So, I bought an old house (1885) in Hiram, Maine, to rehab - it had not been updated since WWII. The previous owner had passed away.
I hired two guys to help out - by Day 2 they refused to go to the basement, claiming it was "haunted". I had to restrain myself from laughing. I'm not what you would call a believer.
But a couple days later I was working alone, and a hammer sitting on the bench across the room suddenly hit the floor. I though that to be strange, but chalked it up to "natural causes not identified."
A few days later, I kept hearing loud bangs in another room - while I was alone in the house. I was starting to think the guys were not totally whacked out about the place being haunted. But I was not yet ready to capitulate to a belief in ghosts.
I mentioned this to the neighbor expecting to share a chuckle. Instead, he told me of things he noticed - like a few nights earlier he saw a light on in the upstairs window, then it went out. Not only was there no one in the house, but there was no electricity in the house at the time.
I began to get concerned when I arrived one morning and the place was ice cold (January in Maine). I had just put in the new furnace and it had been working fine for a week, so I thought the HVAC guy missed something. I called him. He came over and immediately noticed the switch was in the "OFF" position. NOTE: The switch is above eye level and in a tough spot to reach. No way it could have been tripped by accident.
This morning changed everything. When I left the house yesterday, all was quiet as I locked up. When I arrived this morning I heard a loud buzzing noise as I approached the house. Thinking the new furnace might be ready to blow up or something, I hurriedly unlocked the door and rushed in. There on the kitchen floor was my pad sander - running!
It takes a bit of pressure to push in the switch to turn it on. And judging by how little sanding damage had been done to the OSB subfloor, it appeared the sander had only been running about an hour.
But how did it turn on?
OK, so maybe there are "ghosts", and maybe not. I don't know, and as long as they don't hamper the work, I don't really care. But now I find myself jerking up at every sound.
On the "upside": I made over $110,000 on this rehab, and got this 1980 Porsche 924 as a free bonus, left in the garage. Runs great! Needed to be repainted...I'll tolerate a lot of haunting for all of that.
Keeping an open mind. And I will be glad when this place is done!
