I bought a very old Victorian house in Nova Scotia that I named Roselane. My daughter and I have had some interesting experiences in the year and a half we've been in residence.

The age of the house was listed as being approximately 100 years but upon visiting the museum in Parrsboro, Ottawa House by the Sea (built around 1775), we noted that the door knobs, doors, molding, and flooring there were identical to what we had at Roselane, so we feel the house is probably older.

Before we moved in we joked that, considering the house's age, maybe our home had resident spirits. We'd noticed an orb on one side of the house in one of the real estate photos and my daughter wondered if that was indicative of spirit activity.

My daughter came downstairs one afternoon with a thoughtful expression on her face. She informed me that she had decided to avoid one side of the house--one of the back bedrooms upstairs by the old chimney. She had entered the pink bedroom and said she got the strongest chill and a creepy sensation. I told her that she was probably overtired from our long flight across Canada from B.C., that the feeling would pass. She looked at me. "I don't think so, Mom."

A couple of days later, she tried to enter the pink room again and got the same sensation. "I'm not going in that side of the house," she stated again.

"You can't avoid one part of the house for the rest of your life. For Pete's sake, show me the area that's bothering you," I said, following her upstairs. We stood near the old chimney . . .

I felt it too--as if a void . . . death . . . was reaching through the wall and coming in our direction. The sensation was incredibly strong and enveloped both of us. We retreated, chilled. "See Mom, I told you I wasn't imagining things," Selena said.

I decided to give it a few days, feeling that we might still be reactive after all the stress of moving. When we went upstairs again, the feeling was as strong as ever. I forced myself to cross in front of the chimney and entered the pink bedroom (which we'd now dubbed "the creepy room"). Although the sensation was still tangible, I realized that it wasn't actually coming from the bedroom as my daughter had thought. It was coming from the wall area in front of the chimney, which was just outside the room. I stood quietly. The impressions I received were unmistakable.

"Someone has died in this house," I told my daughter. "On this side."

We went downstairs to the dining room (underneath the pink bedroom). I could feel something in front of the chimney and towards the door and told my daughter that I felt that area was where the incident had taken place. I could feel that the person had been dysfunctional and frustrated in life and was still hanging around Roselane.

We chewed over the fact that a number of people could have died in the house considering its size (we heard it had been used as a rooming house) and its age. But we still felt that the person who had died next to the door, in front of the chimney, was the 'death presence' we felt so strongly.

We were working outside and stopped to visit with our neighbor. "What's the deal with that side of the house?" I asked him. I gestured towards the dining room, told him I was a tad psychic, and that I sensed death there.

He looked at me, surprised. "Oh my goodness. Didn't you know? A fellow died on that side of the house--about 6 years ago."

This confirmed everything my daughter and I had felt. In the days to come, we would experience more spirit activity at Roselane. Read Part 2