Tag Archives: Haunted House

Haunted House on Clinton Street in Brooklyn

Nationality: Canadian/American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: New York City
Performance Date: 02/14/20
Primary Language: English

Piece:

Informant: “See that house right there?”

Collector: “Yeah.”

Informant: “Some guy killed his wife there and now it’s haunted. There have been like six people who have lived there since and they all sold the house within like three months of living there.” 

Collector: “Do you know for sure that the guy killed his wife?”

Informant: “No but that’s what they told me.” 

Context: Me and the informant were leaving a party at the informant’s friend’s apartment on Clinton Street in Brooklyn, NY. We passed a house with a For Sale sign a few doors down when the informant turned to me and told me the piece. 

Background: The informant is a student in New York City. The legend was originally told to him the first time he passed the house while visiting a friend who lives a few doors down from the house. He views the story as making a street that would otherwise be forgotten or insignificant into one that is memorable and interesting. 

Analysis: I enjoyed hearing the piece because it made the walk home much more interesting. It is common for people to invent stories when they notice police cars/commotion but are given no information as a way to trick themselves into feeling informed. I find this story to be an example of this. It is not conventional for many people to move in and out of a house in such an abbreviated period of time, leaving people searching for answers even more. This endows the house as a liminal space, one in which people are never fully settled, making it the perfect breeding ground for ghost stories and folklore more generally. It seems to function as a point of conversation and excitement for the informant and his friend group, coloring their everyday life without necessarily being considered dangerous or fear-inspiring.

The Haunted Epperson House in UMKC

Nationality: United States of America
Age: 49
Occupation: N/A
Residence: Kansas City, MO
Performance Date: 4/25/20
Primary Language: English

Main piece:

“So this house used to be owned by a rich family that, I think, made their money in organs like the instrument and it was the Epperson family. They had a bit of tragic life, there’s a million tales of their trials and tribulations and I honestly don’t remember all of them but I know there are a couple of legends that- one that there did actually use to be a swimming pool in the basement of this big mansion and at some point it got cemented over unexpectedly around the time someone went missing and there was a theory that one of the Epperson lovers is buried in concrete in the pool. There also was a daughter of the family who, I don’t remember if it was from a broken love affair or what it was, they had a big beautiful ballroom with an organ loft and she hanged herself from the organ loft which is a bit of a statement because since they made their money in organs. So anyway, this house has a long, long history in Kansas City of being associated with hauntings and ghost stories, people see lights and movements inside the house even though its been locked up and not used for years and years and years”

Background:

My informant is a 49 year old woman living in Kansas City, Missouri. While originally from Joplin, Missouri, she moved to Kansas City about 18 years ago. The Epperson House is located on the campus grounds of the University of Kansas City, Missouri which is near her home. The house has a series of legends tied to it, with one of the most common practices involving teens interacting with the house for seances and the sort. The informant has friends who grew up in Kansas City and have participated in this tradition. While the house is generally closed to the public, a security guard offered her a tour which led to her fascination with the house and it’s legends. 

Context:

This piece was brought to my attention through research into legends from Missouri which I used to approach my informant. She has told me about this phenomenon several times but this specific conversation occurred in the living room of her house in Kansas City when I asked her about using the story for the archives.

Thoughts:

The Epperson House is a classic haunted house legend. Much like previous iterations, the house represents several different things for the surrounding community. First, the house serves the function of uniting the community with a common legend. Kansas City is a relatively big city, so while the whole city might not have nearly as much folklore about this structure, knowledge of the legend places one within the know of a community. This is also present for the teen culture of Kansas City, who use the structure as a right of passage in order to be considered part of the group. Another interesting aspect of the legend is the indirect tie between wealth and tragedy. Despite having near endless wealth, the Epperson family could not avoid their tragic fate, almost making the legend a cautionary tale of sorts against the massive accumulation of wealth. This is especially interesting because the house is adjacent to a relatively wealthy neighborhood, making the moral of the story also a reminder for the nearby families. Another way of interpreting this legend is that the Epperson House represents old money. The house is ancient, and by making it seem scary and tragic, the overall perspective of the community is placed on the future. In this interpretation, money is not bad per say, but one should not worry about the past but look to the future, because all that remains of the past are ghosts and abandoned structures. 

The Haunted House in Calabasas

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Environmental Scientist
Residence: California
Performance Date: 4-5-2020
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: 

The following is transcribed from a conversation between the informant and the interviewer.

Interviewer: Tell me about the haunted house that’s in your neighborhood.

Informant: well, it’s actually not in my neighborhood but just a couple streets down. I’ve only been a couple times because you have to take a pretty long uphill hike to get past the gate without getting caught. 

Interviewer: So it’s a private neighborhood with people still living there?

Informant: Yeah it’s just your average suburban calabasas neighborhood, this one house has been abandoned for a solid fifteen years though. 

Interviewer: Well why do people think it’s haunted then?

Informant: I guess most people don’t hahaha but one time I went up there with a group of friends and we had a crazy supernatural experience and never went back. Basically we had our faces up against the window and all saw a face in the distance that wasn’t there before, and we just turned and booked it outta there. 

Interviewer: Oh so you guys actually started the rumor about this place being haunted?

Informant: I guess so! We’ve heard a couple other groups have similar things happen to them at the house though so we all think it’s legit. And I’ve seen enough horror movies in my life to know to never go back there again haha

Background:

My informant was born and raised in California, both of his parents also born Americans. He grew up in the Calabasas area and never believe in the paranormal until his experience at this “Haunted House”

Context: 

I spoke to my informant over the phone amidst the 2020 coronavirus epidemic. 

Thoughts:

While the story of this haunted house is interesting, I was more interested by the fact that my informant didn’t think the house was haunted, but just abandoned, before they went there. Even though other groups have said they’ve seen similar things, those accounts reportedly only started after my informant’s initial scare. This leads me to believe they are actually responsible for the folklore of this house, and it is interesting to see just how far those stories spread even though they don’t talk to the other groups directly. 

Winchester Mystery House

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 20
Primary Language: English

Context:  The informant began to speak of odd places near her hometown and had this place as an example.

Piece: “So I am from San Jose California and there is a really famous house in San Jose called the Winchester Mystery house. And it’s supposedly by Sarah Winchester, who was married to William Winchester, I believe, and um she moved there after he died, I think. But he passed away and he was the manufacturer of this really famous rifle called like the Winchester rifle. So Sarah, after she died like thought she was haunted by the ghosts of the people who were killed with his guns, yeah which is a lot of people. So she built this house, and she just kept expanding it because she was trying to protect herself from the ghosts. So you go to this house and the architecture makes absolutely no sense because she just kept building and building and building so its super vast and she could protect herself from the outside. There are like stairs that lead to nowhere and doors that lead to nowhere and cause like it doesn’t make sense and there is this motif of spiderwebs throughout it like there are windows that look like webs and so like it really looks like a haunted house. I have been there and they actually take a lot of kids on field trips there now, which is weird. And it’s well known and a lot of people go there.”

Background: The informant is a 19 year old USC student who grew up in San Jose, California. She is very well versed in the Winchester Mystery House and has personally been there.

Analysis: This home is a ghost tripping home, attracting people to quest to find or see ghosts. This site in particular has house tours and advertising, indicating that it is in the commercial industry and makes profit from the stories about the home. The motifs in the house further add to the spectacle that attracts visitors, as well as adding to the feel of the environment. It is also interesting how there is an eerie quality to the odd architecture– such as the stairs that lead nowhere. The transitional, liminal quality creates the uneasy energy that plays into the ghost stories associated with the site.

 

An apartment is found haunted by reflection on the window

Nationality: Chinese
Occupation: student
Performance Date: Apr. 24, 2019
Primary Language: Chinese

Context
The informant grew up in Beijing. We were discussing ghost stories when she brought out this story.

Content
A man bought a new apartment. It was on the first floor. Outside the window is the garden, a small grassland in a residential district. He said that when the apartment was being furnished, he often saw an old man staring at him strangely from the window. When he walked outdoors to find the old man, the old man disappeared. When he moved into the house, a friend of his came to visit him. He told his friend that he often saw an old man. He asked his friend to go out and take a look, while he stood indoors to see whether the old man disappeared from the window. The friend went out, and then ran in hurriedly, brought him out and said, “You could not live in the apartment. The old man is a reflection on the window.”

Analysis
Because the old man is a reflection on the window, he is a ghost in the house. The main motif of the story is that mirrors or mirror-like object (window in this story) can show the reflection of ghosts, even though ghosts cannot be seen directly. Notice that the ghost is an old man. The old man must have some unfulfilled wishes that connect with the apartment – he probably lives in the apartment. To me, the story reflects the anxiety of the working force who fail to pay enough attention to their aging parents.