Episode #207: Ghost Stories Episode

Tomorrow is Halloween, so it’s time for some spooky ghost stories. We have gone through all your submissions and here are some of our favorites.

You can find the podcast posts archive here.

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Show Notes:

Listen to our past Ghost Stories episodes:

Episode #58: Ghost Story Special

Episode #59: Ghost Story Special (Part 2)

Episode #118: Halloween Special (Ghost Stories)

Miss an Episode? Get Caught Up!

• Episode #206: Rosemary’s Baby – Comfort Rewatch
• Episode #205: Practical Magic – Comfort Rewatch
• Episode #204: Halloween Favorites

Episode 207 Transcript:

Emma: You’re listening to the Beautiful Mess Podcast, your cozy comfort listen. Tomorrow is Halloween. So, it’s time for some spooky ghost stories. We’ve gone through all your submissions, and here are some of our top favorites. 

Elsie: This is one of our favorite episodes of the year. We love reading your ghost stories every single year. So, thank you so much to every single person who sent us a ghost story. 

Emma: We read all of them, even if they didn’t make it in the episode, they very much entertained us, so thank you. 

Elsie: It is pure joy. I think we should figure out how to do more episodes that have reader, sorry, listener submissions because I think it’s, it’s so fun.

Emma: I feel like one year we did two episodes with ghost stories too, but we kind of weren’t organized enough this year. Like we kind of like are running out of time before.

Elsie: It’s because I wanted to do three Halloween movies and I had to.

Emma: It turns out there’s only one episode every week and you know, as usual, we’re great planners. So here we are, we’re doing our best. But before we get to the listener stories, I wanted to ask you and I’ll share too. Since we’re both in new houses, I’ve been in mine for a year now, pretty much exactly a year, and you’ve been in since June. So do you think that your house is haunted? Have you had any haunting things happen?

Elsie: Dun, dun, dun, dun. So our house is from 1904. It’s very old. However, I will say, that our last house definitely had some ghost experiences and it was built in the 90s. I’m not one of those people who believe everything old is haunted or it has to be old to be haunted. I think ghosts go where they want, they do what they want. Not every ghost is a Victorian-era person. You know what I mean? But yeah, I will just quickly say yes. I did have one experience so far, and it was like, it was pretty short. It wasn’t anything crazy, but it definitely happened. I immediately told Jeremy, just for like the, you know, you gotta like have a witness, or it didn’t really happen type of vibe. Did I ever tell you this? I can’t remember. 

Emma: I do remember some of your stuff from your last house, your 90s house. 

Elsie: Our last house had the ghosts that came one day after we gave ghost stories. We recorded a podcast episode and we talked about ghosts all day and then that next night it started happening and it happened for one year, and then it stopped. It was so weird. So anyway, this house, I asked the previous owners, like, I have no shame, and I knew I was going to and I had to. I asked them if they had any ghost experiences. If I ever meet any of the other previous owners, I will ask them too, every single time. I just think it’s interesting and like, if people aren’t too embarrassed to say, it’s just fun to know.

Emma: It’s a conversation starter. Try it at your next party. 

Elsie: Yeah. So I asked them and they said, nope, nothing, nothing happened, which I feel like when someone’s selling you a house. 

Emma: Yeah. They might lie cause they don’t want you to be scared or something.

Elsie: Yeah. And we had read on our house listing it was like an old listing that we could still see that there’s this kind of little cool feature. There’s like on the front door of the house on days when it’s super humid. These letters appear from this old sign. I think it was once like a vinyl sign or a painted sign on the door and now it only shows up. It’s actually only happened probably two or three times when it’s super, super humid, which is raining. And it says something architect on it. And I actually don’t even know if it was, I think that the door might have come from a different location. And I don’t think that that’s a ghost, by the way, but I just think it’s, it’s cool. 

Emma: No, that’s more like a magic trick that a kid would buy at a magic store kind of thing. It’s really cool, but it’s not really, to me, a very haunted thing. It’s just like a cool parlor trick.

Elsie: Yes. Okay, so for my ghost experience so far, nothing much, you know, I never get to see a ghost. It’s my destiny that I’ll never have a good one because I want it too badly. 

Emma: Yeah, they can smell your desperation. 

Elsie: I’ll pay extra for a house with ghosts, you know. So we remodeled our third floor, which was previously an attic and our house has a weird history that it burned down at one point almost completely. And was rebuilt in the 1920s, but no one died in the fire, but lots of people died in the home. I’ve seen all that history, there are lots of deaths. I mean, it’s an old home. It’s normal. None of them were uncommon. They were just regular normal deaths. 

Emma: I feel like dying at home seems like actually a really peaceful way to go.

Elsie: Yeah. It’s very rude to not want people to die in their homes because then you’re just not letting them have something nice at the end of their lives. 

Emma: Yeah, it sounds peaceful as opposed to being in the hospital, you know, or I don’t know. 

Elsie: And it doesn’t necessarily make your house haunted. Anyway, I had this one day when we had contractors constantly in our home. And I walked up the stairs, I looked around the room, I saw a man in the corner, and then I kept going and looked again, and then I saw there was no one there.

Emma: Oh, like you thought it was a contractor? 

Elsie: Yeah, I thought it was a contractor, at that time, that would have been normal. Yeah. And I just like saw a person, and then I saw that there wasn’t a person. Like moments later. And then I took like a million pictures. I tried everything I could to like see what happened or what, you know, and it just was a moment and that was all it was, but so far that’s the only thing that has happened in the home. I don’t really think that that’s even necessarily like anything, but it’s a little something. What about you? 

Emma: Not really, and I’m one of those people who like, I wouldn’t say I don’t believe in ghosts, but I also wouldn’t say I believe. I would just say I don’t feel the need to have a strong opinion either way. It seems like possible to me and it also seems possible that, you know, maybe it’s just like an alternate dimension that people can feel at times or, you know, I feel like there could be a lot of explanations. I feel more sure there are aliens than I do ghosts, I guess is what I would say. And I don’t really feel sure about that.

Elsie: I mean, aliens for sure. But why ghosts? 

Emma: I don’t really feel like, no, that’s just it is. I just don’t feel the need to have a strong. Sometimes there are a lot of things in life that I really, think a very like Zen things, but I just think if you don’t need to have an opinion on something, why?

Elsie: I like that. You’re just staying open. 

Emma: Yeah, I’m just like, why not just stay open and be curious and like hearing people’s stories and like, I don’t know, but I will say our current house was built in, I think, I believe 1978 and the previous home that I was living in was our, we called it the holiday house and it was older. It was like 1920 or maybe even before that. So you would think that that house, the holiday house, would be very creaky and just like an old house. And if one of them was haunted, maybe that one would be. But I actually never felt like that one was very creaky or very spooky. It just was very normal to me. I really only lived there for like a little over a year, I guess. But anyway, this current house that I’m living in, that’s not super old, but it’s from 1978. It feels very creaky at night, like there are lots of times I wake up in the night and I’m like, is someone in my attic? Is there like a raccoon in the attic? Or like, you know, just like noises where I’m like, oh, is someone downstairs? But I know that no one’s downstairs like my husband’s out of town or he’s like already in bed or something. So I’m like, no, nobody’s downstairs, you know. There’s just kind of like a lot of creaks and noises and I think that has to do more with probably the building than anything else, but it is creepy, but I don’t necessarily feel like, oh, there’s definitely a ghost. I’m like, I don’t know, there could be. It’s kind of loud at night. Something’s going on, but it could just be our HVAC is old. I don’t know. Beats me, but it is a surprisingly creaky house compared to my last one because of how different the ages are. 

Elsie: Yeah. Our house is crazy loud at night. But it was immediate and it’s very consistent. So we know that it’s just like, it’s just crazy loud night. Just like things happening. I don’t know, in the yard next door, there’s a train track nearby. I don’t know what exactly is all the banging and booming.

Emma: I feel like mine is more when my husband’s out of town, which is fairly often, and I know, which makes me think that it’s just me being a little bit in my head of like, Oh, I’m a little scared because no one’s here but me and my son who’s two. But you know, I’m like, you really hear noises or are they always there? You just don’t notice them when your husband’s home because you’re like, I don’t care. The murderer will get him first. You know, I don’t know what I think. I don’t know. No real ghost stories, but my house is creaky. 

Elsie: Okay, I will always be hoping for one, so we’ll check in again next year. 

Emma: And I am open, but don’t care. Either way, you know, what term would you give that, either way? It’s not that I don’t care. It’s that I’m neutral. That sounds worse in a way. I don’t know. 

Elsie: Okay. So in this episode, we are going to read our listener-submitted ghost stories. These are pretty much all firsthand stories that happened to one of our listeners. I thought they were very entertaining. I hope you enjoy it. They’re not super scary. I don’t think there are any stories that are super, super scary this year. So don’t be scared. 

Emma: If you already listened to the Rosemary’s Baby episode, this is nothing.

Elsie: We will link to our past ghost stories episodes in the show notes. And there were some in there that got pretty scary. There’s this one that will stay in my brain forever. Yeah, it was awesome. Yeah, overall, I think that listening to all the ghost stories every year has made me believe that ghosts are, for the most part, like, fun, interesting, and kind of sweet, they’re almost always nice, which I think is a very comforting way to think of ghosts. If you think they’re probably real, to think that nothing bad is going to happen, like no harm is going to come to you, I’ve never seen a story where anyone was harmed, it’s just like little spooky shit that happens, and it’s fun.

Emma: Yeah, which if you think about it, like, let’s say, we die and you did end up a ghost, you know, to premise. I don’t think I would spend my time trying to freak people out. I think I would spend my time, like, trying to do something nice. Trying to like, Oh, look out, you’re about to back your car into something, you know, I don’t know. 

Elsie: Or a loving message. A lot of them are loving messages.

Emma: And yeah, be like, I miss you. Wish we could talk, but you can’t see me, or whatever, you know. Yeah, so it makes sense to me that it’s just like, you know, nice stuff. Anyway. Let’s do the stories. 

Elsie: All right. Let’s do it. 

Emma: Okay. Our first one is from a listener named Emma. It was the year 2008 and I was college roommates with my best friend, Fern. These are two things that you need to know before I tell the story. First, we were members of a sorority, and we lived in a giant dorm room with all of our sorority sisters. 

Elsie: Scream queens. 

Emma: Scream queens, yeah. The sorority that we were in has a past and famous serial killer, and all current national chapters of the sorority follow a very strict no-boys-on-the-floor policy. Huh. Is it related to the serial killer, or is it just general? That’s interesting. It was both a measure of safety and respect for our slain former sisters. Yikes! She answered my question, and also, Ooh, okay, wow, alright. I don’t even know how to feel about that. Okay. Second, our dorm building was allegedly haunted by another former sorority sister named Suzanne. No relation to serial killer incidents. No one in my current chapter knew the story of her life or death, only that she passed away young. We knew that she lived among us, and we knew which room had been hers. Now Fern and I were all known as the class clowns of the house. Alright, they’re the fun ones. We love to play practical jokes, and our time was largely spent goofing off. I feel like that’s kind of what college is for. Okay. We were never really bothered by anything, so when room assignments came out and we were in Suzanne’s room, we didn’t think much of it. She wasn’t anything that we were afraid of or even believed in. Okay. The premise is All right. We set a strong foundation for this story. It’s very good storytelling, Emma. Okay. Not me, the listener, Emma. Sounded like I was talking to myself. One night, we decided, to screw the rules, and we snuck a few male friends and a boyfriend. We hung out had some drinks and reveled in being rule-breakers for the evening. No one caught us and we rode the hive, pulling one over on our sisters into the night. Class clowns and they are mischievous. Yeah. The next morning, I had an early class, and when I came back to an empty dorm room, I was shocked when I saw fresh, wet blood on my pillow. Eww. I was absolutely losing my mind, checking my hair and body to see if I’d been cut in my sleep, only to find myself completely unharmed. The blood was still bright red as if it had only been there for minutes. Ugh. There were no other signs of blood on the ceiling, blankets, or anything amiss in the entire room. Just the one fresh pool of blood directly on my pillow, where my head had been only hours before. Yikes. Fern came back from class shortly after, and we were in complete disbelief. We asked around a few girls, thinking someone had finally gotten back at us for our pranks. But everyone thought we were crazy and trying to pull a prank on them. That is the problem with doing pranks. Everyone doesn’t believe you. Alright, we went back to our room, even more confused, and then looked at each other and instantly knew it was Suzanne. We had committed the cardinal sorority sin in her room and she had something to say about it. We felt so bad for hurting her feelings, we both apologized to her profusely, we never snuck another boy in, and we never slept there alone again because we were afraid of what would happen. After that incident, we went on to live in harmony with her, and man, did we respect her, and the rules, after that. Suzanne got them. 

Elsie: That’s a spooky story with a very good moral ending. 

Emma: I also kind of want to know, did they just wash the pillowcase? Did they just throw that pillow away? Because like, whose blood was it? Do ghosts have blood? Ugh. 

Elsie: I mean, if it was a prank, then it was a good one. It was well played. 

Emma: Maybe one of the sisters knew that they had snuck in boys. 

Elsie: And if it was a ghost, it definitely worked. Either way, it works that, you know, maybe it was like their dorm mom, you know, and she did know that they were sneaking around.

Emma: Is that a thing of sororities? 

Elsie: I don’t know, honestly. I don’t know what a sorority is, barely.

Emma: Only for movies, which probably doesn’t count. 

Elsie: It’s a great story and I love it. Okay. This next one is from Evelyn. When I was a young college student, I traveled with my parents and older sister to Tombstone, Arizona. We were staying one night at a quaint bed and breakfast, one that history says was once a thriving brothel during the Western expansion of the 1800s. I lay down and closed my eyes. We have, like, very talented writers this year. 

Emma: I know. I feel like they’ve really nailed the story. 

Elsie: Yeah. Thank you, everyone. I’m blown away. After a quiet moment, the bed suddenly lurched beneath me as though someone had forcefully stubbed their toe against the footpost upon entering the room. I opened my eyes expecting to see my sister but saw no one. I was alone, muzzled. I rose to check the hallway but found it similarly empty. And yet, the evidence was before me. The corner of the threadbare rug beneath the bed lay folded, disturbed. Ugh, I pondered the oddity of the moment. I like that when there’s like a fizz, like you hear something or feel something and then you actually see something also.

Emma: And then you’re like, no, I was just dreaming. And then you’re like, no, I wasn’t. I can see this evidence here.

Elsie: Yeah. That’s even creepier. I pondered the oddity of the moment only briefly before letting it pass intrigued, but also unconcerned. The next morning sitting at the breakfast table was a guest book. I began to flip through it, reading the varied entries of years worth of previous guests. After a few pages, a sense of unease stole over me. Scattered amidst the typical entries were reports of visits that were more curious. There were footsteps in the empty stairwell. I heard a piano playing faintly, but there was none in the house. Who was the soldier standing behind me in the bathroom mirror? He disappeared when I flipped on the light. There was a distinct moaning coming from the uninhabited room next to mine. I looked up and found our hostess looking at me with a knowing grin. I sat still incredulous but relayed my own small yet strange occurrence to her from the afternoon before. She simply nodded, saying that the building was originally an old brothel after all. She confessed that she never puts the guestbook out until her guest’s final morning so as to not forewarn them or predispose them to conjure up false expectations. I think that’s good because yeah, like the problem with a haunted hotel is that you’re expecting it the whole time. I would way rather have a surprise haunted hotel, right? 

Emma: Plus, like, if nothing happens to you, I feel like I will be on edge the whole time being scared something’s going to happen when it’s possible nothing might happen to me. So if you just don’t tell me, sometimes ignorance is bliss. So maybe that’s what I’m trying to say. Okay, this is from listener Marilyn. My partner and I were working nights patrolling the Pacific Coast Highway. PCH in California. I don’t know if anyone calls it that. I’m just being a dork. One night around 2:00 AM there was a report of a possible accident at Devil’s Slide, a road set above the coastal cliffs where many accidents occurred. We drove to the area and began searching in the darkness using our car spotlight. Wow. I’m already kind of nervous now. I hate car accidents. Okay. As I drove around the corner, I saw three distinct clouds drifting across the road each made of white wispy smoke in a spiral shape, each the height of a person. My eyes grew wide, breath caught in my throat, but I quickly decided not to say anything to my partner. Hmm, interesting choice. After some more time, we were unable to locate any accident down on the cliffs in the darkness, so we decided to turn around and head back to our patrol route. I quickly said to my partner, let’s take a different road back, and he said, do you see them too? Do you mean the ghost? So he did see them. My partner said the tallest ghost had the face of a man. Ooh, we finished our shift, the next shift during the daylight officers located the crash. Three people had died in the vehicle, including a man.

Elsie: I love that one. I love for ghosts to be little, like, tornado-looking clouds is amazing. 

Emma: Yeah. Also, I guess, like, fresh ghost, you know? Presumably, she’s saying it’s the people who had just died in this car crash that they were looking for but couldn’t find in the dark.

Elsie: So they’re wandering around. 

Emma: Yeah, or just rising from the crash or whatever I don’t really know but which is very tragic too because I feel like ghosts it’s always tragic because it’s presumably someone who has died. I guess it could be if you believe in angels or demons or whatever, I guess But I think most time people think of ghosts as someone who’s died. But something about someone who very recently died in a tragic way sounds even worse. Like somehow I’m like, Oh, I feel so bad for these ghosts. They probably had plans for the next day. You know? Anyway, good story. 

Elsie: It’s a good story. The next one is from Elizabeth. When I was a kid, my mom worked at a gift shop decor store downtown. One day we were all down there while we were switching out inventory. They were moving a lot of big things between the showroom and the cellar, which had one of those typical cellar doors that opens out of the floor, leaving a big hole that drops down into the basement. I wasn’t paying attention and was running around playing, and ran right over the open hole in the floor.

Emma: Okay, that’s horrible. 

Elsie: A mother’s worst fear. My mom was upstairs, and she saw what had happened and shouted to my dad who was in the basement. But she knew that he wasn’t close enough to catch me, however, they both raced over there to where I was to say that I was hovering in mid-air like someone was just holding me just long enough for my dad to be able to catch me before I hit the concrete floor. Maybe it was an angel. Maybe it was a ghost, but it sounds pretty spooky to me. Whoa. Love that one. That is weird.

Emma: See, that’s the kind of stuff I want to do if I was a ghost. That’s like the best. You’d be bragging to all your ghost friends immediately. She’d be like, guess what I did today? It’d be like so meaningful for your afterlife experience. That’s wild though, too. I wonder what it felt like for her. I guess she was a kid, so maybe it’s hard to remember now. But it’s interesting to think about being floating in the air. Would it feel like water? 

Elsie: I believe this story 100 percent though. Because I think that like, if your kid randomly fell, you wouldn’t be able to catch them no matter what. It’s just unlikely. So I believe the floating thing for sure. It’s really interesting. 

Emma: Plus, we kind of have three witnesses, so if they all three say this happened, which we’re only hearing from Elizabeth, but I assume her parents would agree, then I’m like, well, that’s three people who say this happened, so it’s pretty good. Okay, this next one is from a listener named Lucy. We just moved away from a cute little house in the middle of the historic downtown city of Winchester, Virginia. The house was built in the late 1800s. The owners have done lots of renovations to modernize it, but it still has the original wall on the staircase with the logs cemented together. The cellar is the original cellar with a dirt floor, vines growing through the walls, and people probably buried in the floor. Wow! That’s an interesting guess. You know, that sort of thing. I never think there are people buried in a cellar. That’s interesting. Ah, okay. Wow. Okay. When we moved in, we pretty immediately began having problems with ghosts. We didn’t feel like they were super angry or anything, just there. They would knock things off shelves and most importantly make lots and lots of noise at night, so we couldn’t sleep. Wow. 

Elsie: Always with the sleep disruptions. 

Emma: I know, I’m like, listen Ghost, I know you don’t have to sleep, but some of us are still alive and we have to sleep. There’s a wooden door on the very old staircase that shuts off the bottom floor from the stairs. From our bedroom, you would hear it suddenly bang open and slowly creak back shut. Oh, that’s terrifying. We would also hear many people walking around on the main floor. It was so loud that we even bought the sound machine you recommended. We’ll link it in the show notes. Just kidding. Do you have problems with ghosts? You need this sound machine. No, I’m just kidding. Okay. They say we love it, but the sound is still too loud to be drowned out, so the ghosts are still too loud above the sound machine. My son was one at the time, and we would often walk into his room to find him baby talk chatting at the wall. That is not abnormal one-year-old behavior, really, but it was a little concerning combined with all the other stuff. Yeah, I agree. We tried a lot of different things to try to cope with the ghost and nothing really worked. 

Elsie: Questioned. 

Emma: Yeah. What else did you try? Yeah, yeah, I do, definitely want to know what else they tried. Yes. We brought a priest out. Finally, I did a sage cleanse. My husband thought I was crazy while I was doing it, but that seemed to work. Things were quiet after that and we could finally sleep and no more baby talking to the corner. Sage cleanse. 

Elsie: Yeah. My kids love doing the sage. Like, they love it. But I have never done it to get rid of a ghost, so I’m interested that that worked for someone. I usually do it like, kind of like after the last day after contractors leave or just something, you know, just like, to me it’s like clearing the energy.

Emma: It’s a very dusty smell right after renovating.

Elsie: No, no, I mean like the energy of people.

Emma: Oh, yeah, it does smell good though, right? I’ve never done one. 

Elsie: It’s it’s kind of like weed. It smells kind of bad honestly. 

Emma: I like weed, but I don’t love the smell of it. 

Elsie: Yeah, you’ve never smelled burning sage?

Emma: No, I’ve never done it and I don’t think so. I don’t think I’ve ever been with someone while they were doing it. 

Elsie: I’d say It’s a potpourri smell for me. 

Emma: I mean, I know its sage smells like I’ve cooked with it before.

Elsie: We also do the Palo Santo It’s like a little tiny piece of wood, and it smells a little bit better than the sage, but still not like an air freshener. 

Emma: Do you think it counts if you make Thanksgiving stuffing with a lot of sage and maybe just walk around the house with the stuff after it’s cooked because it’s a pretty strong smell?

Elsie: Damned if I know I like how would I know I don’t even know if I’m doing it right, but I just like like trying things. I think the first time I did it was when we first got the pink house, I know there were all the stories about allegedly the dead cat and all this. 

Emma: Oh, yeah. It had like a spooky picture in the basement, too. 

Elsie: That had been going on in there before it was remodeled, so I just thought it maybe needed a little sage. It’s a very loud house. Jeremy’s had some like, potentially ghost experiences there. 

Emma: At the pink house? They always like Jeremy. 

Elsie: They love Jeremy. Ghosts love him, and I’m so jealous about it. I will never forgive him. 

Emma: No reason not to do Sage, I guess, because I guess it’s like, you know, you’re a mom, too, like if it’s keeping you up at night, it’s like so loud that it’s over the sound machine, and it’s like keeping your kid up. I would try anything to make the noises go away. Yeah, so I’d be like, we’ve gotta sleep, my kid’s gotta sleep, I would do anything. So I’m like, yeah, I’d get the sage out, I’d get anything out. I would call the Ghostbusters, I would call a priest, I’m not catholic, but I’d be like, get in here man, my baby needs to sleep, I gotta do something.

Elsie: Yeah. I recommend letting your kids sage every corner of every room because it’ll keep them busy and it is a fun activity. Okay, this next one is from Sandy. Years ago, when buying our first home, I was totally taken with a hall tree that was in the entryway when we first toured the home. Okay, so I googled this, and like, a hall tree can mean, it’s like a coat hanger, basically. Like, you know, a little coat hanger with a mirror with the hooks.

Emma: Kind of like a butler pantry. 

Elsie: Yes. Because when I first read the story, I thought, I was thinking of a tree. Some houses have a built-in planter, but I think this is actually like a piece of furniture. Okay. My bestie and I were at a massive flea market in Texas, jealous to find one. Early in our search, we came across a pretty, primitive, tall, whimsical, mirrored umbrella stand. That sounds amazing. With a small open shelf and coat hooks. It was slightly warped and way over my price point, so we decided to keep looking. All the best ones are. I feel like if the flea market tag doesn’t make you cry, then like you’re not going to be thinking about it later. You know what I mean? Like those are the ones you always, they stick. Because of the cost, I decided against it. Actually mentioned to her that my budget was less than half of the cost, so it was really out of the question. We headed toward the bathrooms and on our way out, turned the corner and there it was, Sunday night special at 75 percent off. It was mine. 

Emma: So far I’m loving the story even though there’s no ghost and it’s just a story of getting a deal at the flea market and I’m like, yes, triumph! You could be like, the end, and I’d be like, great story. 

Elsie: Yes. I know where this is probably going, but I love the story already. Okay. I was still new to our 30-year-old house. Okay, so a 30-year-old house, that’s not old at all. And just beginning to get used to our new homes, quirks, and sounds. Okay, we’re reasonable. We’re setting the stage. We’re reasonable. We’re not freaking out. We’re not seeing men in our bathroom where there are no men. Our first signs that something was amiss were subtle. Lights flickering, shadows passing. Okay, that’s significant. There was a pair of double doors on the side of the entryway that could be locked from the living room, and they were continuously locked, irritating anyone who walked into the room because they had to always go all the way back around. Everyone denied locking them, and it drove us all nuts. We eventually removed the locks. Soon, pictures were falling from the walls and we could hear muffled voices. Okay! This is getting escalated and I’m into it. I’ve never had a picture fall from a wall in my life. 

Emma: I have, but it’s because I use command strips when I shouldn’t have. 

Elsie: Okay, I have on the first day I hung it, but not like months later. I feel like that’s the difference. 

Emma: Our great grandfather’s portrait fell the other day and it had been up for nearly a year.

Elsie: Oh, wow. 

Emma: And I actually had forgotten that I’d used command strips. And then I was like, why did I use command strip? I don’t know. 

Elsie: But here’s the thing. Command strips are not good for hanging heavy art at all. I do not understand why everyone else in our DIY community is so into command strips. They also can rip up your wallpaper. 

Emma: I’m not with Elsie on any of this. I still love command strips, but I just shouldn’t have used them on this particular thing. I don’t know why I did. Nothing to do with the sandy story. I’m inserting myself. I’m sorry, Sandy. 

Elsie: I just wanted to disavow them for no reason.

Emma: Okay, I stand by them. 

Elsie: We came to believe that the house we moved into was haunted. We were unnerved, but we weren’t in a position to sell it until I transferred to another city. A tale as old as time, right? 

Emma: Economic horror, my favorite. That’s always the haunted houses. 

Elsie: Yes, it’s always like we spent our last penny buying this beautiful old home renovating and we can’t move. I’m so sorry, Sandy. I’m really not doing you justice on this. 

Emma: We’re just idiots. Don’t worry about us. 

Elsie: When we sold our house, all of the furniture went into long-term storage. When we moved into our little furnished apartment for a little while, while we built our new house. We held our breath, hoping that the ghost didn’t follow us. It didn’t, and we put it all behind us. As an interesting, unnerving story of the past. I was working out of the country when our house was complete, and my husband and sons moved into the house while I was gone. Although we had a great entryway, when I came home, the hall tree was in our bedroom, angled near the wall and the door. My hats and scarves were hanging from it, and it made me super happy. The activities from our previous house picked up quickly. Shadows, flashing lights, voices. The TV would turn on. My sister-in-law visited, came into the bedroom the next day, and broke it to me, Sandy, you’ve got a ghost. And it sat on my bed this morning and she actually felt the mattress move. Love this story. At some point, it became an open fact. It seemed like when we spoke it, we gave it strength, so we decided not to speak it. I saw it once in the form of a male in a white t-shirt passing through the hall. And it hesitated for a beat and then disappeared. At this point, my house was on the market and we were ready for another move. Oh my gosh. Like the moving is, this is like how much I move. I hired a friend’s college student son to help me. When I told him my plight of the ghost and the two items that I felt had narrowed down, we talked about burning them to that when we got the idea to sell them. But only after telling the buyer my concerns. So she thought she should disclose the ghost thing. The plant stand, which turned out to be a wig headstand, was quickly snapped up by our next-door neighbor and they were delighted by the prospect of owning a haunted wig headstand. That sounds like me. So good for you. You got what you bought. Later, I went inside to show a headboard, leaving my helper to man the sale. He ended up going to the bathroom and leaving another neighbor who had stopped by in charge of it. And when we returned, the haul tree had been sold without our plan or notice. It wasn’t until later that it occurred to me that the haul tree had selected its new unsuspecting owner, just as years before it had selected me. Love the story. And it definitely, for sure, was the hall tree. Yeah. I mean, don’t you think? 

Emma: Well, she says, side note, I have been in two homes since, and my resident ghosts and happy to report that they were both ghost-free. So I think it was. He’s moved on. He was a part of the hall tree. I feel like this would be a good Goosebumps book. The haunted, you know, item. And I like the idea that like she’s like it had selected so like she wasn’t even trying to sell it just like this college kid who she left in charge or whatever she says helper I guess we don’t really know but someone was left in charge of the garage sale and they didn’t realize they went to the bathroom or something and then they didn’t realize that this thing wasn’t for sale and it got. So it’s almost like the hall tree was like making things happen. And then at the flea market, she told us it was too expensive, but then she turned around and saw a sign and it’s like, what if the hall tree made the sign because it wanted to go home with her, you know? 

Elsie: I like that it could be the one thing in your house that you just love, you know because she loved this one item. And so it’s like, you’re going to move lots of things with you to your next home, and how would you be able to narrow it down? I’m surprised that she even was able to narrow it down.

Emma: It doesn’t sound like she was. She wasn’t trying to sell the hall tree. It just got accidentally sold, and she was like, oh, well, but then she realized the ghosts were gone, and she was like, wait, it was that thing. Also, she did some great storytelling, because she kind of sets up the hall tree, and then she keeps going with her story, so we kind of forget about it, and then it comes back, you know? It’s like, really good. Interesting. You nailed it, Sandy. We love it. 

Elsie: Everyone who sent stories this year was a 10 out of 10. So, thank you so much for the stories. I hope that we get a ghost visit this year. That’s my wish for the new year. 

Emma: Now we’re ready for a joke, or a fact, or maybe a meditation with Nova. 

Elsie: Hey Nova, what do you have for us this week? 

Nova: A joke. 

Elsie: A joke? Is it a ghost joke? 

Nova: Yes. 

Elsie: Okay. 

Nova: What did ghosts use to wash their hair with?

Elsie: What? 

Nova: Sham… Boo! 

Elsie: That’s good. Thank you so much for listening. If you have any questions or podcast ideas, email them to us at podcast@abeautifulmess.Com or call our voicemail at 417-893-0011. We will be back next week with a deep dive into keeping our house clean and our book report on All Good People Here by Ashley Flowers.