A strange occurance today.

A strange occurance today. We have two working TVs in this house. Neither is used very often nor very long at a time. The main TV is a 19 inch set in the Den. It gets watched for maybe an hour a day, usually in the late evening. The other set is a small digital (8") that we have on the mantle in the kitchen. This TV has to be physically turned on because the remote will not turn it on or off. We don't use the remote because this set is on one channel and it stays on that channel.  We generally only have it on for news and/or weather. We hadn't used this set for well over a week. At about 10 am today the set turned itself on much to everyones surprise and then about 15 minutes later it turned itself off. That was it. nobody even near it. The useless remote is in a drawer of the kitchen table. This set has never done that before. It worried my wife because the only other time such a thing occured was probably about 20 or so years ago. At that time we had a manual TV set that  required a viewer to walk over and manually turn it on and manually change the stations. That time, at approx 10 pm as we were watching a show, this TV changed stations. Something that required manually twisting a knob on the set to do. Noone was closer than 10 ft from the set. My wife and I both saw it happen. I immediately got up, walked over to the set, and changed the channel back to our program. The next day, we were informed that our next door neighbor, who was in the hospital, had passed away at approx 10pm. Coincidence ?  That TV set never misbehaved in such a fashion again. So a TV set turning its self on and then off; has her a little worried. Hopefully for no good reason.

Dog and that danged wall

I turned in around 11:30 pm last night. The older dog curled up on his pillow in front of the heat register and the younger dog took her place on the foot of the bed. Sometimes she's a nice footwarmer. We had all settled in for a good night's sleep. I was sound asleep when all of a sudden I was almost knocked out of the bed by the younger dog who suddenly jumped from the bed hitting the floor a good six or seven feet into the bedroom and ran screaming bloody murder down our upstairs hall. I heard her hit the rear stairs still screaming. Strangly the other dog only looked disturbed. Wondering if someone had broken in, I armed myself and went after the younger dog who I could hear screaming downstairs. Those of you who own dogs know what I mean when I say "screaming". They are not barking, they are screaming. I went cautiously down the stairs where I could hear her screaming and digging frantically at that section of wall, beside the door from the dining room to the library. Needless to say I couldn't hear much of anything; it would have had to be thounderously loud to be heard over the frantic dog screaming only a few feet away. But I saw nothing amiss with the wall, other than dog scratches. I finally got her settled down. The wall is just the wall. I have no idea what she thinks is there. The other dog could not care less what is there. He didn't even come down and give me moral support. I looked at the mantel clock which read 1:30 am. Its a good thing I can usually go back to sleep easily; unfortunately my wife has problems going back to sleep.If nothing else this moron dog is going to ruin that section of wall requiring replastering. I really do not need to be suddenly awakened between 1 and 3 am by a dog with a wall fetish. Anyone with ideas please comment.

Haunted cupboard?

Today, my wife and I were out and about. My wife wanted to visit the owner of a high end antique furniture store that is located in the same town her store is  located. She wanted to discus some matters with the store owner. When we arrived the store was heavily patronized and so we entertained ourselves looking at the beautiful furniture that had come in since we were last there. But customers tend to be like bananas, they come in bunches. Finally a pause occured and my wife and the store lady had a chance to catch up. After a bit, the store owner said, "Can a piece of furniture be haunted?" This may sound strange or funny for someone to ask; but the lady knows us well enough to know we will take the question seriously. She continued by sayng her husband had purchased  this antique, large, old kitchen cupboard for resale in their store. They brought it in and displayed it in the middle of the main showroom floor. I inspected it. It is a very solidly built piece of furniture. It has two large glassed-in doors. The glass in the doors is very secure. So what about it being "haunted". She says that since that piece of furniture was brought in she has experienced a loud tapping on glass. Like some one tapping the glass with a coin or fingernail. At first she thought someone was tapping on her front windows trying to get her attention. But there was no one there. This occured several times; more often than not when she is in another room of her store. Like she says," it can be very disconcerting when you think you are the only one there". Because the event occurs several times a day, she has narrowed down the source of the noise to this large old cupboard. I have read stories about "haunted furniture" but I have never experienced such. I would rather think the cause was something more mundane, but I haven't a clue what it could be. Anyone out there know how a piece of furnituire could make tapping noises?

Cat on the stairs

I thought I had posted this two weeks ago when it happened. The post must not have been completed. I will retell tell the event as best as I can remember it. It occured at the foot of the rear stairs, just off the downstairs bathroom and kitchen. The dog gate was up to keep our two schnauzers downstairs during the day. The weather was cloudy outside and cold.  The kitchen light was on which gives some reflected light to the bottom few stairs of the rear stairway. The rearstairs light was not on. As I walked from the diningroom toward the kitchen movement on the stairside of the dog gate caught my eye. I saw a black cat move across the bottom step, turn and go up the stairs fading in the darkened hallway. At first I thought a stray cat had somehow gotten into the house. Then I thought of my dogs who were totally unaware of it. A cat in the house would have had them going berserkl. But to be sure I opened the gate and went upstairs, seeing nothing in the way of a cat. Both dogs followed me and bounded on upstairs as they are wont to do. If there was a cat anywhere upstairs the dogs were not aware of it; which I find hard to believe. Checking out the upstairs is not that difficult in winter as we typically keep all doors off the main hall shut except the master bedroom and the bathroom. Even the hallway to the frontstairs is closed off. So any cat in the upstairs would be isolated to the hallway, bathroom and master bedroom. Quickly checking those out it was acertained that no cat existed there. Calling my dogs who were busy romping around the hall and rooms, we went back downstairs and I had to chalk up the incident to another strange sight in this old house.

Shadows

Twice today, I've had a really weird thing happen. Both occassions the event took place in the upstairs bathroom. The first time was this morning circa 8:30. I was moving some citrus trees around in the window so they could get maximum light. I had just walked over to the sink to run some water for a coffee tree that appeared dry. As I was turning with the pitcher of water a human shaped shadow so intense I could feel it pass, passed by me and vanished. This was one weird sensation but it occurred so rapidly I didn't have time to react to it except upon recall.The bathroom has two windows, one on the western wall and one on the eastern. There are no trees anymore that are outside those windows (We lost those trees in the tornado that ripped through here last June.) Besides the shadow started before it was in front of the window. I never felt a shadow before, it was hard to discribe, kinda like very soft, very black velvet.. This is a totally new experience. The second time it happened was in the same room, just before lunch, as I put away towells and washcloths my wife had me bring upstairs. I was about midway in the room, passing from the sink area to the glassed in shelves on the south wall. Again a dark shasdow with a roughly human shape passed me, but more on the eastern side of the room, and then disappeared. I did not feel the darkness this time and the window definitely shone through the apparition. Two weird happenings in one day in the same general area of the house. The skies outside were heavily overcast so I feel any sort of shadow from the window is out of the question. I just don't know what to make of it. The first one really threw me on reflection because I saw it and felt it. The second one surprised me but I had a better chance of actually seeing the thing but I still do not know what is was.

Footsteps again

Christmas and New Years is, once again, over but with all the snow and ice we've accumulated since the day after Christmas the decorations remain up. I may take the christmas tree down this coming week but I think the outside decorations will have to wait until most of the snow is gone.                                                Yesterday, January 5th, my wife and I went to Columbus so she could restock items in her store from a wholesaler. We were gone most of the day, getting back about 6 pm. The day was semi-cloudy with a very bright sun shinning, through, part of the time. The temperature was low 40s. I was in the upstairs bathroom and my wife was in the one downstairs, the two dogs were in either the dinningroom or the kitchen, as the downstairs gate was up. I was tending a few plants that I keep in the bathroom windows when I distinctly heard someone ascending the stairs. There are a few items sitting at the top of those stairs awaiting my removal into the attic storage. I heard someone brush by these items. I really thought it was my wife coming upstairs on some errand. I stepped out to the head of the stairs to see if she needed something. There was no one there. The sounds stopped when I stepped out of the bathroom. Looking around the bend in the stairs there was no one there either and the gate was still up and my older dog was sitting at the foot of the stairs looking up at me. So what did I hear? Seems footsteps are becoming more common once again.

Heavy walking up new basement stairs

It was late last night by the time my wife and I got home. About 9 pm I took the dogs out and when I reentered the house I was tired and simply sat down at the kitchen table.My wife had already retired to the library to catch up on her E mails. One of the dogs got up in another of the kitchen chairs, turned around several times and laid down. The other dog had left the room and I assumed she was headed for the library. I hadn't sat there long before I head the unmistakeable tread of heavy boots or shoes coming up the basement stairs. I was at the steel door leading to the basement fast. I swung open the heavy door and observed no one on the stairs. I turned on the basement light (switch at the head of the stairs) and could not see anyone or anything alive. The basement stairs were just replaced this summer and showed no footprints of any kind. As anyone who happened to be in the basement would have had to track through mud to get to the stairs, muddy prints should have been evident. The mainroom of the basement under my house is wet most of the time due to a spring that used to run through it but was never totally diverted. This is a very old house(1857) and the spring, at that time, was used to keep dairy products cool. When I bought this house I wondered  why there was a steel door equipted with a deadbolt on the cellar stairs. Friends of ours said it was required by the state when the house served as a rest home for a number of years. That could be correct, but why the deadbolt? I hadn't been using the deadbolt lately; but I am now.