This is going to be lengthy, which can’t be helped. The place has been haunted for over a hundred years—there’s lots to tell. Please go to a quiet place, put on some creepy background music and take this all in. This is my life.
The bedrooms in this
house have seen plenty: Births. Deaths. Illnesses. Injury. Accidents. Trauma.
Tragedy. It is little wonder there are spiritual imprints throughout, manifesting
paranormally.
In the 1800’s, there
were no nearby hospitals or funeral homes or morgues. The business of being
born and dying took place at home. If you needed surgery, it was done here in
the house. In fact, that’s how my great-great-grandfather, Simeon died. The
doctor removed his gallbladder right in my kitchen on the table, I kid you not.
Not long after, he developed an infection and within a few days, died in one of
the bedrooms I talk about below.
Between the time I
was born (1970) to the time we moved into this house (1974/75-ish), we visited
my grandmother here pretty often. Being so young, I only remember bits and
pieces of some of those visits. I don’t recall being creeped out by the house
at that time or even imagined there were ghosts in it, as I probably didn’t
even know what a real ghost was at that point. Plus they could distract me with
cookies when we visited. We lived in a non-haunted house about 20 minutes away
and the only thing scary in it was the boogey monster my older brother often
teased me about and assured me would come whisk me away some night. That was
enough to scare me but I never once thought about ghosts. Just that boogey
monster, which incidentally, he convinced me was real.
But I am sure this
house was indeed haunted back then when my grandmother lived in it as my mother
had paranormal experiences in the house throughout her childhood, starting from
the time she was a baby in the 1930’s. If my grandmother ever saw or heard
anything when she lived here alone, no one ever told me about it. However, I
doubt there were NO ghosts around for those 40 years. Generally, once a place
is haunted, it stays haunted unless some serious ghostbusting takes place.
The main activity
after we moved in was primarily from the upstairs bedrooms. I was an observant
child and didn’t miss much. As most kids do, I spent a fair amount of my time
in my bedroom. It wasn’t long after we settled in that I realized what a ghost
was because it was clear we had them.
I would often hear my
mother talk about unexplained mysterious things that happened here, from the
time she was a little girl. I hung on her every word, even at 5 years old. I
was very interested, but quite scared at the same time. One of the first
stories I recall listening to her tell was how the rocking chair rocked by
itself in the middle of the night in the kitchen, when she was asleep upstairs,
the sound of which woke her up. I realized the same rocking chair was in MY
bedroom upstairs. Did I ask my parents to take that haunted chair out of my
room? No, I did not. Did they think it was a bad idea to have the chair in
their 5 year old kid’s room in a haunted house? No they did not.
I just hoped with all
my might, and probably tossed a few prayers in to God now and then, that I
would not at any time see or hear that rocking chair rocking by itself.
I never did.
That rocking chair is
the oldest item in this house. My great-great-grandfather brought it here from
his previous residence when he was about to build our house in 1871. It is
unlikely that it was brand new at that time so I would ballpark its age at between
155-200 years old. It was written about by Vernon Oickle in his book, Even More
Ghost Stories of Nova Scotia. Be sure to check that gem out, if you haven’t
already.
Without further
adieu, I give you the known haunted activity in the bedrooms of our house,
categorized by room. I will attempt to keep the incidents concise for ease of
reading. I can’t confidently say one bedroom is more haunted than another. They
have all seen their fair share of unexplained paranormal activity, and still do
today.
This is now an
office/computer room and nicknamed the blue room because of its color. This is
the room that was my bedroom as a child, and then my child’s room when we
stayed here for a bit when he was young.
The following
happened to me as a child in that room:
When I was around 9,
I went to bed one night. After laying there a few minutes, a very frantic loud
banging started on the wall that adjoins to another bedroom. You would have
sworn someone was in that other room, swinging a hammer at the wall. I knew no
one was in there. I was the only person upstairs at that time. I leapt out of
bed and ran down the stairs as fast as my legs would carry me and told my
parents there was NO WAY I was spending the night up there. They let me sleep
in their bed that night.
When my son was 5, he
slept in the blue room for about 3 years. Several strange things began to
happen right from the get-go.
One the first night,
the nightlight I had put in an outlet, mysteriously ended up on top of his
dresser. This went on every night for 2 weeks. I would always find it there
when I checked on him before going to bed myself and I’d have to plug it back
in. I finally told the ghosts to knock it off and leave it alone, which they
complied with.
One day Scott
announced to me that someone had been tucking him in at night, not long after I
had tucked him in. There was no one else around—only his grandmother who could
no longer climb stairs. I asked him what was happening and he said every night
after he shut his eyes, he would feel someone’s hand on his back, as if they
were making sure he was covered up. He knew I had already done that and
verbally said goodnight and that this second time it was not me. Being 5, he
was too scared to turn his head to look. But this went on for quite some time.
My teenage nephew
used that room for his bedroom for awhile. One night while talking to his
girlfriend via webcam, she asked him who the little boy in the room with him
was. There was no one else in the house, except his grandmother, downstairs. He
couldn’t explain why she was seeing a child on the camera as he assumed he was
alone in the bedroom.
Never assume.
Another nephew of
mine slept in that room on occasion when he visited. When he was 5 or 6, he awoke
to find my long-dead grandmother standing by his bed.
In 2023, three days
before my mother passed away, I heard the all-too-common mysterious paranormal
event known as the forerunner (usually 3 knocks or bangs that forewarns of an
upcoming death of someone you know). It came from the blue room.
More recently in the
blue room, there was the mysterious thumbtacks incident. I wrote briefly of
this on my Facebook group, but to sum it up, I heard a slapping noise on my
desk and then immediately afterward 2 thumbtacks materialized out of nowhere
and fell onto the desk.
Yesterday in the blue
room, I told my ghosts we had quite a bit of work to get done and it would be
nice if they helped. I then went downstairs for 2 minutes. When I came back,
the lights had been shut off. Nothing else, just the overhead lights. It wasn’t
a power flicker. Nothing else in the room or house was affected. No- they
didn’t help with the workload, either.
The Largest Bedroom
Across the hall is
the biggest of the bedrooms. Over the years depending on who has been staying
here, it is sometimes empty and sometimes occupied. After moving here in the
70’s, I remember hearing my mother tell people that my brother was in this
bedroom one afternoon when he witnessed the door that goes into the attic open and
close and then a few seconds later the door to the hallway opened and closed,
as if someone had passed through. No one was visible. She assumed it was the
ghost of an old relative by the name of Silas, as he used to take his lantern
from the kitchen and go up the back staircase that leads into the attic and he
would open that first bedroom door and pass through to get to his bedroom.
Another one of my
brothers reported to our mother than when he was a teenager and that was his
room, he saw a girl with long dark here in there.
Around 2003, my
husband and I were staying at the house for awhile and this was our bedroom. We
witnessed many unexplained things during that time but specifically in that
bedroom, the following occurred:
One night we had
gotten into bed and had only been laying there a moment when we could hear
someone walking around in the room, not because of footsteps but because you
could hear clothes swishing back and forth like the noise long old fashioned
dresses would make. It was pitch black dark in that room so nothing could be
seen but I remember whispering to him, Do you hear that? And he said, yes he
did. We listened for a moment and then he turned on a lamp but we could not see
anything to explain what we heard.
It was also around
this time we discovered a hoof print shape burned into that bedroom carpet.
There was only one and it appeared suddenly one night, right inside the door.
It was not there when we went to sleep but was there when we woke up. There is
no other way to describe it. It looked just like a hoof of some animal. And
when you felt the carpet, it was definitely burned right in. Over the next few
days, we had about six people look at it. No one could explain it. Even
stranger, a few days later it started to fade away and then it was just gone.
So while this is not ghost related in the traditional sense, it is definitely
on the paranormal radar.
There was also one
night I was asleep in that room, when my door was pushed open. This woke me up
and I looked to see who was there and in the soft nightlight of the hallway
stood a child. Not my child but a child nonetheless. He giggled at me and
turned and ran out into the hall. I got up and followed, logically thinking,
okay maybe it is my son and he could
fall down the stairs. Once I stepped into the hall, he was gone. I proceeded to
my son’s room who was fast asleep in his bed. I slept with my lamp on the rest
of the night.
My son and his wife
also used this as their bedroom for a couple of years. On more than one
occasion they would come home and find the door leading into the large walk in
attic unlocked, knowing full well it was locked when they left. They also
witnessed the other door that leads into the hallway opening by itself.
The most recent
incident that I am aware of in this bedroom is the ghostly rappings on the walk
in closet door. From the INSIDE. I spoke about this when I was guest speaker at
Vernon Oickle’s book talk last fall. I had to. It was pretty creepy and it had
just happened recently at that point. Like most stuff you are reading, it is
also elsewhere on the blog but I’d be doing a disservice if I didn’t mention it
again here.
Basically, I was
putting laundry away and had a pile I laid on the bed. The large walk in closet
door was closed. Just as I was about to open the door and grab some hangers, a
very large single bang came from the inside of that closet door. I paused
because hey….the place is haunted. There was no one actually IN the closet so
what else could I think, besides ghost?
The only other thing it could be
would be a mouse and if it can bang like that, I don’t want to see it.
So I opened the door
because the laundry is not going to put itself away. I didn’t see anything. I
put the clothes away and that was that until a week or so later I decided I was
going to sleep in that room because Shaun seemed to be coming down with a cold
I didn’t want to catch. I had just closed my eyes when the same bang from
before hit the inside of that closet door again.
I retreated back to
my room to go sleep.
Presently, Shaun
intends for us to remodel this bedroom and have it become our bedroom someday.
He only thinks this because he has only spent a few nights in it and nothing odd happened. I know better
and have not agreed to this idea.
Our Current Bedroom
When we moved in, we
decided that the bedroom my mother always called the “spare bedroom” would be
ours until such time I could be convinced to move over to the bigger bedroom I
just told you about. Although plenty of spirit activity has taken place in this
room spanning many years, I didn’t hesitate because I really like that room. It
has such a cozy vibe for some reason. However, after I dump the arsenal of
ghostly encounters from that room on you, you will wonder how I ever get to
sleep in there.
Back in the mid 80-s
to early 90’s, it was just me and my one brother and my mom living at the
house. Our mom had the downstairs bedroom, my brother had the larger upstairs
bedroom and I had the blue room. As I previously mentioned, the blue room and
the spare bedroom (presently my bedroom) share a wall. Back in those days, if
anyone stayed the night, they were offered the spare bedroom to sleep in,
although friends sometimes declined the offer, knowing the history of the
house. Other than that, it wasn’t used much. During my teen years, we noticed
an interesting thing had started to happen in that unused bedroom. The bed
would never stay made. My mother would keep the room neat and tidy constantly
but if you happened to peek in there out of curiosity, usually you would find
the bed quite disheveled. Sometimes the pillows would be reversed. By that, I
mean my mother wouldn’t dream of making a bed and having the wrong end of the
pillow cases facing out yet a lot of the times when the bed was messed up,
that’s exactly how they would be. On one such occasion to try to figure out
what was going on, she asked me if I had had a boyfriend in there. I still
laugh at this because I had my own room and had no intention of taking anyone
into one of the most haunted areas of the house.
I tried to go in
there as little as possible because of the paranormal activity in question. I
was not as brave then as I am now.
Years later when my
mother lived alone, the bed was still getting messed up on a regular basis and
we would check it out when we came to visit. We even put a lock on the door to
keep the cat out (just in case, but a whole gaggle of cats couldn’t wreck a
nicely made bed to the extent that this was happening), but the activity
continued.
My sister in law had
spent a few nights in that room after she married my brother. One particular
night in question was her last. While attempting to go to sleep late one night,
she heard the doorknob being turned and rattling. She swore she’d never sleep
here again and never has.
As mentioned
previously on the blog, it is a well-known fact my grandmother is one of our
ghostly inhabitants. As well as being spotted in the blue room, she has been
seen in this bedroom twice after her death; once by my aunt in the middle of
the night (she awoke to find my grandmother standing by the bed with her arms
outstretched towards her) and another time by my young nephew who just assumed
the lady he saw sitting on the bed petting the cat was a visitor. He went to
ask my mother who he had just seen and old photographs positively identified her
as my grandmother who had died long before.
I have had a few
unexplained things happen in there over the last 3 years. It was the room I
heard my mom call out my name in, about a month after she died. I was wake. It
was loud and clear. It was definitely her voice. I couldn’t see her or anything
weird, though. The phantom cigarette smoke was detected in there a couple of
weeks ago. And then there was the time last year when I was reading in bed and
felt the very distinct sensation of someone lightly blowing cold air on my arm.
The window was not open. There was no fan on. Just prior to that, I could hear
odd noises in the room, like someone moving around. The blowing air sensation
lasted a few seconds, then was gone.
I always look for the
sensible answer before stamping “ghost” on things. I have to. It is my nature
to ask questions and determine why something happened, what reasonably could be
happening here. There’s things that happen and turn out to not be a ghost
often. I don't tell you about those because that’s just every day life.
And of course, just
because I tell you something unexplained happened here, that’s not the same as
showing you the evidence of ghosts. And yes, we have evidence.
If this is your first time reading this blog, previous
hard evidence includes: disembodied voices on audio recordings and spirits captured
in pictures.
The hallway that
adjoins these bedrooms has also been the site of lots of paranormal shenanigans.
While I won’t get into that all over again, you can find it written about on
the blog.
The Downstairs
Bedroom
As mentioned at the
beginning of this post, Simeon Joudrey died in this room following his at-home
gallbladder removal. This was a main bedroom back when he built the house,
though. And because it was on the main floor, for ease of use and close to the
kitchen, many children in the family were born in this bedroom also, including
my mother.
Later it became my
grandmother’s bedroom and eventually my mother’s. She reported a lot of
unexplained activity in that room over the years. I cannot tell you the number
of times she told me something would move the sliding cubby doors of her
headboard when she was in bed reading or attempting to fall asleep.
In 1982, she awoke
one night to find an Asian woman in a kimono standing beside her bed. This was
definitely not a burglar as when my mother screamed upon seeing her, the
mysterious woman vanished into thin air.
She was not asleep and dreaming at the time.
And then there was
the train noise that would come barreling through her bedroom on certain nights
at bed time. By “train noise” I mean she had a child’s toy stored on a shelf in
her bedroom as she used to babysit a lot of children. It was a blue plastic
train-shaped toy and it would make the sound of a loud train moving down the
tracks when you pressed a button.
On more than one
occasion, this toy would start up all on its own. Not something you want to
hear late at night in your haunted house.
On her bed in that
room, on multiple occasions, she felt her cat on the bed with her. Normally,
this would be a good thing for most people. The only issue is, the cat had been
dead for quite some time. Yet, there he was…his weight pressing down on the
blanket and she could hear him purring.
That bedroom is now
our laundry room. I have not noticed anything unexplained happening in there,
unless you count the disappearance of socks, but pretty sure that happens to
everyone and ghosts aren’t to blame.
And this will take you to other weirdness happening around Nova Scotia, from yours truly:
https://nspenewsletter.blogspot.com/
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