My Haunted (?) House

Name:            Kelly
Email:           Kellyim@hotmail.com
Location:        Tucson, AZ
Anonymous:       No
Type:            Ghost
Date:            Tuesday, December 07, 1999
Time:            04:26 PM

I have a few scattered stories about the house in which I grew up in Tucson, Arizona.

My parents bought our house when I was about 7 years old. It was only about ten years old and we knew an elderly couple had lived in the house before they died. The woman's name was Ella. Right after buying the house, my mom went over to clean up and get everything ready for us to move in. She was there for a Saturday and the whole time she felt as if someone was watching her. Finally, she stopped cleaning and said out loud "Ella, don't worry. We'll take care of your house." The feeling went away and she never again felt anyone in the house with her.

I, however, had a couple other experiences that I could not explain. The first one happened only a year or two after moving in. When I was about 8 or 9 a friend and I used to make up stories and pretend newscasts and record them on my tape recorder. One night we were giggling and giving fake news reports onto a blank tape. Later that night, we played back the tape to listen to it, and right in the middle of one of our stories, we heard a scream on the tape. It sounded like it was coming from outside, but neither of us could remember hearing a scream while we were recording. We rewound it and listened a few more times, and sure enough, a muted scream could be heard on the tape each time we listened. We figured we were just too involved in our stories and that we missed hearing the scream while we were recording. A few days later I played the tape for my mom and the scream was gone. Mine and my friend's voices were still on the tape, but the scream we had heard several times was gone.

Several years later, there was another occurrence. I was lying on my bed, reading, facing my bedroom door, with my cat curled up beside me. I heard the front door, which was located at the bottom of the stairs open, and footsteps run up the stairs and down the hall toward my door. It sounded like they stopped right in my doorway. I couldn't see anything, but my cat had woken up and was standing next to me, her eyes glued to the doorway. I felt a little spooked and got up and closed the door. It turned and the footsteps went down the hall, ran down the stairs, and back out the front door. A few minutes later, after I gathered up my courage, I opened my door and went downstairs to see if there was any explanation. I went into the family room (on the opposite side of the house from the front door) where my parents were sitting watching TV, and asked them if they had heard footsteps, or if they had come upstairs a few minutes before. They said no to both questions.

The last thing that happened was when I was 17. I was home alone and was practicing the piano in the living room and I heard footsteps upstairs. The living room was where the front door was and my piano was located at the bottom of the stairs. My bedroom was right above the living room and whenever anyone was in the room they could always be heard below by whoever was in the living room. I stopped playing and a few seconds later the footsteps stopped. I started playing again and the footsteps started goign around my room again. I stopped; the footsteps stopped a few seconds later. By that time, I was scared, so I headed toward the back door, figuring if someone came down the stairs I could run out the door and over to the neighbor's house. I stood there for about 10 minutes and didn't hear anything from upstairs. Finally, I walked upstairs to see if anything was amiss. There was no one up there, the cat was downstairs with me, and there was no evidence of anyone having been on the second floor.

I found out when I was 14 or so that my room had been Ella's room. I never felt any malevolent feelings from whatever presence was in our house. I like to think that it was Ella checking in from time to time.