Interesting Things Found In Our Walls (and updates to our missing household items and more recent paranormal events)

 

Does this look too long? Don’t want to read it?

Summary: my great-great-grandfather built this house.150 years later, we found some interesting items inside the walls. Some other stuff also happened.

Summary too summarized? You better read on.

   As you faithful blog readers know by now, our family homestead was built in 1871. Although I don’t publicly advertise where exactly our house is  located in Nova Scotia, my great-great-grandfather, Simeon, left the community of Northfield (Upper or Lower—I just forget now) with his wife, Kate, their children and their belongings to move to our present community.

Simeon acquired a piece of land on the river, started a sawmill business, built a temporary house right beside it, and in his spare time cut the lumber to build the permanent house I am sitting in right now as I type this.

This was no small feat obviously; those of you who personally know me are aware of the size of the house. The foundation was/is a hand-dug rock lined dirt cellar. When I am in the cellar, I am still astounded it was created with no machinery. Some of those supporting boulders are absolutely gigantic. You think your back hurts…imagine how Simeon felt.

Even though Simeon could not read or write very well, he persevered and with the aid of a local carpenter (as reported by my mother) they built the house and a very large barn on the property. I am exhausted just thinking about all that he accomplished.

Simeon’s wife, Kate, needed a place to bake bread so he built a brick oven into the wall of the kitchen. A few times a week she would come up to the main house and bake her loaves in that oven. We still have that original bake oven but a closet has been built around it since it was first installed. Due to the need for a wood stove in the kitchen now, the wall that prevents you from openly seeing the brick oven cannot be removed without some major rearranging and renovating and rethinking the entire kitchen plan. I recall being a little girl and seeing the brick oven and large brick fireplace beside it and wondering why that was in a closet.

From the time we moved into the house with my elderly grandmother in 1974-1975, I loved poking around in the large walk-in attic upstairs as it was full of old stuff a five year old girl might be interested in: my mother’s porcelain-face dolls from the 1930’s, doll carriages from that era, antique furniture, old clothes (my mother’s wedding dress and my grandmother’s “wedding hat”), ancient books, my ancestors’ creepy belongings and household items. Everything was musty, having sat for at least 30-100 years. No one ever threw anything anyway, for a multitude of reasons: sentimental and financial value or just to preserve as heirlooms. Cobwebs and dust were abundant; spiders had a heyday in that old dark attic.

One of the items Simeon and Kate brought with them was their favorite rocking chair, making it one of the oldest antiques in our house. And since they had it before they even moved here, that makes the chair over 154 years old. It’s still in remarkable condition. It was not used all that much—it was more of a decorative item throughout the years. The ghosts have always seemed to like it. It’s been known to rock all on its own. This has been written about on my blog in older posts.

The first object I remember coming across that was just downright freaky to a five year old (and some adults I know) was an old shoe. My mother told the story of how it belonged to a girl who lived here—a relative from back in the 1800s—who died at a young age from tuberculosis. And now here was her shoe. Her very creepy lace up Little House on the Prairie type of shoe, the leather all wrinkled, the tiny tacks starting to jut out from where it was originally cobbled together, the sole trying to detach. It smelled exactly how you think an antique shoe of this calibre would smell after spending one hundred years in an attic. This was one thing I did not play with, I can assure you. I think MY soul partially detached thinking about this girl who died in our house so long ago.

If I remember correctly, around 1982 or so, my mother decided she needed her kitchen door replaced. My father had died the year before. Luckily, our neighbor was a carpenter so he agreed to do the replacement. It was in the midst of this endeavor that he came across an old coin down inside a wall. It was an 1871 penny. Being knowledgeable about such things, he informed my mother coins were often dropped inside walls of newly constructed houses “back in the day” to date the construction of the house.

There were not a lot of circumstances after that where sections of wall or baseboards had to be removed for repairs. So it was not until within this past year and a half during our in-depth renovation of various rooms that we began to find more-- and much more interesting--things in the walls.

We turned the only downstairs bedroom into a laundry room. During this endeavor, when baseboards were removed, two more shoes were found behind it, just as old and creepy as the first one.

Also found behind that particular baseboard was a small (empty) bottle which I am guessing was an old perfume bottle.

Actual photo of both shoes and the bottle: 

 About a month ago, another (also empty) bottle was also found behind the baseboard in our living room. It appears to be a medicine bottle from many years ago.

Not long ago, I learned the significance of these items and why they were purposely placed behind baseboards over a hundred years ago.

As long ago as the fourteenth century and mostly likely originating in Europe, being superstitious was very common, as well as a belief in evil spirits and the devil. To protect oneself from these supernatural forces, many people would place an old worn shoe in their house, usually under a hearth, near a window, or inside a wall. These shoes are known as ‘concealed’ or ‘concealment” shoes. Bottles (also known as ‘witches bottles’) were also placed in the same areas.

 The belief behind this was that if a dark force entered a home, it could be tricked into attacking a shoe, instead of the shoe’s owner, which leads me to believe that maybe the dark forces aren’t all that bright or they have questionable vision if they can’t tell a shoe from a person.

A bottle, which sometimes contained hair, urine, small bones, nails and pins, was supposed to entice and capture the entity, and the demon in question would hopefully impale itself upon the sharp instruments inside, and your paranormal problem would be solved before it even really began. They were believed to also be helpful in warding off witchcraft by trapping attached negative energy.

My ancestors that preceded Simeon Joudrey (my great-great-grandfather) have been traced back many generations to about 1430 in France. I suspect the practice of placing shoes and bottles in walls was a common tradition passed down throughout the generations. Simeon wasn’t taking any chances, implementing the use of at least three shoes that we know of (likely belonging to his children) AND bottles in the walls here. Makes you wonder how many more are hidden in our house.

I am not all that superstitious so the items we found are no longer in our walls but I am hanging onto them for now. They may have kept potential evil forces at bay but they sure haven’t done anything to deter the ghosts.

UPDATE to the incident on February 18, 2025: 

The cup of coffee and my bag containing hairdressing items has still not materialized. I’ve had to repurchase some of the haircutting things and my coffee mug shelf still has one empty spot.

In case you missed that original post, here it is:

https://nsparanormal.blogspot.com/2025/03/if-you-could-just-return-my-things-from.html

 

UPDATE to the blog post entitled “This Is What Goes On Inside a 150 year Old Closet”:

Incidentally I am relating this to what happened in the “closet” post because both have to do with doors.

Recently, on March 19^th, I was about to head to bed. It was around midnight. Shaun had already been in bed asleep for awhile and Winston (the resident fur-face) was camped out on his favorite loveseat upstairs.

I went into the kitchen to turn out some lights when I heard the door that leads up the back staircase unlatch. It has the exact same old latch that is on the upstairs closet door.

This door and staircase are no longer in use and have not been used for many years. Originally, the reason was mainly because it was pretty dark on those stairs and it led into an equally dark attic so why even go up there? Since then, we have new lights installed everywhere (in the stair area and attic---you could land a plane in there now, although I do not condone or recommend this) but we still don’t use those stairs. The placement of the fridge blocks stair access now anyway.

So because I heard the door unlatch, I naturally turned to look at it in my dimly lit kitchen. If someone or some thing is trying to open that door at midnight while I am standing there all alone, part of me wants to know who it is. The other part of me doesn’t want to know who it is but I can usually shut her up with a couple of true ghost stories.

I can see that the door has opened about an inch or so. It is clear this is what has happened and especially noticeable because the door is always tightly closed and latched. I am wondering who is possibly on the other side of that door looking back at me but because it is pretty dark in the kitchen and pitch black in the open space of the now-opened door, I can’t see anything in there.

I went into the bathroom (which is just off the kitchen) for about 3-4 minutes. When I came back out, I was fully expecting to see something resembling a ghost in my kitchen.

Reminder: the house is, without a doubt, haunted and I just witnessed a door unlatching and opening all by itself. See previous blog posts about why this is not caused by the wind, air pressure, the house settling or my imagination, if that’s the rabbit hole you are about to go down.

So what did I see in my kitchen? Nothing. But I did look towards the door that a few moments ago had opened by itself and it was now closed. Whoever was on the back staircase and opened the door to have a peek, must have closed it again and went upstairs to tuck themselves in bed for the night, as I did shortly thereafter.

Once again, wind, air pressure, the house settling or my imagination cannot do that.

This would be the end of this blog post if it hadn’t been for last night’s (March 23, 2025) incident.

It was around 11:30 p.m. I was continuing the writing of this blog post when overhead I clearly heard the sound of unmistakable footsteps. Shaun was upstairs asleep. Winston the cat was on his favorite loveseat upstairs asleep. Neither of them sound anywhere even close to these particular footsteps. There were 4 steps, right overhead of where I was sitting, so probably either in the smaller spare bedroom or just out into the hall at the top of the stairs. Within 15 minutes, I went upstairs to go to bed and did not hear or see anything further.

It is interesting that footsteps have become a more common event within the last two years in our house. Growing up here, there was lots of other paranormal activity but I don’t recall footsteps being encountered by anyone. When my mother lived here alone, she never reported hearing any either, but her hearing had started to fail so it’s hard to say if she just wasn’t hearing it, or if they weren’t happening then.

The other interesting thing about the footsteps when I hear them is that they are always very clearly footsteps, either overhead (upstairs) or on the stairs. It never sounds like someone in sock feet, which would be quite faint. It is always the sound of actual shoes on the floor.

When Scott was about five years old and we lived here for awhile, that year on Christmas Eve, he heard Santa Claus walking around in the living room. He excitedly told us the next morning that he woke up in the middle of the night and could hear Santa walking around downstairs in his big boots. When most children report something like this, you can chalk it up to their imagination.

In this house? Not so much.

NSPE Newsletters

This Is What Goes On Inside a 150 Year Old Closet

 

I had not intended to write another blog post just on the heels of last week’s, but there have been developments in relation to that topic so here we are.

Today we are going to talk about doors. Not the Jim Morrison kind; the kind that allow you to go from one room to another.

I had previously done a blog post about doors some years ago as there has been plenty of ongoing activity involving doors in our haunted house over the years.

Some of these incidents include:

• Doors opening by themselves
• Doors closing by themselves
• Door slamming by themselves
• Bangs on doors (loud bangs, not normal sounding knocks)
• Doors that could not be opened no matter how much force was exerted (as if someone was preventing it from opening)

These are just off the top of my head. Here is the previous blog post if you want to check it out:

 Knock Knock, Whos There?

As per the usual order of operations, I report on a ghostly encounter but also include a scientific possibility for what happened to the best of my ability. I do this because I want to ensure I have no other explanation for what has happened besides “ghost”, and also because the skeptics and cynics will think or say things like: ‘A door can’t move on its own. It was probably the wind or air pressure’.

I am not against skeptical thinking. But I’ve lived here long enough to know without a doubt that ghosts exist. And unless you have seen, heard or experienced one, I know how hard it must be to believe in the concept. Therefore, I will consider the skeptical viewpoints and  provide counter-reasons why “ghost” is probably the answer and “wind or air pressure” is not.

Which brings me to the doors. This house was built in 1871. Every door, with the exception of the main front door and the back door, are original. You can imagine how many layers of paint are on them. SO many that a lot of the doors do not close tight like a door in a house that has been recently built. I love these old doors with their old glass and ceramic knobs. They add a lot of character to a heritage home.

One of the doors in question is the one that goes from the kitchen to the dining room. It stays open most of the time as there is generally no need to close it. During recent renovations, Shaun shaved off some of the paint layers and it now closes properly should the need arise. However, for many many years this was not the case and if you attempted to actually close the door 100%, it would not. You’d be left with a 4 inch gap due to paint layers.

Why am I mentioning this? Because when my mother was still living here, there was the odd day here and there when she would be in the kitchen and watched that door close.

One day, it forcefully slammed shut. Remember how I said it could never really close all the way? It did on that day. A few minutes later, it re-opened on its own.

There was no other person in the house at the time of these incidents.

Which brings us to other plausible explanations we have to consider:

-Wind

-Air pressure

 Let’s look at the wind: It’s outside. On the days of the dining room door closing and slamming shut, no windows were open. I checked with my mother on that one. Let’s add to this the fact that only the window in the kitchen door was open-able by her but as I just said, it was not open during these events. Other windows in the house, at that time, were still pretty much “painted shut”, a favorite thing to do throughout the years for some reason. So with all windows closed, the outside wind could not be inside the house and blow a door shut. Or slam it. Or re-open it.

Other plausible cause: Air pressure. I won’t pretend to know all the scientific ins and outs of how air pressure flows through a house but I know the general properties of it. Heat and cold moving through air currents can potentially fluctuate through rooms in your house but I can hardly imagine it would do so at the rate required to close (and then re-open) or slam a door.

And as written about before, we have known beyond any doubt that we have ghosts. So put all that together and the opening, closing, re-opening and slamming of doors is most likely paranormal.

This brings me to the event that happened on this past Monday, March 10. The Saturday before (March 8) I had posted the latest blog post and mentioned at the end of that about the bang on the inside of an upstairs closet door.

Refresh your memory here: LINK

I shrugged it off as another ghostly encounter, which is a pretty normal thing for me to do.

So that Monday night, I decided I was going to sleep in that spare bedroom (the one with the aforementioned closet) because Shaun had some cold virus thing going on that I wanted to avoid by whichever means necessary. I considered the closet door noise but decided not getting sick outweighs any paranormal activity. Plus, what are the chances of additional noises coming from the closet? Pretty much nil, I decided, so I got in bed and closed my eyes around midnight.

The house was quiet. About 5 minutes had gone by when the exact same bang noise hit the inside of that closet door. Again.

I looked towards it. The door had not opened. The old fashioned latch had not popped up. It was just one fairly loud bang on the inside of that door.

So I did what any reasonable person would do in this situation: I picked up my favorite pillow and went back to my own bed. Hey-- a girl has to get some shut eye so she can work the next day.

In the morning, I glanced in that bedroom at the closet door. The latch was now popped open and the door was ajar a few inches. This had to have happened after I left the room.

Fortunately, our bedroom has had no paranormal events happening in it since we moved in 1.5 years ago, which is strange because when I was growing up here and even years later when we would visit, it was one of the most haunted rooms in the house. When I moved in, my little speech (“Hey ghosts! This is MY house now. I don’t want to see you at the foot of my bed in the middle of the night so if you could not do that, that’d be great.” ) probably made an impact on the spirits and they drifted to other favorite areas of the house.

Shaun and I had a good look at the closet and its door since these two events transpired. We’ve tried to replicate noises inside the closet that could possibly explain what happened, but nothing else explains what happened because both times it was CLEARLY someone or something making a bang on the inside of the door. It doesn’t take a genius to know what that sounds like, especially when you are just several feet away from the door in question.

The bedroom this door is in is supposed to become our bedroom after some minor renovations are complete. I don’t know why I agreed to this….besides the bangs on the closet door, this room also has a door that leads out into the hallway and another that leads into the large walk-in creepy attic. These doors have also been seen opening and closing on their own.

Should be some interesting days and nights ahead.

Nova Scotia Paranormal Events Newsletters

If You Could Just Return My Things From The Afterlife, Stop Stomping Around In My House and Butting Into My Phone Calls, That’d Be Great

 

There are two things you should know about me before I tell you of the events of February 18, 2025:

1.       Long ago, I was a hairdresser.

2.       I don’t lose or misplace things. I know where my stuff is 24-7 and am completely organized at all times. It’s a gift. If something of mine is missing, someone took it.

Another factoid you should be aware of is that off and on throughout the years, stuff has gone missing in our house just out of the blue with no explanation. This has happened many times to many family members. Most of the time, the items came back eventually, usually in a weird place. I am not referring to the “Where did I put my car keys?” or “I lost my earrings” or ‘a sibling took your favorite sweatshirt when you weren’t looking’ types of occurrences. 

 I am talking about “I JUST laid (item A) on the table and now it’s not there” types of things----the types of incidents that there is just no logical explanation for.

 When you live in a real haunted house, you can’t call ‘ghost’ for everything that happens. You have to stop and think about what else could have been the cause. You look for all of the explanations and when you have eliminated everything else, maybe ghost is the answer. Lots of times it is.

Every time ghost was the answer, it was written about in this blog.

When ghost was not the answer, I didn’t even mention it because, who cares?

 A few of the more interesting times that ghosts swiped stuff:

The Reappearance

History of the Homestead

When “ghost” was the answer, we usually attributed missing items to the child-ghost, Willie. If you have read the blog, you know Willie lived here in the 1800’s and died in this very house from measles when he was 5 years old. No doubt his funeral was held in what is now my living room. This was very common in the 1800's. We attributed the missing items to his shenanigans because it seemed like something a mischievous little kid would do.

How do we know Willie is a ghost in our house?

Because I have seen him.

In all his ethereal glory.

In the middle of the night.

150 years after he died.

I can’t say for sure he is the one who takes our things. I can’t say for sure it is only him. It could be another spirit entirely because again, if you read the blog, you know we have more than one ghost.

But I can tell you with 100% certainty that many of the times household items disappeared, a ghost was to blame.

Which brings me to the incidents of February 18^th.

I had just gotten up and was about to start the coffee brewing. Shaun had been up before me and came into the kitchen looking for the coffee he just made a moment before. It was nowhere to be found. He literally made a coffee, put it down on the counter, walked away, came back half a minute later and it was gone, mug and all.

This is inconvenient for two reasons: 1) He really wanted that coffee and now has to make another one. 2) I have a huge collection of favorite coffee mugs and do not want any of them disappearing.

 We searched the entire downstairs. No coffee.

The only other living presence in the house is Winston the cat and last I checked, he can’t pick up a coffee mug.

We shrugged it off; Shaun made a new coffee and that was that.

I fired up my computer and put in a day’s work. Shortly after 4 pm, I had planned on taking a shower. Before doing so, I was in our bedroom and opened a dresser drawer I had designated to hold a bunch of old hair-related stuff (curling irons, brushes, and various cosmetic accoutrements).

I know what you’re thinking: the coffee cup was in there. No, it wasn’t but that would have been quite the story!

Anyway, I have always kept a plastic bag in that drawer with some haircutting items in it as I still do the occasional haircut and as previously mentioned, I keep the drawer organized so I know where everything is when I need it.

Sidenote: do not contact me for a haircut.

Imagine my surprise to find the bag missing. A couple of “what the f..’s” later, I was searching every drawer, cabinet, and night stand in the room, even under the bed, but the bag was nowhere to be found.

You might assume that I must have just put it somewhere else after I had it the last time. NO. I put everything back where it belongs every time. For this very reason.

I searched the entire upstairs. Twice. Every closet, room, shelf, nook and cranny and came up empty handed.

I tried to think when I had it last. It was about a month ago to cut my son’s hair. I know I put the stuff back in the bag and put the bag back where it goes. If for some weirdo reason I did not put the bag back in the dresser drawer, within that month, I would have come across it somewhere in this house. Yet, I did not.

Of course, I questioned Shaun. He knows what the bag looks like. It’s probably the last plastic Sobeys bag in existence. He had not laid eyes on it recently or moved it.

I searched the downstairs. Twice. Every room, space, shelf or cabinet you can think of. Behind furniture. Under furniture. No bag.

It is gone. And because the only other person who lives here has not seen it, and again, as you know, the cat has no hands to carry things with, AND based on the previous incidents where we know without a doubt that a ghost confiscated something, I call ‘ghost’ on this one.

So after a few more “What the “bleep”s, Willie? This isn’t funny anymore!”, I gave my son a call to let him know Willie was up to his old tricks again. Scott had been on the receiving end of Willie’s nonsense more than once over the years.

I’d like to interject here and remind you that within the last year, on two occasions when I was talking to Scott on the phone, an unknown voice had interrupted our conversation. Neither of the voices were heard by Scott but they were definitely heard by me and were coming directly from IN the phone.

 The Phone Phantoms

So while talking to Scott that day on the phone, about one minute into our conversation (he on his cell phone, me on my landline), I heard another voice.

These voices on the phone are bordering on ridiculous now.

Once? Okay, ghosts like to use phones to try to communicate. It happened to my mother. It’s happened to many people around the world. Google it.

Twice? Well, since it worked so well the first time, I guess they thought they’d give it another shot.

But THREE times? Come on!

Yet that’s exactly what happened.

The voice said one word, sharply and loudly. It sounded like,” Aaaaannnnnn!!!” It didn’t sound deep, like a man’s voice. It was more like a female or a child perhaps.

I got goosebumps immediately, thinking back to the other times this has happened.

I said to Scott, “Did you just hear that?”

He said, “I sure did. What the **** was THAT?”

I could only venture a guess: another unknown entity getting in on our conversation…?

To Scott, it sounded like it was in the room with ME, yelling out. To me, it sounded like it was right in the phone.

Who was it and what exactly was it trying to say? I can’t say for sure. We heard nothing odd after that and talked for a good ten minutes.

This only happens when I am talking to Scott, and obviously not every single time we talk. It is also not the same phone for all 3 calls. The first time it happened, I was using the kitchen extension. The other 2 times, I was on the upstairs extension.

As discussed on another post, it is not common for lines and signals to get mixed up these days between a cell and a landline.

And even if that were the case, you would think you’d hear more sensible   sentences instead of the shrieks and squawky words I’ve been hearing. (However, the first time it occurred, it was a man saying a clear sentence in a slow voice).

Recently I learned that other voices coming across during phone calls can happen if one user is using headphones or Bluetooth. This was not the case in any of our calls.

I also discovered cordless phones can pick up the frequency of another nearby device (baby monitors, radio signals, etc.) which results in unaccounted-for noises on a phone and it is possible for only one side of the conversation to hear it. However, the voice on this particular day and the incident before it a few weeks ago, weren’t even decipherable. If my phone was picking up someone else’s legitimate voice, one would assume you could understand it. But no, we could not.

Based on this information, I can’t say for sure this is ghost or paranormal-related. But it is a fact I live in a haunted house and it is a fact a spirt has without a doubt made contact with my mother through the telephone once before.

Therefore, I will leave this filed under “Not Sure What This Is” until a deceased person I know calls me and clearly identifies themselves. Maybe Willie could call me: “Hi Rebecca, this is Willie. I have your coffee cup and hairdressing bag. I’ll bring them back when I am done with them.”

THAT would be good but I am not holding my breath. Ghosts never do what you want.

UPDATE: Today is March 8, 2025. The bag containing the haircutting items and the missing cup of coffee have not turned up.

January and February and the early days of March graced us with a few other paranormal events….you know, the usual ghosty stuff:

One day in early January, I was working at my desk. A floral perfume scent wafted throughout my work area, concentrating all around me. It lasted about 2 minutes then was gone. I was not wearing perfume or anything scented. Nothing had been sprayed in the room. I wasn’t doing laundry in the laundry room. There was just no explanation for it. This has happened a few times over the years in the house, to myself and others.

Mid-January, I was home alone again, working. Shaun had gone out. In the afternoon I heard fairly loud noises from the kitchen/dining room area. I assumed Shaun had come back, although the noises did not really sound like the door being unlocked/opened. It sounded more like someone had set a bunch of things down on a table or floor....that kind of general noise. I went to investigate, still   thinking it was Shaun arriving home. It was not. No one was there and nothing was out of place.

Another day not long after that, I had worked all day. Nothing unusual happened all day until around 5:00. I had been upstairs post-shower and when I came down and walked into the kitchen, a terrible smell just hit me in the face. The only way I can describe it is a perfume from 100 years ago was left to rot and go rancid and now it was in my kitchen. I could tell it was perfume but it smelled ancient, spoiled and very old. It was quite awful.

Shaun was home at this point and also walked into the kitchen. I asked him what the heck that smell was. He couldn't smell anything odd. He had a wood fire going in the stove at that point so I asked if he put something weird in the stove. He hadn't. It lasted a few moments then faded away. About 20 minutes later I could smell it again just as strong. Again, he could not smell it at all.

The day before, he had removed some moldings around doorways in the kitchen, as part of the ongoing kitchen reno. I am inclined to believe my very nosy grandmother who died in 1981 but has been seen in the house over the years since her death, may have been around to check out what is going on in her house and she is still wearing her old Avon perfume from 1930-whatever. Wouldn't surprise me one bit. I can't say for sure it was her; I am just venturing a guess here.

I also tend to think she may be responsible for the noises that are constantly heard in the dining room when no one is in there. My mother heard these dining room noises for years. I assume it is my grandmother because she spent most of every day in that room, in her rocking chair looking out the window. Mostly she wanted to see the mailman come and eyeball her son’s house just down the road as much as possible.

I have no doubt I will walk into the dining room one day (or night) and she will be there. It’s only a matter of time. For extra fun, let’s make it around 2 a.m. when I get up to go to the bathroom and the house is dark and she is sitting by the window. Good times.

The last week of January, there were also some unaccounted-for footsteps incidents.

On one particular day, I was in my bedroom upstairs. I heard quick footsteps come up the stairs or go down--I couldn't tell which way. It was not on every single step.. just a few.

I opened the door and looked at the stairs but saw nothing. The cat was asleep in the living room and I was home alone.

On January 31^st, it was around 11:00 pm. Shaun was asleep upstairs. Winston (the cat) and I were in the living room. The house was quiet. I heard footsteps---clearly upstairs but not right over my head so I assumed they came from our bedroom and also assumed Shaun was getting up for whatever reason. The footsteps stopped. I listened to try to figure out what was going on. Since there were no more, I figured he got out of bed for something then went back to bed. A moment later, I heard them again. Same amount of steps, still coming from upstairs in either our bedroom or possibly the hallway. Once again, I figured Shaun was getting up. The steps stopped and I did not hear any more. The next morning I asked him if he had been up around 11:00. He told me he never got out of bed. And while he was sleeping, he also never heard the footsteps. They were pretty loud and heavy, as if made by an adult. They were definitely footstep sounds on an upstairs floor.

Since that occurrence, I have also heard a few more additional incidents of footsteps upstairs when I have either been alone in the house, with the cat accounted for, or Shaun was already in bed and not gotten up (confirmed by me).

The footsteps overhead and on the stairs are becoming common occurrences. It is no use to investigate when I hear them because they usually only last for a few seconds.

Do they bother me? Not particularly. I just find them super interesting. I would love to get a look at the sources, which, in the last year and a half, have remained invisible.

As long as they stay quiet while I am trying to sleep, we’re good.

Additional footnote: Just a few hours ago I was upstairs in one of the spare bedrooms cleaning up. This particular bedroom has a large walk in closet with a door that is closed at all times. There are some clothes and seasonal decor stored in there. I was rearranging some items in the bedroom when I heard a large bang on the inside of that closet door. It was not something falling over (everything is placed in there so nothing could easily fall). It actually sounded like someone banging against the closed door from the inside. 

I don't know why my mind went to Willie, but it did. I told him he was welcome to come out. 

Nova Scotia Paranormal Events Newsletters

How Many Ghosts Have We Actually Seen?

 

The question I get asked the most (besides, “Is that your real hair color?”) is, “Seen any ghosts lately?” Sure, I get the usual, “How are you?” “What have you been up to?” And ..”Where is it you work again?” But the most often asked question is- if I have seen any ghosts recently. In my entire life, I have actually only seen three ghosts in our haunted house (plus two ghosts captured in a photo taken by me). One was in broad day light, another was a cliched middle-of-the-night encounter, and there was also a weird black shadow ghost, which I will recap below. Considering the number of years I have lived here, I, too, am surprised the number is not higher. 

I have heard a lot of unexplained, crazy, ridiculous things starting when I was little kid, and still do to this day, but actual sightings are few and far between unfortunately. 

But I am not alone in this. 

I’ve tried to determine the number of people (not to be confused with the number of incidents) who have either definitely seen or heard a ghost in our house or saw some anomaly happening at a specific moment that could only be attributed to spirit interaction. The magic number is 14.  This includes family, friends and visitors. There could be more that I am not aware of. 

Fourteen may not seem like a lot but it’s not like this place is a Halloween fun house with non-stop paranormal activity. It happens when it happens. You can’t make it happen. You can’t wish it into existence. The ancient Ouija board that we kept in a cupboard with the Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit games cannot conjure up the dead. Well, most of the time it can’t. 

Regardless, I wanted to reiterate that I am not the only one to have seen and heard things. And while hearing ghosts in various areas of your house can be startling, seeing them is on a whole different level entirely. 

My mother, who had lived in the house longer than any other family member is the one who saw the most. We don’t know if she saw the most because she just could, or because she spent the longest amount of time in the house.  

She also often heard unexplained things, saw doors slam shut, saw doors fly open, saw things disappear and reappear in odd places, saw strange lights (attributed to the phantom car—look that one up on the blog if you haven’t already), smelled unusual things, and received a phone call from her dead mother, just to name a few.  We discussed it a lot over the years, examining the topic from all viewpoints of why doesn’t everyone see or hear ghosts and can one person be more susceptible to it than others. We theorized a lot on this topic but of course, could not definitely say one way or the other. Our discussions usually ended with one or both of us saying, “Well, we’ll all find out someday.” 

By the time we find out the real answer to this, we’re already in the afterlife. 

The following is a compilation of actual real ghost SIGHTINGS in our house, in case you have wondered how many times one has appeared. 

The compiled list of ghosts were determined to be REAL ghosts and not something else that could be more easily explained. The witnesses were 100% sane, sober, wide awake, completely alert and sensible. Incidentally, people who have been in the house and were NOT 100% sane, sober, wide awake, completely alert and sensible never reported seeing anything unusual pertaining to the paranormal realm. 

Ghosts Seen By My Mother 

The Doorstep Ghost: One summer day a few years back, she was sitting on the doorstep in her lawn chair. She insists she was wide awake and had not dozed off. Suddenly a man appeared on the lawn a few feet from the doorstep. He just simply materialized out of thin air. He came walking towards where she was sitting and sat down on the doorstep very close to her. She did not recognize him. She noticed he was wearing a red and yellow Hawaiian shirt and a ball cap and was smoking a cigarette. He did not say anything to her but he looked up at her and smiled and shortly after disappeared as quickly as he had appeared. 

The Soldier Ghost:  She had also seen a man dressed in an old soldier's uniform appear in the living room. His uniform was dark blue with a bit of red on it and he also wore gloves. He looked straight at her and smiled before fading away. 

These are two great examples of an “intelligent haunting’, in which a ghost/spirit will directly interact with a person; in these cases, looking at and smiling at my mother, as if to greet her or acknowledge her presence. It is pretty rare as most ghosts stick to being residual, which is more of a playback of a ghost appearing and not paying any attention to you. 

The Ghost Girl in the Pantry:  Another time, while sitting at her kitchen table, she happened to look up towards the pantry, which is just off the kitchen. There stood a little girl with blond hair in a little dress. The child paid no attention to my mother and after a moment faded away. 

The Ghost Lady in the Living Room: One night while watching tv in the living room, a woman in an old-fashioned house dress suddenly materialized near the tv. My mother reported that this lady just stared off towards the wall, again not interacting with her in any way. Like the others, she quickly disappeared. 

As previously mentioned, the girl in the pantry and the ghost lady are classified as residual hauntings. They appear as if you are seeing them in a playback of a time gone by. They may not even see you looking at them and are possibly showing up as if it is imprinted in time. Neither of them spoke or made a sound. 

The Shadow Ghost: Once again in the pantry, my mother watched a large black shadowy mass standing there for a few minutes. It made no sound and disappeared after a short time. These are known as ‘shadow people’ or ‘shadow ghosts’, for obvious reasons. They generally do not have faces and limbs and do not resemble humans very much. They are reportedly common. 

Ghosts Seen By My Son 

Scott’s Great-Grandmother:  When Scott was around the age of 15, he spent the weekend at the house with his grandmother (my mother). He was in an upstairs bedroom using a computer one night when he heard pacing back and forth just outside his door in the hallway. Knowing no living person was walking around in the hallway, he realized what it could be, given the history of the house. He attempted to ignore it but the pacing on the old creaky floor continued. He looked towards the partially opened bedroom door and saw his great-grandmother (Lizzie) standing there staring at him hatefully. She died in 1981. This sighting happened approximately 2010. He described her appearance as a dark figure with a lit-up outline. He had seen enough pictures of her over the years to know who was standing before him. Naturally freaked out, he once again looked back at his computer screen. When he looked back at the door again, she was gone. Shortly after, he went downstairs to inform his grandmother that her mother was upstairs a few moments ago. 

Sidenote: the hallway pacing has also been heard on two other occasions; once by Scott’s girlfriend/now-wife, and once also by me. It’s creepy as heck and tends to go on for several minutes. 

Scott’s Great-Grandmother Returns:   A few years later, Scott was living at the house to help his grandmother out and also because he worked in a nearby town. One particular night, he had worked a night shift and arrived home just as dawn was beginning to break. He pulled his car in and parked it facing towards the house as he usually did. He glanced towards the house and could clearly see a woman in the kitchen standing near the fridge and then she moved towards the pantry. Assuming his grandmother was up, although it would be odd at that hour for her to do so, he unlocked the door and entered the kitchen. No one was there. He checked on his grandmother who was sound asleep in her bed. As the ghost he had seen looked like an older lady, we assume it was likely his great-grandmother (my grandmother, Lizzie) showing up yet again. 

Ghost Seen By My Aunt 

Lizzie Strikes Again: For many years, I had an aunt and uncle who spent their summers with us. They always slept in the spare bedroom. Incidentally, this was the bedroom with the most paranormal activity in it. Such activity included the bed continually messed up after making it and re-making it, bangs on the wall that adjoined to another bedroom, the locked door becoming unlocked, etc. 

My mom always warned my aunt and uncle about this but they didn’t seem to mind sleeping there. They never experienced anything out of the usual until one night, sometime during the ‘80s. My aunt got up one morning and told my mother she woke up in the middle of the night and much to her surprise my grandmother (Lizzie), who died in 1981, was standing by the bed with her arms outstretched towards her. She appeared solid, like a living person and did not speak. She faded away after a few minutes. My uncle slept through the whole thing. 

Ghosts Seen By My Nephew 

Lizzie, Part 4:  One of my nephews was visiting one weekend when he was about 5 years old. I do not think he was aware of anything paranormal in the house as we did not talk about such things around children in the family so as not to scare them. Only my nephew, his father and my mother were in the house. He came down from upstairs and asked my mother (his grandmother) who the old lady was upstairs in the spare bedroom, sitting on the bed petting the cat. My mother showed him a picture of her mother (Lizzie) and my nephew stated that was the lady he just saw upstairs. 

Another Bedroom Ghost: On another occasion when my nephew visited, he was sleeping in another upstairs bedroom. He was about 5 or 6 years old. He remembers he woke up and there was an old lady standing next to the bed. He blinked and then she was gone. 

Sidenote: My grandmother was born in our house in 1891 and spent most of her life in it. She was very adamant about never leaving it, confirmed by the fact that sometimes she is still seen on the premises. 

Ghost Seen By My Brother 

Ghost Girl in the Bedroom: My brother reported this to my mother at the time it happened. He was a teenager hanging out in his bedroom and saw a girl with long brown hair. She did not  interact with him and disappeared into thin air. Of my three brothers, to my knowledge only this one has actually seen a ghost in our house, although the other two have had other paranormal experiences here. 

Ghosts Seen By Me 

Another Shadow Ghost: When I was about 17, I was in our living room and happened to look out into the hallway. It was early evening and still daylight so everything was well lit and visible inside the house. In the hall at the bottom of the stairs, I saw a large shadowy shapeless black figure.  I can’t say what it was made up of, but it looked more opaque than a smokey substance but not solid like a person. It did not have the shape of a typical human. It made no noise and did not interact. It was there only briefly and disappeared after a few seconds. 

Above, in the section of what my mother had seen, she also reported a Shadow Ghost many years after I saw this one. 

Dude in the Upstairs Hallway: Quite a few years ago, I was wallpapering the largest bedroom upstairs. In addition to my work items constantly disappearing and reappearing during that endeavor, I also had the pleasure of a ghost watching me work. On one particular day, I was about to clean up for the day. The door to the hallway was open and I was in the bedroom admiring my work (hey, it looked damn good!) when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. There was a man standing in the hallway looking into the bedroom. 

 Normally this would not be a big deal as I was married at the time. However, my husband was away and only my mother and I were in the house and she was downstairs at that moment. I was completely taken aback and I think I even gasped. The man appeared solid and alive. He was standing staring intently at me with his arms crossed. He had dark hair, probably middle aged and wore a white shirt and dark pants. He made no sound. I looked at him for a few moments and then he was gone. Did he like the wallpaper? I have no idea. 

The Ghost of Willie: We lived here in the year 2000 for a few years and the re-wallpapered bedroom I just mentioned was my bedroom. My son, Scott, slept just across the hall in a   smaller room. He was 5 at the time. Scott’s dad was away for work. This particular night, I had been asleep for awhile when the action of my bedroom door opening awoke me. Thinking it was Scott, I turned my lamp on and asked what he was doing up. In the somewhat dim light, I could see it was not Scott.  

The child in question giggled, turned and ran back out into the hall. Still trying to convince myself it MUST be Scott because no other children lived there, I quickly got up to follow him as the top of the stairs was only steps away and he could go tumbling down in the dark. 

Once I was in the hall, no one else was visible. No children. No giggling. Nothing. I stepped into Scott’s room where he was still fast asleep. And yes, I checked that he was actually asleep and not trying to pull a prank. 

I am pretty sure this was Willie. Willie was an ancestor who died from measles in our house at the age of 5 in approximately 1873, just a few years after the house was built by his father, Simeon Joudrey, my great-great-grandfather. 

So those are our 14 real, actual ghost sightings. My grandmother (Lizzie) dominates the scene as you can see but there were lots of others, most who remain unknown to us. 

When I get to 15, 16, 17 and so on, you’ll be the first to know. 

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