My Parents House

From: Debbie Allen (jaime@thevision.net)
Story type: Ghost
Location: Atascadero,Ca
Source: Form Submission

My parents bought an older home in the early 90's in Atascadero,Ca. The house had been built in 1912 by one of the founding fathers of the town. My parents were unaware of the history of the house until after they had moved in.

It seems that after the original owners sold the property, the house was used as a rental for many years but the house was never occupied by renters for a very long time. The house had been vacant for years before my parents bought it.

My family and I would come to visit several times a year. I always had the feeling that something was watching me but I dismissed this feeling as an over active imagination. It wasn't until years later that my children told me that they had wierd feelings about the house and they felt silly about mentioning this to me.

My encounter took place on a visit in the summer of 1991. My husband and I were sleeping in the downstairs front bedroom. I was awakened by the sound of children and splashing water in the bathroom directly down the hall from the bedroom. I thought that my two daughters had gotten up early and were getting ready for our departure that morning. I was upset with the noise and went to the bathroom to hush the girls up.

However when I opened the door the silence was deafning and the room was empty! I was shocked as I had expected to see my daughters in the bathroom. I could't understand what was going on but I was so spooked that I couldn't go back to bed. I went across the livingroom to the diningroom to the kitchen near the stairs.

As my water was heating for tea I heard the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. I couldn't see who was coming down the stairs but I again assumed it was my daughters as I heard giggling. I heard the footsteps go across the livingroom and into the second bedroom next to the bathroom. I also heard the door to the bedroom close and I told the girls to get dressed and I would get their breakfast.

After making breakfast, I wondered what was keeping the girls so long so I went to the bedroom door to hurry them along. Imagine my suprise when I opened the door and found the bedroom completely empty. I didn't know what to think so I thought that I had better find out where my daughters really were. I went up the stairs to the bedroom where they had been sleeping.

To my amazement both of my daughters and my son were still in the bedroom fast asleep. I woke them up and there was no doubt in my mind that the children were totally asleep and they could not have been the children that I had heard that morning.

When I told my father what had happened he said that I had imagined the whole thing. My mother said that she didn't doubt my experience because she had some wierd experiences herself.It seems that every night about 10:30 my mothers dog would sit at the foot of the stairs and " watch " something comin down the stairs. Of course my parents never saw anybody coming down the stairs.

My father was in the diningroom one evening and my mother had gone into the kitchen. My father felt somebody touch his shoulder and since my mother was the only other person in the house he assumed that it was her. He turned around and there was nobody there. About that time my mother walked in from the other room .

Objects would often disappear only to appear again in another area of the house. I saw this happen once when my mother bought some old linens and placed them on the diningroom table. Later that day she was looking for the linens to put them away but the linens were no longer on the table. My mother asked everybody in the house if they had moved the linens but nobody had. The next day the linens appeared on an upstairs dresser and my mother swore that she had never taken the linens upstairs.

There were other incidents while my parents were in the house but they never felt threatened and they thought it was neat to have something unexplained in the house.

My parents moved about three years ago. The odd thing is that the next owners didn't last in the house very long and the house again stood empty.