From: uni@acs.bu.edu (Shaen Bernhardt)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories
Subject: Haunted House?
Date: 1 Oct 92 06:50:30 GMT
Organization: Boston University, Boston, MA, USA


	Let me begin by saying I'm a skeptic....  I just can't explain this
any other way however, so I guess it belongs here...

	When I was in High School, I lived in a somewhat aged house in Chicago
It was your basic three story with attic and basement type place with some 
additions...  First the attic was converted long before I ever got there to a 
pair of bedrooms (the northern of which was mine).  Skylights were installed 
into the slanted roof in the bedrooms and there was a hall between the two
bedrooms.  At the time I was really pleased to have the upstairs room because
it meant I had almost half a floor to myself (minus the hall space).  My older
sister took the southern room.  The odd thing about the hallway was the pair
of "closets" on the west wall (there was a stairway on the east side of the
hall).  These "closets" contained the central air (and heating?) units for the
house.  I remember there were two air units... (the house was unbearably hot
in the summer) one for the downstairs and one for the attic rooms alone.  
Strangely enough these closets had deadbolt locks on them, the kind where you 
need a key for both sides.  (i.e., if you were locked in without a key you
couldn't get out...)  I thought it strange from the start... but I figured
it was just the only latches available to whoever rehabed the place at the 
time... hell if there are a couple of deadbolts left over to hold a couple of
doors closed why buy some latches?  The doors were heavy wood (I don't know
what kind but I assume oak or something) which also puzzled me because that's 
expensive for just service doors.  The doors were constructed such (intentional
or not is anyone's guess) that when the dead bolts were opened they swang
slowly open.  I figured that they must have swung open all the time after
they were built and thus the deadbolts were added (see above ^^) from spare
parts just to keep them closed and out of the way when they wern't needed.
About a month or so after we moved in, we found out (from what source I don't
recall) that one of the previous owners of the house, was born in it, and
actually live to a ripe old and and then later died of natural causes in
the house (the room of said incident refered to affectionately as the 
"funeral room" with appropiate depressing color schemes).  I never thought
much of the history or the "furneral room" until one Christmas.  It was about
Christmas that the service doors in the attic hall began to open "on their
own"  The only key I knew of was always downstairs on a hook in the kitchen.
But sure enough, on many occasions, I would return home from school to find
the attic doors wide open.  At first I thought someone was pulling a fast one,
being the skeptic that I am.  I assumed that my sister or some other wise
guy/gal had been sneaking the key up to unlock (and thus open) the attic doors.
Convinced that this was the case, I strung a piece of hair (my own) through the
key, such that anyone disturbing it would move the hair, and tip the cards.
After the next door opening incident, I proudly marched down to confirm my 
suspicions and found the key and hair intact.  The doors began to open 
themselves at night (being that they were quite closed when I went to bed
and quite open when I awoke).  Still convinced that I was being taken for a 
ride, I began to feign sleep to watch for suspicious activity (i.e., my 
sister or parents or what not playing with the door)  I lost many sleep nights
looking though my keyhole... my eyestrain didn't help school work much either..
Eventually I fessed up to my sister, who then told me that she had been hearing
odd "voices" in the hall when no one was there.... Still convinced that someone
was having it over on me, I took the key myself and locked it in my desk drawer
so a copy must exist or ... well... a great locksmith was in the family.  
About a week after I hid away the key, and there had not been a single
door "event."  I was sure that I had solved the great door mystery... Until
one night when I was typing a paper.  My bedroom door was open and while
taking a break and leaning back in my chair I heard a loud "click" in the hall.
I had a perfect view of the hall from my desk chair, and as I watched, in front
of my skeptic eyes the southern of the two doors swings slowly open.  My 
stomach jumped immediately into my mouth.  After a ten second pause or so
I HEARD the other doors bolt shoot open "CLICK" and the door slowly swing open.
IMMEDIATELY I opened my desk drawer and snatched up the key... went to the 
doors in the hall and looked inside sure that someone had opened them....

No one was there... my sister was at her boyfriends house for the night...
my parents asleep downstairs....  The key I had worked just fine....so it
wasn't the wrong one... even if it was.... ?  I didn't sleep for
a week.....  Absolutely terrified me.... Never had the courage to tell anyone
in the house about it, but I can't explain it for the life of me....

uni@acs.bu.edu

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories