Living In a Haunted House

What about the supernatural, paranormal, ghost, entities, demonic possession? Is it real or just horror stories? Some are noted as historical history.

In Amityville, on November 13, 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr., age 17, went on a murderous rampage of his family. While his parents and four younger brothers and sisters were sleeping he methodically shot and killed each one of them. He entered his parent's bedroom first, instantly killing his father Ronald DeFeo Sr. with two shots to the lower back. His mother Louise was awakened by the gunfire but before she had a chance to react Ronald proceeded to fire two bullets into her chest. Since the bodies of his four younger brothers and sisters were all found in their beds, it appeared that they were not awakened by the shots. Ronald was found guilty of six counts of second-degree murder.

When the next family, George and Kathy Lutz moved into the house, they reported that this house was haunted and George Lutz had become possessed by a demon.

Families have lived happily in the Amityville house since the Lutz family fled without being bothered by a single demon or ghost. Does this mean it wasn't real? Or did this demon leave with them?

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Moving into our first home as a young married couple, it was an exciting experience. Once we had settled in, we felt a strange aura within the house. It was just the two of us, yet often we felt as if we were not alone.

It wasn't just a feeling. It was a cold chill that passed by, a touch on the shoulder, the sound of footsteps and other noises coming from in other rooms when no one else was in there.

This was a small house with the front door leading directly into the tiny living room, and a short walk from there in to the kitchen and dinette area. Once in the kitchen was a very long, dark, eerie, hallway to the left. This hallway had many openings to the four bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. There was always this feeling that someone was watching or waiting to bounce out at us as we walked down this long stretch of doom to get to a room. I always turn the hallway light on at night before taking the journey down this path, though my husband was a little braver. During the day, it was equally enduring.

We slept on a waterbed. My husband had worked second and third shifts. The bed was often occupied by just me or him at different times. I remember lying there at night and the bed would start to move in the way that having another person next to you would. I felt a light touch on my arm or legs, a hot breath at my neck and yet no one was there. My husband would tell me that he experienced the same thing.

At times, we both had seen this dark, shadowy human figure moving throughout the house. There were movements within our closet when we tried to sleep. One night, I was awoken by a noise coming from our bedroom closet. Several hangers were thrown out as if someone was flinging them.

(By now you must think I'm crazy unless you are a believer in paranormal activity. Believe me, this is not some made up ghost story.)

My husband is a hunter. We had his shotguns in a cabinet located in the bedroom next to ours. He always locked the cabinet. One of my scariest of all memories was lying there in bed when I was awoken in the middle of the night by noises coming from the other room. I could hear whispering and the sound of someone moving. I heard the gun cabinet open, followed by the sound of someone loading the shotgun. I was too petrified to move or awake my husband sleeping peacefully next to me. This continued on until dawn and I had expected for us to die.

Nothing went beyond that room. It was light out and I finally managed to get myself out of bed. I walked into the bedroom next to us. Nothing had been moved. But the cabinet was unlocked. Further investigation of the house shown everything in tacked and the doors were locked.

Unlike the Lutz family that lived in the Amityville house and fled after 28 days, we stayed until our daughter was a teenager. Which were too many years to mention living with this presence in our haunted little home. As scary and creepy as it seemed, it became something that was part of us.

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We never brought anything up about this entity to our daughter, until she confided in us that she was scared to be in her bedroom at night. Sure you say, "Well, she is a child. Children are often scared of their bedrooms." But she began to describe strange happenings to us and told us that she was afraid we might think she was crazy. She said that she would often awake hearing voices and seeing a dark shadow leaning over her. We never told her about this thing.

Both my husband and I would lie down next to our daughter to get her to sleep. We would often fall asleep. It was me more than him because he often insists that I go with her. One night when I had awoken lying next to our daughter, there was this shadow hovering over me. I laid there staring at this thing, and then finally gained the strength to get up and leave the bedroom. It sounds bad now, but I left my daughter alone in her room.

After we moved out, my husband admitted that he didn't want to fall asleep in our daughter's room, because he would see the dark figure standing over him.

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The three of us would often see small objects move by themselves. We had an old fashion TV with a built-in stand. One day my husband and I watched a trophy being picked up off the TV, stayed in midair for a minute and then fall straight down on the floor.

We had several pets that lived in this house, five dogs (two being foster dogs), one iguana and a ferret. Not all of these animals lived with us at the same time. But all of these pets (except for the iguana) would at different times look into the air as if something was there. They would follow something that we couldn't see. The creepiest of all would be when one of our dogs would look into the air, fixed on something and start to bark and growl.

A couple of times when my husband was working the late shift, strange experiences would happen that my daughter and I would hear or see. It was a frightening night when we heard the sound of someone crawling around in the attic. I said to my daughter, "We can run out the front door." Yet instead, the two of us sat there in the living room too scared to move.

Random noises would stem from the basement on a daily basis. It was not noises you would hear when the house would be settling. Whenever I could, I would ask my family to go check it out.

Then there was the time my daughter and I were cleaning the basement. Our eyes were fixed on a bouncing basketball, bouncing straight up and down all by itself. No hands touching it and no one near by this magic ball.

(By now you are saying, "You are a nutcase!" I can see you sitting by your computer rolling your eyes and shaking your head. But you don't know unless you have experience this yourself.)

This activity did slow down the last couple of years before we moved out. We talked about moving all those years and never did. When our daughter was in high school we made the decision to move out.

Getting the house ready to sell, I remember being there alone polishing the hardwood floor in one of the rooms, when a loud pounding came from the basement. Very much like someone hitting the ceiling with a broom handle. This pounding was directly underneath where I was polishing. The noise continued for the longest time. Yet no one else was in the house but me.

Other times along with my husband and daughter, while painting the rooms we would hear loud thumping footsteps or the sound of someone jumping up and down in one of the other rooms. This spirit did not want us to go. It was mad.

Shortly after we sold this house we had seen a "For Sale" sign up in front of our little home. Did these people experience the same thing we had?

Our house that we live in now is calm and the feeling that some supernatural presence in this second home does not exist here. But recently (Feb. 2010), my husband found out from a neighbor that something that had happened in our home that we live in now. The owner prior to the one before us returned home from the service. It is unclear the reason behind it, but he was found dead in the kitchen. He had committed suicide. Yet this home is not haunted!

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Up until recently (2015), I really did not know what to call these shadow entities. Looking online and seeing that a list of movies and books are written about "shadow people" lets me know that we are not so crazy!

Living n a Haunted House Copyright: March 9, 2010 by Sandy Mertens. Permission to republish this article in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.