From: frantz@bvc.edu
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories
Subject: Re: Haunted House?
Date: 4 Oct 92 19:21:37 GMT
Organization: Buena Vista College, Storm Lake, IA

In article <97213@bu.edu>, uni@acs.bu.edu (Shaen Bernhardt) writes:
> 
> 	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

This is a wonderfully intriguing story, but I'm left with a couple of 
questions.  First, did you ever follow up on what your sister told you 
about "hearing voices?"  Did she ever tell you exactly what she thought she 
was hearing?  Did *you* ever hear anything?  I'm also curious about the 
motivation to have the door open.  Was there ever a story about something 
happening in the attic (I'm wondering if someone was ever locked up there 
accidentally or something).  Have you ever really explored the attic for 
possible clues to all of this?  I ask because I lived in a house that had 
an attic that was more than a little odd--and it had a decided "history."  
I'm convinced that's why we heard as many weird things as we did from 
overhead.

Andrea
> 
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories