Footsteps in the night.

When i was in my early twenties i moved into a really big victorian flat which i was lucky to get as my friend was working in the insurance office below and put in a word for me. I thought it would be out of my price range as it took up two floors and had its own entrance. No it was kept at a fair rent luckily i thought at the time. I have a son who was 3 when i moved in and we lived there for twelve years. It was a very big wandering place with a big central staircase which as well as leading up to the two bedrooms, also led down to the door to the insurance office. The longer we lived there the weirder things got, but though it seems strange to me now, at the time the occurences were somehow bearable and not that scary compared to the benefits of having such a nice home for my son and i. One of the first things i noticed was the weird atmosphere in one of the upstairs bedrooms, the first night there i had to move my bed into my sons room across the landing because as soon as i turned out the light i could feel something approaching the bed, also the last tenants had left the carpet down inthis room and you could see where the bed had stood for years as the tread of the carpet was threadbare around the only place that a double bed could stand in that room. The place my bed was standing in now.
After moving downstairs to use one of the living rooms as a bedsit i was flabbergasted as i lay in a single bed in the corner , to hear quite distinctly footsteps walking up and down the steps that went down to the office below and i lay there more in disbelief than fear. This was such a common occurence that i became used to hearing it many times. So although i have never seen a ghost i know they exist and i always used to find my eyes watering when i heard the footsteps which always happens even if i am just discussing ghosts.
My son never saw anything either although one day when he was about 9 he heard several voices in one of the upstairs bedrooms which he ran down to tell me about and he said they suddenly stopped talking when he pushed the door open. I think some form of acceptance must come when these unexplainable things happen to save us from panicking because i wouldn't want to live there again. Does anyone else get the eyes watering thing when talking about ghosts?

I dont get the eye watering thong. I get the goosebumps and when i am dealing with something more negative, my stomach will drop like im on a rollercoaster. I must say thugh, i have never lived in a home with no activity. I am used to it until it starts to bother my other family members.

reply to post by transubstantiation


Were you ever able to contact the previous occupants to see if they had experienced the same thing?

reply to post by transubstantiation


That is definitely a good ghost story

I have heard of the eyes watering symptom just the other day watching most recent episode of "my ghost story" which caught my interest hearing about it, but I personally have never felt that symptom anywhere..

My oldest son told me when he used to stay at a certain house, he would be trying to go to sleep but would hear someone pacing back and forth next to the couch he was sleeping on there..but no one would be there of course, he yelled at it and told it to let him sleep and it would stop, but then return again.. In a different house he told me that just when he would be drifting off to sleep that something would tap him or push him awake and keep doing it until he got mad and slept in a different room, and then it would stop.. This was in the city of Victoria BC which is a very haunted city according to many paranormal experts.

Having some ghost walking up and down stairs while you are trying to sleep, plus getting an eye watering thing happening would be very freaky to me... It must be trying to tell you something , maybe it felt the home still belonged to him or her...

Thanks for sharing your story

I get the watering eyes thing too. Does anyone know what that is about?
This is the first time I've ever heard of anyone else doing that.

Originally posted by ReluctantBlossom
I get the watering eyes thing too. Does anyone know what that is about?
This is the first time I've ever heard of anyone else doing that.

edit on 5/9/2011 by ReluctantBlossom because: Added

i also get the eye watering thing...

interested in why this happens

reply to post by transubstantiation


I have experienced the muffled voices or dim noise that disappear when you open the door.

I used to work in a cinema and was puzzled to hear noise inside one of the auditoriums since that particular screen wasn't open. Went to investigate (thinking people had let themselves in) but on immediately opening the door the voices or sounds would stop, there was no one iside and the auditorium was in complete darkness. My first reaction was these idiots were sitting here in the dark which wasn't uncommon, so I turned the cleaning lights on to see where they were. Only to find no one in there!! It was unerving and I'd be lying if I didn't tell you at the time I thought it was a ghost or something supernatural.

Needless to say I decided not to hang around, so I turned around and closed the door and started to walk away. The doors were fitted with those hydraulic self-closers and once it had closed again the sounds inside came back, by that point I was about 30 feet away at the end of the corridor.

Eventually I went back to investigate, slowly opening the door (a few inches) the sound stopped. Imeediately as I closed it the voices started again.

What was happening was that the corridor of that auditorium was acting like a funnel/dish and amplifying the voices in the foyer. They'd race up the corrdior and hit the large wooden fire/sound-proofed doors and reflect back down the corridor. Of course, once you opened the doors you couldn't hear the reflections anymore.

It obvioulsy happened all the time but since normally there'd be the racket of the film coming out from the auditorium, you couldn't hear it. Due to the fact that the noise of Kurt Russel blowing something up been a lot louder than any muffled reflections from 150 feet awa. You'd never hear it.

The only time you could hear it was first thing in thte morning when everything was quite when the building had just opened. When none of the other auditoriums were showing films. I must add that the foyer was not a straight line to those fire doors. The sound had taken more than a 90 degree bend and then a couple more right angles to get to those doors. If you didn't witness it for yourself you wouldn't belive it possible.

It is entirely possible that a similar thing happened to your son with his experience. If that's possible then it's not too far a stretch to consider the footsteps were also sounds reflecting if that particular building were positioned in the focal point of a large dish/bowl within surrounding buildings.

Just a thought.

It's kind of funny; this post made me remember "hearing footsteps" while lying in bed looking down the dark hallway between my room and my parents. It took years for me to realize that the sound I was hearing was merely the pulse point below my ear and behind my jaw grazing my pillow case. Anyone else every get spooked by that?

It's kind of funny; this post made me remember "hearing footsteps" while lying in bed looking down the dark hallway between my room and my parents. It took years for me to realize that the sound I was hearing was merely the pulse point below my ear and behind my jaw grazing my pillow case. Anyone else every get spooked by that?

reply to post by Captain Reynolds
I never thought of asking the previous occupants if they had heard any noises whilst living there. I was told by their father (the office manager) that they had left to live with friends and i never queried that, although years later after some of these occurences i wondered why a family would move from such a big place to go share a house with another family. I just assumed they didn't know cos of them not saying anything to me about it. Maybe they all knew and were waiting to see if i noticed anything, or maybe they didn't want to scare me. I would certainly ask if i ever saw the manager again. I live in a different town now. I never saw anything there until the day i was leaving when my dad and son were busy carrying boxes and furniture up and down stairs to the removal van we had hired. I was stood at a mirror that reflected the door behind me to the passage which i had heard the footsteps come from and i heard someone come upstairs and as i looked to see who it was through the mirror i saw something in white walk past the doorway." Is that you " i asked my son who was always running around, when there was no answer i looked out into the street and my dad and son were in the street still stacking things into the back of the van.
That is the closest i have come to seeing a ghost on the day we were leaving. Did it wait till i was alone and looking in a mirror before walking noisily upstairs just as i was looking at the doorway through a mirror? That's what scares me the feeling of intent as if the ghost or whatever it is knows exactly the effect it will make on a person.

reply to post by transubstantiation


Thanks for posting this! I've been a paranormal investigator for a few years and I always love a good ghost story! It's odd that so many people get watering eyes when experiencing or talking about ghosts! I had actually never heard that before and find it very interesting! My investigations are few and far between these days, but the next time I do one or get into a conversation about the paranormal, I'll ask if anyone experiences this. S&F from me.

reply to post by transubstantiation


Excellent thread. We have had quite a lot of activity in the house we are renting. I've never really given it a lot of thought but as I am reading your post I realize my eyes do water almost every time something happens. It could be allergies as I do have allergy problems from time to time, but lately, I only have the problems at home. We hear someone walking up and down our stairs a lot. We hear it in the day time or night time. We have had different items in the house disappear and end up in a place totally different. We hear other strange noises. The door to our attic crawlspace will not stay closed. It is a 12"x12" piece of plywood that sits down in a frame around the opening. The frame is about 1 inch deep and is in the top of our linen closet. Every time I put the board in the frame I'll come back later and it has been moved. Just two nights ago I saw someone standing in our kitchen. My fiance and I were the only ones home and all the doors were locked. I got up quickly and turned on the kitchen lights only to find the room empty. Just before I saw the person I made the comment that my eyes were really bothering me.
Once again, excellent thread. Got me to thinking.