READERS TALES
Grandma
I live in San Diego California. My wife and I recently
moved into a house that was for 5 years her parent’s
place. They decided they wanted a smaller place for
the two of them and bought a 2 bedroom mobile home in
a neighboring town about 10 minutes away. I don’t know
how old this house is, but it’s in the suburbs.
Apparently, at some point, one of the previous owners
added on to the house (not very good craftsmen
either!). It was originally a 3 bedroom 1 bath with
living room, dining room, and kitchen. At the end of
the long hall a door was made and two rooms were added
on. You now take a step down into what we call the den
and off of this there is a small room that is big
enough to use as a 4th bedroom. They also divided the
bathroom in two so that one of the rooms (Grandma’s
room) had it’s own bathroom.
Some extra back history, my wife’s Grandma had lived 3
years in this house before her sudden death after
being rushed to the hospital. I met my wife about 6
months or so (March 2000) after this tragedy, and we
didn’t move into this house until September 2003. My
in-laws took Grandma’s room for themselves, even
though my mother-in-law hated the idea of sleeping in
her dead mother’s room. At different times while they
lived here, they had most of their grandkids living
with them because of family problems or convenience.
The first story I heard about the house was by my
mother-in-law. One night while in bed, she heard someone walking down the hallway.
With wood floors it is very hard to walk down the
hallway and not be heard. It was very late at night
but she thought it was one of the kids. She said the
footsteps came down the hall to their room at the end
of the hall near the den and then stop. She then heard
a music box in the den start to play. This music box
has to be opened to hear the music. She got out of bed
and went to see what was happening. When she turned on
the light, no one was there, but the lid to the music
box was open. It sat on the piano that was up against
the wall that separated the den from their bedroom.
It had belonged to Grandma. She closed the lid and
went back to bed. It “mysteriously” ended up on our
entertainment system a few days later. I asked my wife
if that music box had been the same one from her
mother’s story and she said she didn’t think so. But I
realized that her mother had brought it to our house
because it HAD been the music box and she didn’t want
it in her house anymore.
So armed with that knowledge, we moved into this
house.
Now, I’d only had experiences with one other
ghost at that time, which was in the house we rented
prior to buying this one. I’ll tell that story at
another time. So I have to say it was a bit unsettling
to know that something had happened in the place we
were going to live.
My mother had stayed a few weeks
to help us clean the old house and move us into the
new. My wife’s nephew was living with us while he
waited to go into the Army in October. It was very
strange to be in the house that I considered to be my
in-law’s. And anytime I sleep in an unfamiliar place I
am restless.
I’ve always had a fear of the dark. As I
grew into an adult it changed from the bogeyman fears
to the fear that there was some killer who could
possibly be in the house. As a woman, I’ve always
been very cautious about those things and like to be
on guard. So we have night-lights on in various parts
of the house to eliminate the dark.
Two weeks after we moved in, our nephew, M., went to
Basic Training and my mom went home. It was only me
and my wife and our 2 big dogs and 3 cats. The cats
are pretty much kept in that back room off the den
with the door closed and the dogs are kept in the den
and the backyard. To try and keep the dogs confined to
the den we bought a dog gate. While my wife installed
it, I was outside cleaning up the dogs’ waste. She
called to me from the house, “What are we going to do
with M.’s things?” They were in what had been
Grandma’s room but is now the guest room and, when
he's home, M's room. He had taken that room even
though he was a bit weirded out about it too.
I didn’t
really think there was any need to DO anything with
his stuff so I said, “I don’t know. We’ll figure it
out later.”
Then about ten minutes later she called to me again,
“Did you open the closet door?”
I came in and looked at her and said, “No. Why?”
She was sitting on the step to the den and looking at
me. She had a funny look on her face. The power drill
she had been using was still in her hand. I walked to
her and looked into the guest room. There are sliding
doors for the closet that are mirrored. The right door
was open about half way. I asked my wife if she had
opened it. She said no she hadn’t. I said was she sure
that it was closed. I hadn’t been in or looked in the
room that day so I didn’t know. She said she had just
been in there to plug in the drill when she looked at
M.’s stuff and had asked me what we should do about
it. His stuff was right in front of the closet, almost
dead center. She said she had been sitting there
drilling into the wall when she looked over her
shoulder and it was standing open like it was now. I
got the major creeps and quickly walked into the room
and closed it. I then said, “Yes, we know you’re here.
That’s okay. We can co-exist in the house, but please
don’t open the closet anymore.” I then shut the door
to the room and didn’t open it for several days.
Between the time we moved in and shortly after the
incident in the guest room, I had noticed the closet
door in the cat’s room was open. This closet is
exactly like the one in the guest room except is not
mirrored. Since the cats were in that room, we made a
conscious
decision not to leave the closet open so the cats
couldn’t get in it. The first time I went in the room
and found it open I thought my wife had forgotten to
close it when she was in there so I just closed it.
The second and last time I found it open was after the
incident in the guest room. I shut the closet and said
out loud, “Grandma, please don’t open the closet. The
cats get in there and we don’t want them to. Thanks.”
I never found the closet open again. I talked to my
wife about it and she said that she was always careful
to close the closet after getting into it so the cats
wouldn’t get in.
There was one night between Christmas and Thanksgiving
when my wife and I were sitting in the den watching
TV. We had both been to the kitchen many times that
night. It was getting to be around 8:30 or 9pm when I
got up to get something to drink. She asked me to go
into the kitchen and see if I smelled anything. She
said she had been smelling something strange and she
wanted to see if I smelled it too. I walked into the
kitchen and stopped just inside the doorway. I smelled
deeply but only the usual smell of food was there. I
asked her what it was that I was smelling for and she
said, “It’s my Grandma.” I was a bit disappointed that
I couldn’t smell anything. I told her though that even
if I did smell something, I wouldn’t know what it was
because I had never met her Grandma.
She later told me that she had walked into the kitchen
and was hit with a very strong familiar smell in the
doorway. She took a couple of steps into the kitchen
and still smelled it. It wasn’t until she moved to the
table that she lost the smell. It finally hit her that
it was the smell of her Grandma. She never described
what it was that she smelled other than it was her
Grandma. She said she then kind of looked around and
said, “Grandma? Hi. Love you.” The smell lingered for
half an hour she estimates before it disappeared. I
never smelled it.
I came home from work one day and both my wife and
nephew M. were home. I put my key in the lock of the
side door that enters into the kitchen/dining room
and it felt like someone was manually unlocking the
door from the inside. There is a large window in the
door but the curtains were closed on it so I couldn’t
see anyone on the other side. I just thought it was my
wife or M. When the door was unlocked, it felt to me
like someone was pulling gently on it from the inside
and I was taken a bit off balance by it. I said, “Oh,
hi,” and walked inside, fully expecting to have
someone greet me on the other side. There was no one
there! Both my wife and M. came into the kitchen after
that from the hallway opposite from the door so it
wasn’t them. I just stood there dumbfounded. I
couldn’t figure out what had happened. I have a
routine on how I open the door and I always unlock the
bottom lock and with my key still inside, I push on
the door. I then extract my key. I’ve tried to
duplicate the feeling on the door opening that day and
cannot do it! When I was no longer perplexed about it
that day, I said, “Hi Grandma.”
On several occasions noises have been heard in the
house that are unexplainable. I have LOTS of fish. I
started buying Mollys, which are fresh water, live
breeders. They are great fish for first time aquarium owners.
They breed like rabbits though. I had a 10 gallon tank
at first but had to get a 26 gallon one to accommodate
the 50-70 fish I ended up having (I still need a
bigger tank). Anyway, I was standing in front of the
26 gallon tank that sits next to the front door in the
living room. The kitchen is open to the dining room
and the dinning room is open to the living room. There
is a door from the kitchen to the hallway as well as
one from the living room to the hallway. You could run
in a circle around the three rooms if you wanted to.
From where I was standing, you could see right into
the kitchen if you were facing it or straight down the
hall into the den. I was facing the wall at the fish
and all of a sudden I hear a BANG in the kitchen. I
turn around and nothing is there. My wife was sitting
in the computer room, not far from the kitchen so I
asked her if she heard that. She said yes, she thought
it was me. I said no! It sounded like someone had
slammed the oven door shut. I opened the door and shut
it just to see if I could produce the sound again. It
didn’t freak me out. I was far more curious than
terrified.
Another time, our nephew M. was home for Christmas
from Basic and his brother, E. had come over to see
him. E. and I were in the den watching TV waiting for
M. to come back from some place when there were noises
in the kitchen. I thought it was my wife coming home,
but I didn’t hear the jingling of the bells on the
door. We do that so we know if anyone comes in that
way. Women can’t be too careful. I got up and E.
followed me. We got into the kitchen and no one was
there. I shrugged and went back to the den. E. said,
“I wonder what that was?” I replied, “It was probably
Grandma. Hi Grandma.” Other noises have been heard
from the kitchen at various times but those are the
ones I remember more vividly.
One night my wife and I were watching TV, again this
was some time in December. We were sitting there and
all of a sudden the digital cable box reset itself. To
reset it manually you have to press a button on the
back of the box. It takes about 5-10 minutes to come
back on and so we waited. At the time this happened I
was saying that I had never seen Miracle of 34th
Street and wouldn’t because it looked boring to me.
That’s when the cable turned off. We have it set up
that if the cable is turned on or off, so is the TV.
We joked while it reset that Grandma had probably
turned off the cable. Then finally it came back on and
about a minute later it started to reset again. During
this interlude, I thought about what was happening and
why Grandma would do such a thing. Then I remembered
what I had been saying and joked about it with my
wife. So I said to Grandma, “Sorry about what I said.
I didn’t mean any disrespect. I’ll watch the movie if
you really want me to.” We didn’t have any problems
with the cable after that.
We have two game consoles hooked up to our TV,
Playstation 2 and Gamecube. After we moved into this
house I borrowed some games from our nephew N. and his
girlfriend K. They had original PS games and so I took
out the PS2 memory card and put in the PS memory
cards. I played those games for about 1½ months. Both
consoles sit on an antique end table. The top and
bottom level of the table are the same 1½ square foot
surface. The PS2 is on top and the Gamecube is on
bottom. I set the PS2 memory card behind the console
on the table. Sometime in November, near Thanksgiving,
my wife went into a rage because she couldn’t find her
Baseball game she had saved. She had been searching
for it on the PS memory cards. It being a PS2 game, it
was on the PS2 memory card. That card was nowhere to
be seen. Our dogs are notorious for getting a hold of
things and chewing them up, but we hadn’t found
anything in the yard to confirm they had taken it. It
had just vanished. We both looked all over the place
but couldn’t find it. We thought we’d just have to go
shell out another $30+ for a new one.
In preparation
for Christmas, I dusted the entire entertainment
center as well and the game consoles, controllers, and
end table. I got a few PS2 games for Christmas. I
started playing them that night after the family had
left. The next morning I picked up the controller,
which I had placed behind the console, and saw a black
thing. I picked it up and said to my wife, “Well,
here’s the memory card! Looks like a ghost took it.”
Both of us had looked and looked around and on that
end table. The memory card had NOT been there. I in
fact had taken another memory card that was on the
table where the PS2 one should have been and stored it
in a cabinet with some games. So we would have seen
the blasted thing had it been on the table the whole
time. The PS2 memory card still had dust on it after
it reappeared by the way.
One last thing that happened in this house since we’ve
moved in was that one night I was in the computer room
playing a Sim game and my wife was in the den watching
TV. The dogs were outside and the cats were locked up.
It was around 9 or 9:30 pm when my wife called to me.
I went to the den and asked her what she wanted. She
asked if I had heard footsteps on the roof. I said no
since the game music was fairly loud and I was
absorbed in it. I tend to focus intently on what I'm
doing. She said she heard heavy footsteps walk along
the roof. She could see our big German Shepherd
outside from where she sat and he didn’t give any
indication that anyone was up there. I personally
don’t think that was Grandma.
If there is another
ghost here, we haven’t seen it.
I asked M. if he had any unexplained things happen to
him here and the only thing I remember him telling me
was that he would always find the shed door open. He
would close it and about an hour later he’d go back
and find it open again. He told me that happened a
lot. We have never had that happen since we keep it
locked. Grandma’s things are stored in that shed.
One final note about Grandma. Christmas 2002 the
family was all here at the house to celebrate the
holiday. My wife, who is a photographer, took pictures
of the day. We didn’t develop them until just before
Christmas 2003 when we were living in the house. I was
looking at them and there were two pictures that had
anomalies. For ghost enthusiasts, anomalies in photos
mean there are spirits present. The first picture had
a bright, fuzzy mass in the corner between my wife
with the camera and the tree she was photographing.
The other one was of her mother sitting in a chair
surrounded by all the wrapping paper because we
thought it would be funny, like she had made such a
mess. Again, between the camera and her mom is a
bright, fuzzy mass. Both M. and my wife have said that
my mother-in-law looks like Grandma in that photo. My
wife wouldn’t accept that what she was seeing was her
Grandma. I have seen hundreds of “ghost” photos on the
Internet and I KNOW what made those anomalies. My wife
kept trying to figure out how it could have happened,
but she can’t to this day. She has come to terms now
that it was her Grandma. I will send the photos as
soon as I can. We had them developed at Walgreens and
I can’t open the CD at home for some reason.
It’s February now and we’ve had nothing happen since
December. I don’t think we’ve heard the last of
Grandma, and that’s okay with me. She is a gentle
spirit and watches over us. As for the other things
that happened, the memory card and the footsteps, I
don’t think that was Grandma. I don’t know what or who
it was.
-Joanna.
P.S. Since I wrote this yesterday, a few more things
have happened. The night I wrote this my wife had come
home from work and I gave her the computer while I
went to the den to watch TV and play on the PS2. She
called me into the room, it was around 9:30 pm, and
she told me that something had flown by her ear. It
was like a bug had flown by her ear but there was no
buzzing sound. She demonstrated the feeling by
flapping her hand near her ear really fast but didn’t
touch her ear as she did it. I giggled (I seem to do
that when things happen but I’m not that scared, just
a little uneasy) and told her if it was a bug where
was it? She said she didn’t know and she called me in
to see if I could help her find it. I didn’t even try
since I didn’t think it was a bug. It could have been,
but I don’t think so.
The second thing happened to me today after I got home
from work. I went in to see the cats in the room off
the den. My favorite cat, Diva, was on the drafting
table I have in there and she meowed at me. I walked
into the room to give her a pet. The smell from the
litter box was a bit overwhelming so I opened the
window to give them some fresh air. I went to leave
but backed out of the room as I was cooing at Diva who
was still meowing at me. Then I felt a pressure on the
door as the ironing board fell over and hit my
drafting table. It lives there at the moment. The only
thing that bothered me about it falling was that it
scared the cats. I got the board back into its place
and am sure it can’t fall over now by accident. Still
I thought nothing of it. I had probably made it fall
by opening the door too wide.
I pet all three cats and
even took Diva and put her back on the drafting table
where she had been. Then I backed out of the door
again. This time my mind registered that something was
wrong but I couldn’t figure it out. Then it hit me
that the doorknob wouldn’t turn. It was locked! This
stunned me because I didn’t even realized there WAS a
lock on that door. I even said out loud because I was
so astonished, “Is there a lock on the door?” Sure
enough there was! I unlocked it and turned the knob
several times to make sure it was not locked. Then I
closed the door.
Just a few minutes ago I went and put a fresh litter
box in the room for the cats and I tried very hard to
turn the lock on the door while holding the knob like
I always do. I could not lock the door unless I moved
my pinkie down and put pressure on the lock as I
turned it. That was the only way I could do it and it
was very awkward for me to turn the knob. I definitely
hadn’t locked that door today.
I just thought I’d
share that. I guess you can expect more tales from
this house in the future.
-Joanna.