Crazy Ghost Story

This is a real ghost story shared by a small business owner lady. It's actually quite scary. You can visit her site at http://www.mohop.com

(Thanks for the wonderful story mohop!)

Ok, here's my mom's story. It's going to be pretty long, sorry! And it's chock-full of too-perfect, over-the-top, stereotypical ghost story stuff, but my mom claims it's all absolutely true...!

When my mom was in college in the early 70's, her university, in central Illinois, had just decided to allow senior-year girls to live off campus. So the summer before her senior year, my mom and three of her friends looked for someplace cheap, but with character. They found an old victorian mansion in town that was gorgeous on the outside, but completely torn up on the inside.

Their landlord said that the previous owner, a wealthy, batty old widow had lived there most of her life. It was previously owned by the well-known architect who designed it in the late 19th century. My mom and her friends were the first people to rent it after the widow had passed away.

Apparently the widow was estranged from her family. When she died, her relatives were not included in the will, and there was no mention of all the fancy jewelry that she had owned. Conviced that the old lady had hidden the jewels somewhere in the house, the relatives tore the place apart. They removed all the marble mosiacs from the fireplaces, tore off the horsehair-stuffed velvet column covers, ripped the tapestries off the walls - basically, they pretty much destroyed what should've been a national landmark. The good new was, my mom and her friends got a really unusual house to rent for super cheap!

As an interesting side note, all the furniture from the house had been auctioned off. A woman bought the dining room set, and when she removed the upholstery to refinish the chairs, she found the jewelry stash! She actually contacted the police about it, and they told her that she was the new owner! Score, huh?

Anyway, when they first moved in, things were OK. But after a few weeks, strange things started happening. All the doors would mysteriously lock. Lights would turn themselves on or off. The temperature in the house would get really super hot, then cold. The girls called the police a few times, but the cops were all, 'you girls are imagining things' or 'it's your friends playing a prank on you' or 'stop smoking weed', etc.

Things started to get spookier. While lying in bed at night, they could occassionally feel a smallish animal jump up on the end of the bed and walk toward them (anyone with pets knows that exact feeling). But when they'd turn on the light, nothing was there! Doing some research on the past owner, and found some photos of the widow... many with her best friend, a little dog!

My mom never saw it, but several of her friends saw a glowey blue floating orb, maybe about the size of a softball, floating around the stairs to the attic.

Also - I think this is the freakiest thing - when they'd go upstairs (they learned to travel through the house together, as you'd imagine), sometimes they'd hear a giant crash and tumble in the living room, and they'd go back downstairs to find the furniture re-arranged!

Personally, I don't know how they managed to stay there through this. The thing didn't seem to be very friendly... they never saw any ghosts, it seemed like a classic poltergeist. They used to try to reason with it, addressing the widow (I forgot her name) out loud and telling her that they're trying to fix the house. But to no avail.

The whole thing culminated one evening - they had always had trouble with the phone lines (of course), so one of the girls decided to go up to the corner store and call the house to see if the phone worked. My mom and the girls at the house never heard the phone ring, but the girl at the phone heard it pick up, and a creepy voice said "Get out of my house!" Of course, she ran home screaming and crying. But, nothing ever happened to them again. The thing totally went away, and my mom and her friends lived there in peace and quiet for the rest of their year long lease.

However, other people who lived there apparently didn't have the courage and fortitude of my mom and her friends. A group of college guys rented it after them, and couldn't even stay a month. Various people bought it and tried to restore it over the years - some even tried exorsicm and that sort of thing, but it didn't work. As I was growing up, we'd drive by the place every few years, just to check it out. It was always abandoned, which looked so odd because it's in a neighborhood of huge victorian houses, all of which had been restored. It really stuck out like a sore thumb, but also validates my mom's story.

The last time I went by there though, a couple years ago, it looked like someone was living there and restoring it. So maybe the thing went away, or maybe the new owner was just putting up with the craziness... Too bad TAPS wasn't around when my mom lived there!