A True Haunting From England

When I was young, 5 yrs. old to be exact, My family moved into a new (to us) house. I never have checked into the history of the place, and don't really care to, to tell the truth. All I know is this place changed my perspective on life forever. My mother, having some extra sensory abilities passed on to her from my grandmother, and I, often bore the brunt of the things that happened in the house.
My Grandmother told me once: "Be careful chasing the darker things in life for they, too, may be hunting you". This is good, sage advice that I have respected and followed all my years. She believed that negative visualization was even more powerful than positive, so she made the rest of the family aware of her experiences in an effort to keep us from unwittingly causing harm to ourselves or others.
Anyway, back to the house... my bedroom, and my parents, were on the 2nd floor. I would occasionally catch a glimpse of a dark figure standing just outside the threshold of my door. At first I thought it was one of my parents checking up on me, but when I would go to see, there was no-one there. We had a large wooden staircase that led down to the ground floor, so if someone was up there and went downstairs, I would have heard their footsteps on the bare wooden stair treads. There was always invariably nobody else up there.
Another incident involved a dark shadow that would move across the frosted glass just below my bedroom window. There were no trees or anything else outside to cast such a shadow, so I know that it was something more. I got a rather good look at this "entity" on numerous occasions...no corner of the eye for this one. To me it resembled the top half, perhaps chest high and up, of a (man) wearing a fedora or similar type hat and an upturned collar. Because of these details, I would come to refer to it as "The Spy". Visitations from "The Spy" were almost a daily occurence at that point.
One day when I returned home from school, I went upstairs to find that my large closet (wardrobe) containing all my toys was turned 180 degrees to face the wall. Mum and I tried to turn it back, but it was too heavy. My dad had to fix it when he got home. Good old Dad always tried to downplay these events, but something that occured on various nights deeply disturbed him.
I would apparently walk out of my room (I say apparently as I have no recollection of this myself, and can only assume I was sleepwalking which I'd never done before or since), down the hall past their room, kneel on the top landing of the stairs, and slowly clap my hands while looking downstairs. This did not make Dad happy.
He would also become the unwilling participant of a game of "lights on, lights off". Just as he would climb into bed, the bedroom light would come on. He'd get up and turn it off again, and as soon as he got back into bed...lights on. Now we probably could have dealt with these minor "disturbances", but what was in store for my mother changed all that.
One day while I was at school and Dad was at work, Mum was sitting alone downstairs watching T.V. She heard a thumping noise from upstairs, but decided in light of recent events to ignore it. Does anyone remember the old bouncy balls with the handles that you could sit on and bounce around? Well I had one of these. As Mum sat there innocently watching her program, this ball came bouncing into the living room and right up on the couch beside her poor terrified self. Now to appreciate the gravity of this situation, you need to know a little about the layout of the house. The ball would have had to bounce around from the far side of my bed, or over it, out into the hallway, turned 90 degrees, bounced down the hallway past my parents room, turned 90 degrees and bounced down the stairs, hung another 90 right at the bottom, or it would have gone to the front door, come into the living room (about 20 feet), then pulled a 180 degree turn and still had enough energy

to bounce up onto the couch beside her. Well, that did it. Mum left for about a week, and when she came back we just packed everything and left. I wasn't made aware of this until quite a while later, in my teenage years. Anyway, there were numerous other instances in that house, but the major ones I have related here.
Now, as it's getting late and I've thoroughly creeped myself out here in my basement, I think I'll toddle off to bed. I don't know if the cold breeze at the back of my neck is from the open flue on the fire I let die while writing this, or something else, but I hope sleep (and nothing else) finds me quickly tonight. As I head upstairs I'll remember the words of my Grandmother: "Be careful chasing the darker things in life, for they, too, may be hunting you"...

That's an interesting story there. Could you tell me whereabouts in England the house was?, it would be interesting to get some background to the area.

I live in Edinburgh which is pretty rife with ghosts and the paranormal due to it's history.

It was near the Bath area. I left England at an early age, so I'm not 100% sure on the exact location. As I said, it's not something that my family brings up in everyday conversation. I was reading through some other threads on the paranormal, and it all just came back to me all at once. Left me a bit shaken to be perfectly honest with you. I just felt I should get it out, know what I mean? I will check and get back to you on that though. Thanks for posting.

Got it! The house is in the Larkhall area just northeast of Bath city. I'd rather not give out the specific address in this thread, in order to protect the privacy of the current residents, but feel free to U2U me if you require further details.