1. We started the remodel with the downstairs which makes up about 80% of the actual square footage and actual usable space. The only thing upstairs was a small loft, 2 bedrooms, and a bathroom. That upstairs bathroom was completely torn out minus the tub and the faucet for it. One day I got a call from my mother in law who babystat our son during the day saying the upstairs tub faucet was running full blast. First off, it wasn't on when she got there and second we absolutely never use that bathroom tub. I thought maybe it was a small leak but someone/something had completely turned the handle to full blast and it takes physical effort to do so. It's nothing that can accidentally happen.
2. Our son slept upstairs in one of the bedrooms while our bedroom was downstairs on the opposite end of the house. We had a baby monitor at night which would amplify when it heard noises and then go into quiet mode any other time. One night I was getting ready to goto bed and I heard some heavy rustling and my son starting to get fussy, though not yet crying. The monitor went into 'loud' mode and I listened to it very attentively figuring it was only a matter of time before he started to cry..as I listened I heard a loud and VERY distinctly clear "Shhhhhhhhhh" directly directly into the mic. My son instantly got quiet and I ran as fast as I've ever run, my handgun with me thinking someone was in my son's room. When I threw the door open, he was sound asleep and nothing or no one was in the room. After that he slept in our bed for the next month or so.
3. Doors slamming. We do not open the windows a lot, especially living in Arizona and especially in the summer. Early on, doors would slam upstairs on the regular with no draft and our doors are 9 foot and solid wood making them incredibly heavy.
4. Lights turning on and off. This is one I can explain away because it's electrical and our switches are the flat panel type that can get stuck in the middle and eventually flip up or down..at least in theory as I've never seen it happen just assumed it could and explains the lights turning on and off.
5. The Push – A few months after the "Shhhhh" we moved our son back into his room. When he was young he was very difficult to get to sleep so I had to stay near him until he was finally asleep every night. The drawing below shows the layout of the upstairs, his room, my desk, and his crib. Sitting in his room was fairly boring so eventually I moved to my desk just outside of it where I had line of sight between us. One night I had the lights off minus my PC screen and all of a sudden the lights in his room flipped on. I thought maybe he had climbed out of his crib since at this point we was able to do that on occasion. Nope, he was sound asleep. I figured maybe it was an electrical problem and went back to the computer. No more than a few minutes later I felt a hard shove against the back of my chair. I turned immediately thinking that once again, maybe he had climbed from his crib but nothing was there plus the force of the shove was well above anything he could have done. THIS is when I was 100% convinced my house was haunted.
6. As mentioned before, the downstairs of our house has a playroom which is directly across from our master bedroom. On numerous occasions, toys randomly turn on by themselves. This isn't one or two toys but a variety of them. Some which require switches to be turned on and others that require squeezing of particular areas. These have ONLY happened at night while we're sleeping or getting ready to and never during the day when we're out and about in the house.
7. The Touch – My wife and I were watching a movie with me sitting on the couch and her sitting on the floor with her back to the couch right next to me. All of a sudden she turns to look at me and I give her a blank "What?" look.. shes immediately FLIPS out and jumps in the air yelling "That wasn't you? That wasn't you????". Eventually she calmed down and told me she felt a hand pressed against the back of her head and run it's fingers through her hair. When she realized it wasn't me she lost her shit.
8. Footsteps in the attic – Our house has 2 attics, the one above the primary one story of the house and the second, smaller one, above the smaller upstairs. This is by far the most common ghost type thing we experience in the house and it happens so often that we literally never notice it though it does freak the hell out of our guests and my son's friends. It normally happens in the evening and sounds exactly someone is walking through the first floor attic, towards the back of the house, normally directly over the living room. The steps have weight to them and you can follow them as they progress across the room directly above us. I've been in our attic so many times at this point thinking maybe some homeless person has taken residence up there but there's nothing there. Even if it was an animal (it's not), the steps have way too much weight to them. I'd say at it's peak we heard the footsteps 3-4 times a week. Now because we're so acclimated to them I can't even tell anymore except 2 days ago when I got home my wife was staring at the ceiling watching the steps progress across the room above her.
9.
The Conversation – One night I woke up and heard a very distinct conversation happening in my son's playroom right across the living room from our master bedroom. I coulnd't make out words but it was loud and definitely coming from our house. It sounded like a deep mans voice having a conversation except I couldn't make out any words..just lots of Hur hum dum ber dum dum..Like a conversation at a party wehre you can clearly hear people talking but can't make out the words. I thought it could be someone outside but the second I got up and left our room it immediately stopped. There's no way it came from outside but I quickly ran out there incase the neighbors were having some sort of gathering. Nope, pure silence and this was also 3 in the morning.
10. Sleep Paralysis – This one scared me the most before I looked up what sleep paralysis was. It's terrifying and I'm 100% convinced there's a ghost or entity holding me down and keeping me from screaming. It NEVER happened in our old house
11. TV being on when we get home. I thoguht it could have been a setting with our TV but this happens on 2 separate ones, one of which we've replaced with a newer model. It hasn't happened lately but at it's peak it would happen once every week or two.
12. The Door Shake – Referring to the upstairs diagram again my wife was in the bathroom (at this point that bathroom was finished and our downstairs one was under construction. She was straightening her hair with my son taking a nap in his room, with the door closed, RIGHT next to the bathroom. The door is literally 5 feet away from where she was standing. All of a sudden the door starts to violently shake and she almost instantly goes to open it thinking my son had climbed out of his crib and was trying to open the door. When she opens it, he was sound asleep. There's also no way he could have shook the door in the manner it was.
[edit - adding one more and this one we saw with our eyes]
13. My living room has shutters which we keep closed for privacy and because at night there's a light directly outside of them that blares into the TV if we keep it open. One night we were watching TV and slowly we could see the light coming in. We both turn and watch as a single louver on the shutter opens UP, against gravity.
I think that covers most of the things which have happened. There's been numerous other small things but we really just ignore them at this point. The weird thing is I have no intention of moving and outside of the "shhhh" scare, we don't feel scared at all. If there is a ghost there he/she doesn't feel menacing and we've just learned to live with it.
We recently purchased a second vacation home and I have a new story to tell about that place but I'll save it for a later post. Thanks for listening to my winded post. Sorry for the typos and grammatical errors.
UPDATE: As Promised, the stories about our new vacation rental in Post #1090
