A haunting if no one died there?

[Annabelle]

What's your take on the possibility of a house being haunted if it's not certain that there was ever a death there?

Our new house (we just bought it last July) was built in the 1920s and has been through quite a few owners, but we haven't heard of anyone having died there.

Anyway, both of us have heard foot steps for which we cannot trace any cause -- one night we stayed up almost the entire night trying to figure it out, listening at the heating ducts, climbing up in the attic to check for small animals, walking around the outside of the house with flashlights to check for branches hitting the windows . . . we checked EVERYTHING.

Yet every time we went downstairs and sat down, after a few minutes the sound would start up again.

This happens some evenings, but not every evening.

Yesterday evening I was sitting in the living room, reading a book, when I heard a glass shatter in the kitchen. A bright, sharp, distinct noise. I hurried in to the kitchen (no one else was home), thinking maybe a field mouse had made its way inside and knocked something over.

There was nothing broken. Nothing out of place. I searched every cabinet. Nothing.

Last night I was laying awake in bed, having gotten up to use the toilet very recently, looking at the clock . . . it was just after 4 in the morning . . . when I heard a knocking noise under the bed. I thought about it, and it seemed as if something was knocking against the legs of the bed frame, which are metal.

As I listened, I realized I was hearing a pattern of "long" and "short" raps . . . it sounded like morse code that I've heard in movies. I couldn't decipher it, but darn it -- it seemed to mean something.

I've also had the feeling sometimes of being watched, even when I'm home alone.

We have no pets, by the way, so nothing I've heard could be due to a dog or cat wandering around.

It's probably nothing but my active imagination. I prefer, in fact, to believe the house isn't haunted, and I simply haven't yet found the obvious and ordinary explanations for what I have heard and seen.

Yet I wonder . . . is it *possible* that a place can be haunted by a spirit who did not die there?

 

[Chronata]

A house...or any other place for that matter...can have residual energy.

Basically that means that you may be picking up on random noises and things that are sort of imbedded or imprinted in the wood and stone foundation....energy and memories of the house from long ago.

It doesn't mean that there is an "intelligent haunt" or a spirit...or anyone that has died there. It could just be the years of past residents energies that are recorded and being played back to you.

 

[Annabelle]

A house...or any other place for that matter...can have residual energy.

Basically that means that you may be picking up on random noises and things that are sort of imbedded or imprinted in the wood and stone foundation....energy and memories of the house from long ago.

It doesn't mean that there is an "intelligent haunt" or a spirit...or anyone that has died there. It could just be the years of past residents energies that are recorded and being played back to you.

That makes a lot of sense! General potluck "left overs," so to speak, rather than a specific entity.

 

[tarotbear]

About to jump in when Chronata said it first ... No one has to 'die' in a place for spirit (if it is such) activity to happen.

If you look for threads about 'Peeking through the keyhole' when ATer's have posted pictures of places and others report seeing people there - there is no way that every person 'seen' necessarily had to die there.

In the 'keyhole' thread I started in Oct 2012 - many people 'see people' such as a blonde child with curley hair or a woman in a red 1940s dress - not members of my family! But they didn't necessarily die there - they are just residual energies of someone who passsed through the space and their energy is still there.

 

[ThunderWolf]

I don't want to upset you (and chances are that even if it is an intelligent spirit living with you it's not anything to be afraid of), but not knowing of anyone dying in the house doesn't preclude it from having happened. There are also a couple other alternatives as well. It may be that there was a house or other building there before that one in which someone passed. Or it could even be someone attached to that particular piece of land from before there was anything built there.

Spirits are also sometimes attached to things, such as antique furnishings you might have in your home. Even if it is something you had in your former home that you brought with you, the move itself might have stirred up the recent activity in your home.

All in all, if it is a conscious haunting, it's just another person just like you. The difference is that s/he doesn't have a body any longer. If they are using morse code to attempt to communicate with you, it might be well worth keeping a pad of paper and a pen handy so that you can write down the long knocks as dashes and the short ones as dots. Then translate that using morse code. Chances are that they're making their presence known because they either want acknowledgment from you or alternately to give you a message. If you manage to decipher their morse code you may find these noises will go away.

 

[Annabelle]

About to jump in when Chronata said it first ... No one has to 'die' in a place for spirit (if it is such) activity to happen.

If you look for threads about 'Peeking through the keyhole' when ATer's have posted pictures of places and others report seeing people there - there is no way that every person 'seen' necessarily had to die there.

In the 'keyhole' thread I started in Oct 2012 - many people 'see people' such as a blonde child with curley hair or a woman in a red 1940s dress - not members of my family! But they didn't necessarily die there - they are just residual energies of someone who passsed through the space and their energy is still there.

This makes perfect sense . . . and I will definitely look for your October "keyhole" thread, too.

Our house is very much in the middle of town, in an old neighborhood, and the house itself is quite well known and has had a lot of people through it over the years. When we bought it, it seemed that all our friends and colleagues already knew the house better than we did . . . we had people say things like "oh yes, /that/ house . . . I went to a fabulous party there back in '78, when Old so-and-so owned it -- say, is the big room upstairs still painted pink?".

We don't have to give people the address for them to find us . . . we just say "the big white colonial a block behind the [name of shop] . . . and they know exactly what we mean.

Anyway, I'm rambling . . . but we know the house has played host to many social events and several owners who were important community figures. So "residual energy" makes 100% perfect sense to me.

 

[tarotbear]

Spirits are also sometimes attached to things, such as antique furnishings you might have in your home. Even if it is something you had in your former home that you brought with you, the move itself might have stirred up the recent activity in your home.

Yes, based on what people have described in my pictures and others who have been in the house, I suspect that an antique rocking chair my grandmother purchased may still have it's former occupant sitting in it.

 

[Annabelle]

It may be that there was a house or other building there before that one in which someone passed. Or it could even be someone attached to that particular piece of land from before there was anything built there.

Entirely possible. This area has been well inhabited for a very, very long time. There were large numbers of Native Americans here before the region was "settled" by people of Mexican and European descent.

Spirits are also sometimes attached to things, such as antique furnishings you might have in your home. Even if it is something you had in your former home that you brought with you, the move itself might have stirred up the recent activity in your home.

Makes sense. And pretty much everything we have in the way of furniture is either antique or at least "used" . . . we almost never buy newly-made furniture.

If they are using morse code to attempt to communicate with you, it might be well worth keeping a pad of paper and a pen handy so that you can write down the long knocks as dashes and the short ones as dots. Then translate that using morse code. Chances are that they're making their presence known because they either want acknowledgment from you or alternately to give you a message. If you manage to decipher their morse code you may find these noises will go away.

Yes, I'm definitely keeping a pen and notebook by the bed from now on!

 

[Baroli]

There are also cases where the land is haunted. Families who inadvertently buy land in forest or woods not realizing that the land has a history with Native American peoples, or bought land that was in the middle of the Civil War and have seen Union or Confederate soldiers walking about because they met their demise on the land.

Sometimes spirit will haunt a piece of furniture or a piece of jewelry handed down by the deceased to the next person. I think TB mentioned that. I have my mom's hutch who after it was delivered to me, I saw her there one night admiring the hutch and was quite surprised to see me and also see that I was aware of her. Lol.

There is a couple in Connecticut Ed and Lorraine Warren, (don't know if Ed is still alive or not) who have a museum of sorts. It contains things that have been taken out of homes because they were haunted. The most famous is a Raggity Anne doll called "Annabelle." It's interesting because the doll moves and it isn't considered a friendly spirit.

So in short, there are possibilities galore out there. I used to think that buying a home that was brandy new would be okay, but check out the land as well. Hell, Poltergeist was a hit movie for just that reason. Realtor built new homes on a cemetery. Yikes!!

 

[celticnoodle]

What's your take on the possibility of a house being haunted if it's not certain that there was ever a death there?

I have not read through the responses yet, but there can still be spirits in a home even if a death did not occur there. Sometimes spirits go back to a place that they liked in life, even if they never lived there. They also can go to a home to check up on a loved one. Spirits can also just happen to be there- because perhaps they were "in the area". I've seen spirits in a B&B in Gettysburg, PA on the battlefields, though that B&B was a fairly new built building.

Our new house (we just bought it last July) was built in the 1920s and has been through quite a few owners, but we haven't heard of anyone having died there.

Anyway, both of us have heard foot steps for which we cannot trace any cause -- one night we stayed up almost the entire night trying to figure it out, listening at the heating ducts, climbing up in the attic to check for small animals, walking around the outside of the house with flashlights to check for branches hitting the windows . . . we checked EVERYTHING.

Yet every time we went downstairs and sat down, after a few minutes the sound would start up again.

This happens some evenings, but not every evening.

Yesterday evening I was sitting in the living room, reading a book, when I heard a glass shatter in the kitchen. A bright, sharp, distinct noise. I hurried in to the kitchen (no one else was home), thinking maybe a field mouse had made its way inside and knocked something over.

There was nothing broken. Nothing out of place. I searched every cabinet. Nothing.

this sounds like residual energy - which is also nothing to fear.

Last night I was laying awake in bed, having gotten up to use the toilet very recently, looking at the clock . . . it was just after 4 in the morning . . . when I heard a knocking noise under the bed. I thought about it, and it seemed as if something was knocking against the legs of the bed frame, which are metal.

As I listened, I realized I was hearing a pattern of "long" and "short" raps . . . it sounded like morse code that I've heard in movies. I couldn't decipher it, but darn it -- it seemed to mean something.

I've also had the feeling sometimes of being watched, even when I'm home alone.

We have no pets, by the way, so nothing I've heard could be due to a dog or cat wandering around.

It's probably nothing but my active imagination. I prefer, in fact, to believe the house isn't haunted, and I simply haven't yet found the obvious and ordinary explanations for what I have heard and seen.

Yet I wonder . . . is it *possible* that a place can be haunted by a spirit who did not die there?

yes, this is very possible as I mentioned above. If you do not like the thought or feeling of someone possibly haunting your home, just tell them in a firm voice that you do not want them there, that it is now YOUR home and they need to move on. Be firm when you say this, and if it makes you feel any better, call on your guides to help you clear their energies out. Usually this is all it takes to do this clearing of energies.