Another Haunted House
From James Donahue’s Journal
Our house on Elk Creek Road was tall and square. It had a large kitchen, a dining room and adjoining living room separated by French doors, and a downstairs bedroom, where Doris and I slept. The bathroom, which featured a walk-in shower, also was on the main floor just off from the kitchen.
The second floor contained three large bedrooms, all with large walk-in closets, and a spacious central room at the top of the stairs which gave access to the bedrooms. There was another walk-in closet leading off from this room.
When we bought the place we were a family with four children so it was a perfect home. Our two oldest daughters shared the largest of the three upstairs bedrooms at the rear of the house. Our son had the smaller front bedroom, and Jennifer, our youngest daughter, was assigned the middle upstairs bedroom.
Jennifer, a born psychic, didn't like her bedroom. She sometimes played there if she had a friend over but refused to sleep in the room. She said she thought there was something scary there and preferred to sleep on the couch in the living room. We thought it might have been an excuse to be closer to us and we let her have her way.
Our son graduated from high school while we lived in that house. Not long after that he joined the Navy and left the roost. That was when we realized there was something strange about that house. His bedroom was located right over ours. We had been used to hearing footsteps on the wooden floor overhead while he was living with us. But we continued to hear footsteps after he was gone. Not only did we hear footsteps, but occasionally heavy things were dropped when nobody else was in the house.
The following year, our oldest daughter, Ayn, also graduated from high school and she joined the army. Susan moved out of that back bedroom at about the same time to live with the Haupt family and be near horses. That left the top floor of that old house unoccupied.
After this things got really weird on the second floor. Not only did we keep hearing footsteps and odd noises, but one night all of the electric power blacked out on the top floor. Everything was still working on the main floor and in the basement, but the power to the lights and plug outlets on the top floor was off.
I had personally wired or supervised the wiring of that house and I know that this phenomenon was technically impossible. That power outage involved several different circuits, some of them servicing outlets and overhead lights on the main floor. All of the circuits fed from lines leading from circuit breakers located in the main electric box in the basement. None of the circuit breakers were tripped, which meant there was no electrical short. I was really baffled about how to solve this problem.
The electric problem lasted only a few hours. The following day all of the power was back on and this phenomenon never happened again as long as we lived in the house.
Next came the wasps. It was late in the fall and wasps should have been settling down in a hive someplace, hibernating until spring. But we found a swarm of them in that back bedroom. They were all over the walls and ceiling. There were hundreds of them. I sprayed the room rather than risk getting stung. We swept the dead insects up and thought that was the end of it.
The next day the wasps were back, and they were just as thick as before. I sprayed again. Doris and I spent hours taping and calking every crack, making sure there was no way that more wasps could return. But on the third day, we found them back again and just as thick as ever. That was when I gave up. Nobody was using the room so we closed the door and sealed the cracks. A few days after that I looked in the room and the wasps were gone.
One day Matt revealed something he knew from the day we bought the house but had been keeping to himself. Back in the days when he was driving ambulance for an area funeral home, a former resident of our house committed suicide. Apparently the man hung himself in the house. Matt said he didn't know a lot of details, but that it had happened several years before we bought the place. The story made sense and helped explain the odd happenings. The dead man's spirit was apparently sharing the house with us and may have resented our being there.
Even though we loved that house and originally had plans to retire there, circumstances came along that forced us to sell it and move on. Sad to say, the young couple that bought the house from us fell into tragedy after moving there. The wife filed for divorce and her spouse was so grieved, he put a gun to his head and committed suicide. He did it in that house.
Obviously, we left something behind when we moved out of the house on Elk Creek Road.
From James Donahue’s Journal
Our house on Elk Creek Road was tall and square. It had a large kitchen, a dining room and adjoining living room separated by French doors, and a downstairs bedroom, where Doris and I slept. The bathroom, which featured a walk-in shower, also was on the main floor just off from the kitchen.
The second floor contained three large bedrooms, all with large walk-in closets, and a spacious central room at the top of the stairs which gave access to the bedrooms. There was another walk-in closet leading off from this room.
When we bought the place we were a family with four children so it was a perfect home. Our two oldest daughters shared the largest of the three upstairs bedrooms at the rear of the house. Our son had the smaller front bedroom, and Jennifer, our youngest daughter, was assigned the middle upstairs bedroom.
Jennifer, a born psychic, didn't like her bedroom. She sometimes played there if she had a friend over but refused to sleep in the room. She said she thought there was something scary there and preferred to sleep on the couch in the living room. We thought it might have been an excuse to be closer to us and we let her have her way.
Our son graduated from high school while we lived in that house. Not long after that he joined the Navy and left the roost. That was when we realized there was something strange about that house. His bedroom was located right over ours. We had been used to hearing footsteps on the wooden floor overhead while he was living with us. But we continued to hear footsteps after he was gone. Not only did we hear footsteps, but occasionally heavy things were dropped when nobody else was in the house.
The following year, our oldest daughter, Ayn, also graduated from high school and she joined the army. Susan moved out of that back bedroom at about the same time to live with the Haupt family and be near horses. That left the top floor of that old house unoccupied.
After this things got really weird on the second floor. Not only did we keep hearing footsteps and odd noises, but one night all of the electric power blacked out on the top floor. Everything was still working on the main floor and in the basement, but the power to the lights and plug outlets on the top floor was off.
I had personally wired or supervised the wiring of that house and I know that this phenomenon was technically impossible. That power outage involved several different circuits, some of them servicing outlets and overhead lights on the main floor. All of the circuits fed from lines leading from circuit breakers located in the main electric box in the basement. None of the circuit breakers were tripped, which meant there was no electrical short. I was really baffled about how to solve this problem.
The electric problem lasted only a few hours. The following day all of the power was back on and this phenomenon never happened again as long as we lived in the house.
Next came the wasps. It was late in the fall and wasps should have been settling down in a hive someplace, hibernating until spring. But we found a swarm of them in that back bedroom. They were all over the walls and ceiling. There were hundreds of them. I sprayed the room rather than risk getting stung. We swept the dead insects up and thought that was the end of it.
The next day the wasps were back, and they were just as thick as before. I sprayed again. Doris and I spent hours taping and calking every crack, making sure there was no way that more wasps could return. But on the third day, we found them back again and just as thick as ever. That was when I gave up. Nobody was using the room so we closed the door and sealed the cracks. A few days after that I looked in the room and the wasps were gone.
One day Matt revealed something he knew from the day we bought the house but had been keeping to himself. Back in the days when he was driving ambulance for an area funeral home, a former resident of our house committed suicide. Apparently the man hung himself in the house. Matt said he didn't know a lot of details, but that it had happened several years before we bought the place. The story made sense and helped explain the odd happenings. The dead man's spirit was apparently sharing the house with us and may have resented our being there.
Even though we loved that house and originally had plans to retire there, circumstances came along that forced us to sell it and move on. Sad to say, the young couple that bought the house from us fell into tragedy after moving there. The wife filed for divorce and her spouse was so grieved, he put a gun to his head and committed suicide. He did it in that house.
Obviously, we left something behind when we moved out of the house on Elk Creek Road.