Ghostly Goings On

[Loonboy]

LINKIE

Ghostly kisses, mysterious bells and other bizarre phenomena drove a terrified young couple out of their rented house after only four days. Now Pieter van der Merwe and his fiancée, Roxanne Venter, claim that the house - in the small northern KwaZulu-Natal town of Glencoe - is haunted. Venter said that on the night they began moving in their furniture, they heard a bell ringing in one of the rooms. (read more)

"It was so strange, because we could hear the bell ring, but when we searched for it, we could not find it. It sounded just like a doorbell. It was definitely in the room, but there was no electricity connection anywhere in the room. "

Venter awoke later during the night after feeling someone kissing her on the lips. "I thought it was Pieter. I was shocked when I found that Pieter was sound asleep with his back facing me. It was definitely not him.

"I looked out of the bedroom door, but nobody was there. I thought I was just being paranoid, so I went back to sleep." Venter said that her fiancé's brother, Shaun, visited them the following day and found the mysterious bell on the floor. "The bell was disconnected and he found it in the spare room. It certainly was not there when we searched. We were really confused.

"We were told by the estate agent that the owner's parents had lived there previously. The wife, who died in that room, was bedridden and she had used the bell." Venter said they had also noticed that the ceiling fan in the living room switched on and off in the early hours of the morning. "It baffled me because the fan is only able to work if the string is pulled." "The toilet door used to open and close on its own, and when we went to investigate, we could feel something brushing past us."

They also heard noises in the spare room - where they kept their unpacked boxes - as though someone was jumping over the boxes. That was when the couple decided that enough was enough. They packed what they could and fled to Van der Merwe's parents' home in Glencoe.

"As we were leaving, we could feel someone pushing us out. I remember switching on the light in the hallway, but as we were leaving, the kitchen light came on. We could also see the kitchen door opening." As they drove away, they saw a man wearing a hat and trenchcoat staring at them. He was standing under a tree next to the house.

When the couple returned for the rest of their belongings, the house's windows opened and closed for no apparent reason. "The curtains used to part when they were closed, and when I closed them, they were pushed apart again," said Venter. She said a family who had rented the house before them had quit after three days.

An estate agent who leased the house to Van der Merwe refused to comment.

[Saru]

I don't blame them for leaving so soon, I don't think I'd want to stick around too long either with things like that going on.

It's interesting how some people react to paranormal activity in their own homes. Some tend to try and leave as fast as they can, or feel terrorised almost by the intrusion of the activities. Some on the other hand don't feel threatened at all by things like that, and accept it as the norm, perhaps having lived there with it for so long that they don't think anything of it any more.

It is baffling though in a way, how some people can knowingly buy and move into old buildings such as castles, with a history of gruesome occurances, and with reports of strange goings on by previous tennants. I don't think I'd ever want to willingly move into a 'haunted' building, visiting one is one thing, but living there is quite another.

[Sidhe]

Yes, especially since not all ghosts are alike. Some of them can be quite nasty. If they were ill mannered in life, they'll be ill mannered in the after-life.

One of the ghosts I "met" responded quite reasonably when I asked him to leave me alone and not come in my room anymore. He stopped coming in! He stayed in his workroom where I could hear him tinkering all night long.. He had only recently died and I think he was enjoying his retirement.

But I've lived in another house where the ghosts were much more chaotic.

Now it may sound strange that I've lived in so many haunted houses (four) but then I've lived in about forty houses, so there you are.. runs about ten percent in my experience. Of the four houses, only one of them had the kind of ghosties that you would not like to share a house with.

[SpaceyKC]

I once went to look at a house that was rumored to be where

the former owner had hung himself, (believe me it was to find a place

to live ~ and I didn't really believe the rumors), but when I walked into

the front room, I just felt really sad, even with no furniture,

nothing in the house, I could not wait to get out of there. I

couldn't imagine living there, even sleeping there one night.

[Sidhe]

Yeah that "feeling" has happened to me at least three of the times.

Strangely, one of the houses I lived in had that story about a suicide too. Are there really that many.. well, considering the statistics, maybe there are..

But I recognize that kind of feeling thing now though I did not at the time for any of them..

Most recently, I've been to a hotel in West Virginia that was supposed to be haunted. It had been used as a women's prison for some time then converted back into a hotel. Supposedly the ghost or ghosts come from that time as a prison.. Well, walking along the side of it the first night, I got the feeling..

Several other supposedly haunted places I have not gotten it.

I wonder what that feeling is? It must be something physiological..

[SpaceyKC]

Maybe it's a form of protection, like instinctual. Like some movies,

(was it 'Haunted House'?) where the emotions are still there

and so strong they influence the living after awhile.

[Kismit]

That's very interesting K.C . My husband and I moved into a house a few years back that I felt seemed ill , I comented to my husband that it felt like it needed someone to make it better. It was a farm house that came with the job . Anyway 10 day's after we moved in the boss was told his 21year old son had 2weeks to live and was dying from Leukemia. I some how felt that that was what I felt when we moved in.

As a side note to the rest of the thread I went to a party at the local Haunted house last night . I've been there a fair bit as we are good friends with the guy that lives there . I've never seen anything , but the owner speaks quit casually about meeting the old girl on the stairs all the time.

[SpaceyKC]

Well, Kismit, that would definitely make for helping my theory ~ but it certainly would be better if it was like what happened in your situation rather than having the forboding take over the new resident to the point of their despair. Maybe it depends on how the new owner handles the feeling.