Renovation Ghosts

This was based on a true story. Something that happened to me and my family.

It was close to the end of the pandemic, and during the pandemic, we had to renovate a house for us to move in temporarily. I was sixteen, and my mental health wasn’t at its peak at the time. I mean, moving during the pandemic, it wasn’t pleasant.

We all had to help with the renovations or with babysitting my baby sister. The house we were renovating wasn’t very creepy at first. It was an old Victorian house, with asbestos and cartoon stuffed animals, but it wasn’t too bad. I was used to old houses. 

We tore down the kitchen. My brother found what I first thought of as a dried up pepper. It was actually a petrified mouse. Gross. My dad also found a gun in the wall. It was a shotgun covered in plastic. He kept the gun, and we started making jokes about it.

I’ll tell you a little bit of the history of the house that we moved in, at least, from what I remember. It was at least a hundred years old, and it used to be some sort of church. Which explained the heightened shelves in the living room. Also, there was an old man that lived there who apparently didn’t like members of my church. So that was great. I was kind of used to that, so I was like: “Okay, whatever.”

It also had a steep and narrow staircase. My mother calls them “widow-maker-stairs.” This staircase is important, trust me on this.

Eventually, the time came for us to move in. I was so relieved. No more sawdust or dirt. I chose the second biggest room upstairs, and had it painted pink. A little reminder of my old room. Of course, my baby sister’s room wasn’t finished yet. As the oldest, and an experienced babysitter, she had her playpen next to my bed. Which meant I had to help her get ready for bed.

That’s when the creepy things started to happen.

I was helping my baby sister to bed when my closet door swung wide open out of nowhere. I am not ashamed to admit that I did give out a yelp. I shut the closet all the way, and no one was anywhere near that door. My mom explained that this was an old house, and sometimes things like that happened. 

The closet door kept on opening on its own. It was starting to bug me, so I left it just a crack. It didn’t fling open again, thankfully.

That didn’t seem scary, but it escalates, similarly to a horror movie. 

One night, my brother heard a knock on his bedroom door. All of us were asleep, and there was no one when he opened the door. My sister claimed that she heard disembodied footsteps on the stairs. Speaking of which, my mother, who is a cynic, would feel a presence whenever she passed those stairs to get the newborn twins their bottles. One time, when my dad was at work, she felt someone sit in her bed, even though there was no one there.

A year goes by, my toddler sister moves out of my room and I still had pretty low self esteem as a teenager. As well as horrible anxiety attacks. So I wasn’t feeling my best. 

That was when the nightmare began.

I had horrible nightmares. Nightmares that upset me to such a great extent, that I couldn’t go back to sleep. I hadn’t had a nightmare do that to me since I was a little girl.

One night, I woke up, and I discovered I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even breathe. Keep in mind, this was my first time having sleep paralysis ever. The room was darker than usual. Eventually I snapped out of it, and forgot about it the next morning.

Time passed, and I had sleep paralysis again. This time, I knew exactly what it was, but it still scared me a little. I looked around my room the best I could in that state. Then I saw it. I was a small, but broad shadowy figure. It was standing at the edge of my bed, and it was just staring at me. I gasped in a breath of fresh air and it disappeared.

As time passed, I almost completely forgot about the shadowy figure. This time, I wasn’t even aware I had sleep paralysis. I woke up from my dream to see my two younger brothers, somehow younger, just playing beside my bed. Being a tired and annoyed older sister, I tried to ignore them and turned to my side to go to sleep. Then I felt my brother crawl onto my bed and bounce on it playfully. I got even more annoyed, because I didn’t like people on my bed. I turned over. I was paralyzed. Then I realized that it was not my brother. The thing leaned over my head. There were no features, only shadows, but I could feel it look into my eyes. I gasped for air. It disappeared again.

They were all bad dreams. Right? Well, this one encounter happened to me while I was wide awake.

It was late at night. I wanted a glass of water. I was always scared of the dark, so I turned on the lights, drank some water, and turned them off again.

I started jogging up the stairs. I stopped halfway up.

I felt this… dread. It felt like I was going to die. I felt this… presence behind me.

I turned around and saw him. At least, it felt like a “him”.

He was taller than the other shadowy figures, and felt more ancient.

I could feel his eyes staring at me, burning with anger.

I ran upstairs and buried myself into my sheets. 

I know you probably don’t believe me. I didn’t believe myself for a while. I chalked it up to poor my mental health.

Years go by, I was twenty. My mom had made the house into an airBNB but she couldn’t keep it, so she had to sell it. I was a little sad. Despite everything, I grew attached to the house. We had the twin’s baby blessing during the pandemic in it after all.

Anyways, me and my mom were painting the porch while some guests were there. They noticed us and asked us if we needed a beverage. We politely refused and started talking about the house. One guy brought up how someone knocked on their bedroom door at night. My old bedroom door. Everyone else was asleep. I was shocked.

Maybe I wasn’t crazy.

I know there are scientific explanations for a myriad of things.

If you think I’m crazy, or lying, then maybe…

You haven't had a ghostly encounter yourself.

Sweet dreams.