Nationality: American
Primary Language: American English
Other language(s): none
Age: 21
Occupation: Full time student
Residence: New Jersey
Performance Date: 11/23/2023

Text: When I was a young girl about 10 my mom was looking for a new house so we spent a day touring different houses throughout this neighborhood in Jersey. She found this really nice one that she was really set on but when we went up to this house to tour it, I got this horrible feeling. It was like someone was breathing down my neck and I was just so scared all of a sudden. I told my mom this and I was adamant that we can not buy this house. My mom thought I was silly and told me that it was the perfect house and that it was very likely that we would buy this house. While she was talking with the relator person I started to wander around the house hoping that the feeling would go away. As I started up the steps the feeling staying with me prickling the back of my neck. Soon I got to this one room and the feeling was so intese and so scary just looking into that bedroom I simlpy turned around and ran out of the house. I don’t remeber how long I stayed out there but I couldn’t have been long and my mom came out, ready to leave. Ony then did I look back at the house and see a woman looking out of the upstairs bedroolm window. I turned back around with chills from head to toe completely terrrified of that house. I again pleaded with my mom not to buy the house but she would not here of the woman that I saw and could think of a hundred different possiblities for what I saw but I knew what I saw. I could not live in that house ever. Later maybe a week or so after our visit my mom was seriouly considering buying the house until we heard the history of the house. Some people who had lived in the surrounding neighborhhood to us the story of the late owner. She was an older woman about 60-70s and had commited suicide right in the upstaris bedroom where I saw the woman in the window. This was a deal breaker for my mother escpecially after she had heard me complaining and insisting for the past week about the house.

Context: This story was told at a Thanksgiving dinner table in Colorado by a family friend. We were sharing stories and simply talking around the table when she spoke up about a ghost story. She has a very interesting life and lots has happened to her in her lifetime so a good story is always expected though the ghostly twist was new. She thinks that the ghost of the former owner is hostile and still haunts the house. She has never been back to the house and never wants to see it again. It really frightened her and she does not like to mess with spirits like this.

Your thoughts: I think this ghost stroy fits some of the basic plots of ghost stories and is a common one heard in America. In America it is a goal to own a house so many people have houses and therefore could relate to some sort of previous owner story. This also has some common motifs like