiences as paranormal.

I think the scariest part of this story isn’t even the idea of a ghost. To me, the thought that it could have been an actual stranger’s voice somehow reaching into the house is worse. That makes the story feel less like a supernatural haunting and more like a real invasion of privacy.