A Haunting Through the Decades

This will be a little on the long side so my humble apologies. I’ve debated posting on this matter quite a few times over the years but in the end have always left it alone for a variety of different reasons. I’m finally putting the story down on (proverbial) paper as the property in question is now back on the market quite unexpectedly.

I was born and raised in a small town in Ayrshire, Scotland. My family had occupied our home since the late 1960’s and it remained in our family until I sold the property off back in 2019. The house was one of a row of similar houses and behind these was a field and then a large forest.

The house was occupied by my grandparents, parents, my sister and myself. I came along in 1976 and my sister was a few years after in 1980. Growing up, we just took it for granted that the place was haunted. This was viewed as entirely normal and strange things had been happening on occasions from the day my family had moved into the property.

I’m not going to go into too much detail on these occurrences, purely because they were so many of them. Also, they occurred often enough that they were accepted as the norm. I must stress though that none of these events were ‘harmful’ although on occasion they did provide a good scare.

Over the years, my grandfather, grandmother, father and mother all passed away in that house. My grandmother always had a very sanguine attitude to any supernatural or paranormal happenings and dismissed these with a wave of the hand and by stating “Ach, you have more to worry about from the living than the dead.”

The kitchen had a stone floor. It was fairly common to hear someone running across this during the night (this was when everyone was in bed). Sometimes you could even hear giggling, like a small child was doing it. I remember hearing this one night and my father getting up to investigate it. This started from before I was born and would still occasionally happen up until the house was sold in 2019.

On a similar note, from when my family moved in certainly until I originally left home at eighteen occasionally our front door would open and close, footsteps could be heard running up the stairs, the front bedroom door would then slam shut. When someone would investigate this there would be nobody there. A short while afterwards we would then hear footsteps running back down the stairs and the front door would then open and close once again. There were various permutations of this, there could be one or more persons at home. I was even upstairs once when this happened and was in one of the other bedrooms. This always seemed to happen during daylight hours though.

My wife was always sceptical about the paranormal. When staying at the house one weekend she shook me awake through the night in a panic as she felt someone sit on the bottom of the bed. When she looked she saw the dark outline of a man. When I switched on the light there was nobody there but she insisted someone was there and she saw ‘him’ turn his head to look at her. It took a while to calm her down. What I’d never told my wife was that back in 1983 when my parents used that bedroom my mother had experienced something remarkably similar. None of us had mentioned this to my wife.

Around a month or so before my mother passed away in 2019, I was spending a Friday night there with her. My wife was working so wasn’t with me. Not long after 10pm, I was sat in a chair in that bedroom watching television. There was also a lamp shining. I turned my head to my left and in the far corner of the room there was a solid black shadow. It looked like someone crouching down. When I spotted it, it slowly ‘stood’, turned towards the door and walked towards it. It soon faded from view. This is the only time that anything that happened in that house truly scared me as it creeped me out so much I phoned my wife at her work immediately afterward. It wasn’t particularly tall (I’d estimate around the five feet mark) and it moved strangely. I have no idea how long it was crouched there just watching me but it seemed that as soon as it realised I’d spotted it then it left.

A few days prior to the house sale in July 2019 I was upstairs going through a box of old photographs and heard my sister come in. We were both in the kitchen, directly underneath the room I was in when we both heard loud footsteps then the door close. I remember we both looked up, at each other and I even asked her if she heard it.

There were other things that happened from time to time but this post is running away so I’ll wrap up. After my father passed away in 2014, my mother never really spoke much about any strange happenings and I genuinely believe a lot of the activity died down. However, when clearing out the house we discovered that under every bed in every bedroom was a bible. Pushed into the centre of the space underneath the bed. This was strange as my family were not obviously religious. We also found tiny parchments of scripture in a jewellery box in what was my mother’s bedroom. All in all, we retrieved quite the haul of bibles.

The house was purchased from me in July 2019 and I’d not really heard much about it until last week although I've dreamt about the place often. My sister got a call from an old neighbour who told her it looks like the family had suddenly upped and left. The house has a for sale sign out front and it appears nobody is even living there anymore. The neighbour also stated it was strange as they had just finished completing some major renovations at the property and were calling it their “forever home”.

Again, I’m sorry for the lengthy post. The fact that place is back on the market under these circumstances gave me the kick up the backside to finally write about it.

Very interesting. I kind of wonder if it is the house or the people/things in it. I have yet to experience anything that I could truly say oh crap that defies the laws of physics, but my next door neighbor had a similar issue. He is a older man who marries a younger lady from South America. He was semi-retired and he had a lot of stuff in his house from his mom, even personal items like hair brush that I thought was a little odd.

Well it seems he would hear people walking up stairs with only him in the house, cabinet doors would be open in the morning, TV radio would turn on by themselves, and it seemed to get worst when he was fighting with his wife. I tried to talk him into setting up security cameras in his house, but he never did and moved at one point.

The next guy I never told him anything and he actually had zero issues. He later died in the house due to a diabetic coma and wasn't found for like 10 days. The next people who bought the house were a retired couple and they too have never said anything strange has happened in the last 4 years now, so is it the house or the people/things in the house?

a reply to: Sabien


Renovations always seem to ramp these things up! Interesting story, thanks for posting.

a reply to: Sabien

Very cool - thanks for sharing.

Who do you think put the bibles there?
They were on the floor under the beds, correct?

a reply to: chris_stibrany

Always amuses me people placing bibles around for protection like they are some kind of lucky charm
I guess many Christians see them as lucky charms in a way so, but then again, probably nominal believers who figure Christianity is like paganism.

Interesting story non the less Sabien, no doubt there is a spiritual dimension to this world and mysterious entities exist. Guess if you grow up with them they are the norm, not encountered anything so can’t really relate

I'm guessing my mother was the one who put the bibles where they were.a reply to: chris_stibrany

a reply to: Sabien

Hmm interesting.

Whenever I move into a new house I always burn sage in all the rooms and do a kind of banishing/proclamation of intent.

a reply to: Sabien

I've noticed that strong emotions are often connected with places- and even objects- that are considered haunted. A belief system in 'empaths' has grown up around people who are 'sensitive' to these energies that linger.

I used to believe in the paranormal, but now believe all things are normal aspects of our human nature, just not understood. As long as researchers continue to approach the phenomenon with the aim of debunking it, I doubt progress in understanding the how and why will ever come to light.

a reply to: nugget1

The words paranormal and supernatural are wrong. It should be Super Natural. because its all natural and its super.
Thanks to whitley strieber's book title.
its called new science.