Hanging baby-doll body parts

What is the meaning or intent when someone hangs baby doll parts (heads, legs, arms, etc.) outside their home? The following attempts to offer some context and back-ground information for my question:

About three years ago I became wrapped up in a haunting that occurred at my ex-boyfriend's old house. The haunting had a definite beginning, lasted about eight months, and ended with no one living on the property. My ex was the last one living there and attempted suicide twice his last week in the house, culminating in his mother and I physically removing him from the house to another city.

I will probably end up writing in detail about this haunting on ATS some day but, in short, many paranormal events took place – people(myself included) were physically assaulted by the unseen and a very scary black dog/wolf ended up stalking my ex boyfriend in reality and his dreams; when I moved four hours away, this "being" followed me and identified itself to the girls I was babysitting on their mother's Ouija board; found the apartment floor covered 100 PERCENT(every part of the floor) by vomit when I came home from the hospital, where my ex was, at the time, getting his stomach pumped. I have a hard time talking about everything that happened without presenting the full entire story. However, the story is just too intense and long for me tell here and now for the sole purpose of asking my question, which is my only goal with this thread – ask my question.

The haunting was instigated when my ex got a roommate who asked one of our mutual friends, who is a medium/psychic(although very private about that), to do a seance in the house because he felt a presence upon moving in. Unfortunately, this was conducted when my ex and I were out of town and without permission from my ex. We soon learned about it and the haunting situation escalated from there. I bring this up just to note that we did not ever confront this medium/psychic friend about that seance until the last week my ex spent in the house. We met up with him and his wife and heard some seriously freaky insights, if you will, or ledes (yes this is a word commonly misspelled as leads) into the haunting case. What we heard seemed to give credit to what had been going on all along, and also credit to the belief that we weren't crazy.

Here it is - A woman had lived in the garage apartment on the property my ex boyfriend rented. She was there when I met him and moved out shortly after my ex's roommate moved out (was driven out), which was about two months before the final unraveling of my ex in that house. This woman, whom I had shared no more than a few smiles with in passing while I was around the house, had clothing lines in the side yard, which she shared with my ex, adjacent to her garage apartment. Instead of clothing, baby doll body parts hung from the lines. Lots of baby doll parts. The plastic parts appeared to be pieces from vintage baby dolls of some kind. She also had skeletons around her door and sticking out of pots of dirt on her porch. I hardly noticed the skeletons at first because I've seen them around and people who display skeletons never really disturbed me. I was initially disturbed by the hanging doll parts at first but soon forgot about them. Besides, I'm totally not the type of person who would go inquire about their significance or intrude on the woman's privacy or freedom to hang whatever non-breathing thing she wants next to her apartment.

Skip to the meeting my ex and I had with this mutual "sensitive" friend of ours, the last week my ex spent in the house. In short, our friend said he felt something was inside the house that wasn't there the night he and the former roommate conducted the séance . He said it was hiding behind his back, or not showing itself to him, but giving off a negative, unwelcoming presence. He went into a lot of other stuff, like a bullet hole under my ex's bed that my ex had insisted to me was not a bullet hole until this meeting; he told us to never move the boxes, filled with his late father's stuff and stored in the guest room closet, nor his father's ashes. (Side note, I had moved and dug through these boxes extensively when my boyfriend was not home.) He concluded by recommending that my ex leave the house. I could tell he was holding back some information he was picking up on because at the time of this meeting my ex and I were sleeping in the car and utterly tense about all that was happening. I know our friend could read that in our faces and manner of approach with him.

Soon after concluding that leaving would be best, the baby doll parts popped into my head. I felt I absolutely had to mention them before we all parted. When I mentioned the hanging baby doll parts, our friend sort of jolted back suddenly, explained "Whoa!" and closed his eyes. Then he asked my ex whether the woman living in the garage apartment had access to my ex's house prior to him moving in. Yes, she had stored some boxes in there and came to move them out of the house when my ex moved in. To make this as short as possible, our friend saw some sort of ritual being conducted there. What I remember about what he said was this - someone was dangling or jangling a string of beads; some type of circle or symbol on the floor looked like the ink inside gel pens; candles; and most notably, (exact quote from our friend) "She really, really didn't want to do it, but she did it anyway." Our friend followed that by saying that a lot of what was happening had something to do with what was under the garage. He then grew too uncomfortable to continue, opened his eyes, and wished us the best.

What is the significance of the hanging baby doll parts? Does anyone have any insight into what they mean or are used for? I tried digging deep into google for some answers, but google really wanted me to shop for baby-dolls instead … finally realized ATS is a fitting place to pose this question. Thank you for reading this thread. All answers are welcome.

reply to post by TruthLover557
I read somewhere that hanging dolls in some cultures is supposed to ward off destruction, so possibly the lady hung the doll parts to keep the evil entity from bothering her......so instead it bothered the next closest person- your ex who lived in the house. Just a guess.

Don't know how you stayed as long as you did. Freaky. And hanging doll parts? I don't need an explanation to know that's creepy and evil, you take a innocent childlike toy and dismember it and use it for decor, you might have problem.

1: Ghosts don't exist

2: Ouija boards have been proven false

3: Dolls are made of plastic and are harmless unless you eat them.

[snipped]

Originally posted by DPrice
1: Ghosts don't exist

2: Ouija boards have been proven false

3: Dolls are made of plastic and are harmless unless you eat them.

[snipped]

Thank you for your kind response, DPrice. However, I did not ask whether ghosts exist. Nor did I ask whether Ouija boards are fact or fiction. I did happen to know that some dolls are made of plastic but never considered eating them. My dog has considered eating a few baby dolls, but having passed along your message of potential harm, she no longer wishes to entertain the idea.

Your last comment confuses me because I am grown up. I don't know why you've suggested I seek psychiatric help, but whatever the reason, rest assured I have been functioning quite well for years now without the assistance of a stranger's prescribed pill cocktail.

Originally posted by DPrice
1: Ghosts don't exist

2: Ouija boards have been proven false

3: Dolls are made of plastic and are harmless unless you eat them.

[snipped]

Oh.. to you! You grow up, and do some research on the paranormal along the way.

OP, S&F on your post. I appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us.

I go along with what littled16 posted. I think it was a ritual for protection, but I haven't looked in to this to see, and I've never heard of it myself. Just seems to make sense for some reason.

I would love to hear the whole story some day, should you decide to share with us.

Originally posted by DPrice
1: Ghosts don't exist

2: Ouija boards have been proven false

3: Dolls are made of plastic and are harmless unless you eat them.
[snipped].

1.Ghosts disagree.

2. Ouija boards may be false but they cause plenty of trouble.

3. Dolls are creepy any way you slice it.

4.Psychiatrists don't like dolls either.

Trolls.

Moving along.

Did these doll parts... rotate? Come down after a few hours? Or were the same doll parts hanging up 24/7?

I ask because, being in a doll/toy hobby, I know that sometimes you need to hang up parts to spray with sealer then let dry after. Seems a bit ghoulish, I know, but it's the most effective method- save for putting them on planted sticks... which is admittedly possibly even creepier to the uninitiated. Maybe she was restoring / customizing the vintage dolls? Though it seems a little less likely with the skeletons in the flower pots, but who knows, maybe she just liked Halloween.

Not trying to trivialize in any way what sounds like a truly nightmarish experience, just trying to offer another perspective. The doll parts might be unrelated. If they were the same parts perpetually hanging up, then yeah, I'd agree that there's more significance there.

Don't know if this has any relevance:
zuerichversusmexicocity.net...
prettyawfulthings.com...
CREEPY WARNING

He used to say he was haunted by the ghost of a young girl who had drowned in on of the canals around the island. .... Fact is that he collected those dolls to repel the spirit that tormented him.

So it does sound like they can be used as a protective talisman?

Glad to hear that you got your boyfriend out before the worst happened. That house needs to be bulldozed, and the land cleansed... thoroughly.

i cant impress how stupid teenagers and ghost hunters are for agitating beings who obviously do not appreciate our intrusions.

reply to post by truthermantwo


I cant impress how stupid people are that believe in ghosts.

Attention!!

I can't impress how important it is to stay on topic and post civilly.

Those who can't or won't will face consequences.

We expect civility and decorum within all topics.

You are responsible for your own posts.

--Off Topic, One Liners and General Back Scratching Posts--

As a science based skeptic, I'd never tell someone that spirits, ghosts, and so on, do not exist. While they may not stand up to repeatable recorded tests, it doesn't mean it's disprovable.
The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. So, people answering you question with answers that do not address you question is silly. Also, people telling you that these things do not exist is also silly. It's fine to not believe, but it's presumptuous to tell someone else that their idea/belief isn't real or true. If so inclined, the person making the claim might what an explanation, if not, that's their choice.
Regardless, the question was about what doll parts hanging around meant, not about the other experiences and opinions. I wish people could get past their ego long enough to recognise a clear and precise question.
I hope you don't mind my rant. As far as the question there's already been some clear answers. I found this post because I was wondering the same thing. My friend recently found a doll head hanging in a tree on the apartment property of her clients. A year or so ago I found a tore up doll next to my back door. Spirits or no spirits, people are real and they have reasons for their actions. So thanks for posting this question. Wither I believe the rest of your story or not, I'd love to hear the whole thing.

Nightmare fuel

originally posted by: TruthLover557
What is the meaning or intent when someone hangs baby doll parts (heads, legs, arms, etc.) outside their home? The following attempts to offer some context and back-ground information for my question:

About three years ago I became wrapped up in a haunting that occurred at my ex-boyfriend's old house. The haunting had a definite beginning, lasted about eight months, and ended with no one living on the property. My ex was the last one living there and attempted suicide twice his last week in the house, culminating in his mother and I physically removing him from the house to another city.

I will probably end up writing in detail about this haunting on ATS some day but, in short, many paranormal events took place – people(myself included) were physically assaulted by the unseen and a very scary black dog/wolf ended up stalking my ex boyfriend in reality and his dreams; when I moved four hours away, this "being" followed me and identified itself to the girls I was babysitting on their mother's Ouija board; found the apartment floor covered 100 PERCENT(every part of the floor) by vomit when I came home from the hospital, where my ex was, at the time, getting his stomach pumped. I have a hard time talking about everything that happened without presenting the full entire story. However, the story is just too intense and long for me tell here and now for the sole purpose of asking my question, which is my only goal with this thread – ask my question.

The haunting was instigated when my ex got a roommate who asked one of our mutual friends, who is a medium/psychic(although very private about that), to do a seance in the house because he felt a presence upon moving in. Unfortunately, this was conducted when my ex and I were out of town and without permission from my ex. We soon learned about it and the haunting situation escalated from there. I bring this up just to note that we did not ever confront this medium/psychic friend about that seance until the last week my ex spent in the house. We met up with him and his wife and heard some seriously freaky insights, if you will, or ledes (yes this is a word commonly misspelled as leads) into the haunting case. What we heard seemed to give credit to what had been going on all along, and also credit to the belief that we weren't crazy.

Here it is - A woman had lived in the garage apartment on the property my ex boyfriend rented. She was there when I met him and moved out shortly after my ex's roommate moved out (was driven out), which was about two months before the final unraveling of my ex in that house. This woman, whom I had shared no more than a few smiles with in passing while I was around the house, had clothing lines in the side yard, which she shared with my ex, adjacent to her garage apartment. Instead of clothing, baby doll body parts hung from the lines. Lots of baby doll parts. The plastic parts appeared to be pieces from vintage baby dolls of some kind. She also had skeletons around her door and sticking out of pots of dirt on her porch. I hardly noticed the skeletons at first because I've seen them around and people who display skeletons never really disturbed me. I was initially disturbed by the hanging doll parts at first but soon forgot about them. Besides, I'm totally not the type of person who would go inquire about their significance or intrude on the woman's privacy or freedom to hang whatever non-breathing thing she wants next to her apartment.

Skip to the meeting my ex and I had with this mutual "sensitive" friend of ours, the last week my ex spent in the house. In short, our friend said he felt something was inside the house that wasn't there the night he and the former roommate conducted the séance . He said it was hiding behind his back, or not showing itself to him, but giving off a negative, unwelcoming presence. He went into a lot of other stuff, like a bullet hole under my ex's bed that my ex had insisted to me was not a bullet hole until this meeting; he told us to never move the boxes, filled with his late father's stuff and stored in the guest room closet, nor his father's ashes. (Side note, I had moved and dug through these boxes extensively when my boyfriend was not home.) He concluded by recommending that my ex leave the house. I could tell he was holding back some information he was picking up on because at the time of this meeting my ex and I were sleeping in the car and utterly tense about all that was happening. I know our friend could read that in our faces and manner of approach with him.

Soon after concluding that leaving would be best, the baby doll parts popped into my head. I felt I absolutely had to mention them before we all parted. When I mentioned the hanging baby doll parts, our friend sort of jolted back suddenly, explained "Whoa!" and closed his eyes. Then he asked my ex whether the woman living in the garage apartment had access to my ex's house prior to him moving in. Yes, she had stored some boxes in there and came to move them out of the house when my ex moved in. To make this as short as possible, our friend saw some sort of ritual being conducted there. What I remember about what he said was this - someone was dangling or jangling a string of beads; some type of circle or symbol on the floor looked like the ink inside gel pens; candles; and most notably, (exact quote from our friend) "She really, really didn't want to do it, but she did it anyway." Our friend followed that by saying that a lot of what was happening had something to do with what was under the garage. He then grew too uncomfortable to continue, opened his eyes, and wished us the best.

What is the significance of the hanging baby doll parts? Does anyone have any insight into what they mean or are used for? I tried digging deep into google for some answers, but google really wanted me to shop for baby-dolls instead … finally realized ATS is a fitting place to pose this question. Thank you for reading this thread. All answers are welcome.

Long story short, there's no such thing as a haunting. If someone tells you that their house is haunted they're trying to spook you, just the same as if they hang doll limbs outside.

Ghosts don't exist.

originally posted by: TruthLover557
What is the meaning or intent when someone hangs baby doll parts (heads, legs, arms, etc.) outside their home? The following attempts to offer some context and back-ground information for my question:

About three years ago I became wrapped up in a haunting that occurred at my ex-boyfriend's old house. The haunting had a definite beginning, lasted about eight months, and ended with no one living on the property. My ex was the last one living there and attempted suicide twice his last week in the house, culminating in his mother and I physically removing him from the house to another city.

I will probably end up writing in detail about this haunting on ATS some day but, in short, many paranormal events took place – people(myself included) were physically assaulted by the unseen and a very scary black dog/wolf ended up stalking my ex boyfriend in reality and his dreams; when I moved four hours away, this "being" followed me and identified itself to the girls I was babysitting on their mother's Ouija board; found the apartment floor covered 100 PERCENT(every part of the floor) by vomit when I came home from the hospital, where my ex was, at the time, getting his stomach pumped. I have a hard time talking about everything that happened without presenting the full entire story. However, the story is just too intense and long for me tell here and now for the sole purpose of asking my question, which is my only goal with this thread – ask my question.

The haunting was instigated when my ex got a roommate who asked one of our mutual friends, who is a medium/psychic(although very private about that), to do a seance in the house because he felt a presence upon moving in. Unfortunately, this was conducted when my ex and I were out of town and without permission from my ex. We soon learned about it and the haunting situation escalated from there. I bring this up just to note that we did not ever confront this medium/psychic friend about that seance until the last week my ex spent in the house. We met up with him and his wife and heard some seriously freaky insights, if you will, or ledes (yes this is a word commonly misspelled as leads) into the haunting case. What we heard seemed to give credit to what had been going on all along, and also credit to the belief that we weren't crazy.

Here it is - A woman had lived in the garage apartment on the property my ex boyfriend rented. She was there when I met him and moved out shortly after my ex's roommate moved out (was driven out), which was about two months before the final unraveling of my ex in that house. This woman, whom I had shared no more than a few smiles with in passing while I was around the house, had clothing lines in the side yard, which she shared with my ex, adjacent to her garage apartment. Instead of clothing, baby doll body parts hung from the lines. Lots of baby doll parts. The plastic parts appeared to be pieces from vintage baby dolls of some kind. She also had skeletons around her door and sticking out of pots of dirt on her porch. I hardly noticed the skeletons at first because I've seen them around and people who display skeletons never really disturbed me. I was initially disturbed by the hanging doll parts at first but soon forgot about them. Besides, I'm totally not the type of person who would go inquire about their significance or intrude on the woman's privacy or freedom to hang whatever non-breathing thing she wants next to her apartment.

Skip to the meeting my ex and I had with this mutual "sensitive" friend of ours, the last week my ex spent in the house. In short, our friend said he felt something was inside the house that wasn't there the night he and the former roommate conducted the séance . He said it was hiding behind his back, or not showing itself to him, but giving off a negative, unwelcoming presence. He went into a lot of other stuff, like a bullet hole under my ex's bed that my ex had insisted to me was not a bullet hole until this meeting; he told us to never move the boxes, filled with his late father's stuff and stored in the guest room closet, nor his father's ashes. (Side note, I had moved and dug through these boxes extensively when my boyfriend was not home.) He concluded by recommending that my ex leave the house. I could tell he was holding back some information he was picking up on because at the time of this meeting my ex and I were sleeping in the car and utterly tense about all that was happening. I know our friend could read that in our faces and manner of approach with him.

Soon after concluding that leaving would be best, the baby doll parts popped into my head. I felt I absolutely had to mention them before we all parted. When I mentioned the hanging baby doll parts, our friend sort of jolted back suddenly, explained "Whoa!" and closed his eyes. Then he asked my ex whether the woman living in the garage apartment had access to my ex's house prior to him moving in. Yes, she had stored some boxes in there and came to move them out of the house when my ex moved in. To make this as short as possible, our friend saw some sort of ritual being conducted there. What I remember about what he said was this - someone was dangling or jangling a string of beads; some type of circle or symbol on the floor looked like the ink inside gel pens; candles; and most notably, (exact quote from our friend) "She really, really didn't want to do it, but she did it anyway." Our friend followed that by saying that a lot of what was happening had something to do with what was under the garage. He then grew too uncomfortable to continue, opened his eyes, and wished us the best.

What is the significance of the hanging baby doll parts? Does anyone have any insight into what they mean or are used for? I tried digging deep into google for some answers, but google really wanted me to shop for baby-dolls instead … finally realized ATS is a fitting place to pose this question. Thank you for reading this thread. All answers are welcome.

OMG. I thought I was reading a chapter of a book. You wanna know "why" people hang up doll parts? Then you went into side bust story mode. Anyways, The hanging up doll parts is a myth in mexico. There was a legend that a young girl once drowned in a nearby river. There is an old man who lives around that river. He started hanging up dolls and doll parts to please the spirit of the young girl. OTHERWISE. I have zero clue what hanging doll parts does in the occult. Unless your talking about hoodoo/voodoo. That's a whole other boat.