House Falling Apart

Name:            Aimee Bolender
Email:           AimeeBol@aol.com
Location:        West side of Columbus, OH
Type:            Ghost
Date:            Wednesday, October 11, 2000
Time:            04:12 PM

When I was fourteen I lived in an old large white house on Sullivant Ave. on the west side of Columbus. I had several ghostly experiences while I lived there. At the time, I convinced myself that there was some other explaination for them.

For instance one day I was getting some things out of the attic for my mother. When I got up there, I had an eerie spooky feeling. I got cold chills and the hairs on my arms stood straight up, yet the attic was not cold. Actually the attic was stiffling hot. I just told myself that I had nothing to be afraid of, afterall it was just an attic and my mom was right downstairs. After climbing the tiny stair case and inching through the crawl space, I reached the top of the attic where I had room enough to stand. At the very instant that I stood up, a rustling breeze went through the attic and rustled everything that was not tied down or in boxes. Ofcourse I immediately high-tailed it back through that crawl space as fast as I could, screaming "mom, mom" all of the way down. My mother tried to convince me to go back up. She explaned that a window must be open, and that was even more of a reason to go up and shut it. However, I would not go up again alone.

When she went up, there was no window open. As a matter of fact there were only two small windows side by side and both were nailed shut. My mother assured me it was safe and wanted me to come up and help her bring down some things. I went up and brought a load back down. On my way back down my mother screamed. I ran back up only to meet her trying to get through the crawl space. She informed me that she draped material in front of the window for curtains. When she headed back down, two bats flew at her head and as she looked back into the attic the material came up and off of the window. She swore that the material did not simply fall. We immediately shut the door. Later, my dad investigated, but he did not see any bats even though the door was never opened and the windows were still nailed shut

Afterwards, on different occasions we heard thumps and the sound of something dragging on that attic floor. The shower in the basement often turned on and off by itself. We had grapevines in the back yard, and we tried to tear them out many times, only to find that they would grow back at an alarming rate of only two days. Cold drafts were also often felt in various places in the house with and without the feeling of a male presence.

These things occured at irregular times without much frequency, and we all had various explainations. We thought maybe the house was just old and settling and that there must be a hole in the attic or roof somewhere. Since the house was old we figured it was supposed to be drafty and that grape vine plants were naturally hardy. Furthermore, we concluded that the presence we felt was just our imagination. The next thing that happened was not a figment of my imagination and still has me perplexed and wondering to this day.

One evening I came home entering the back door. As I shut the door the kitchen cabinet crashed to the floor. I was extemely scared so I left and went to a friend's. I did not return until I called home and knew that my mother would be there. She tried to convince me that the nails were just worn out and they could not hold the huge 36X64 cabinet. However, I saw it and I still am not sure. The cabinet did not just fall or slide down the wall. Instead it landed in the center of the kitchen face down. It cleared the counter top without scapping it. The nails were still in the cabinet and not in the wall. Furthermore, the nail holes in the wall were smooth, not jagged, and the nails fit snuggly back into the holes. So it was not as if the cabinet had been working its way out. Additionally, the cabinet hit with such a force that broken particles flew into the ajoining living room and stuck directly into the farthest wall. Was the house falling apart or was it haunted?