My Small House in Kentucky

Visitor Article

Submitted By: Anonymous
Submitted On: September 8, 2005

Ten years ago I bought a small house in Kentucky. I hadn't even got moved in completely until people in the neighborhood started stopping by to visit. Each visitor would ask what I knew about the house and why I thought nobody who bought or rented it ever stayed very long. It was a nice, well built house and I got it for a good price, so I would just tell them I didn't know and it didn't matter because I was there to stay.

The house had been built by a local and successful businessman for him and his wife to retire to. It was on the site of his boyhood home that had years since been torn down. I was told that he had died there and that his wife had been sent to a nursing home and that since then, over the course of a few years, several families had come and gone from there. He and his wife had lived there for over forty years and everyone that knew them said that they dearly loved the place, especially the old man. He was a white gentleman and had hired his childhood friend, a black gentleman to help him daily with chores around the property.

The first week after I settled in I felt very uncomfortable. I simply wrote it off as "country boy in the big city". However, my cat, who was always sensitive by nature, started flipping off the wall. She got so bad with fits that I had to confine her to the basement. Again, I figured that her new surroundings were strange to her and she was reacting the only way she knew how.

Each day, for me this feeling grew stronger. After about a month I didn't think I could stand it much longer. I had never felt like this before and I had lived other places. It was just closing in on me.

Then, early one Sunday morning, about a month into ownership, the phone rang. It was before sun-up and I knew it was my parents calling to tell me they were on their way for a visit. I guess it was just before Dawn because there was enough light in the house for me to see my way up the hall and to the phone that was just around the corner. I was moving fast and when I turned the corner, I laid my hand on the phone. At that point, I ran smack into someone who stood about a head shorter than me. I jerked the phone receiver off of the wall and yelled out in instant shock. In that brief second I could see and old man who seemed to disappear right before my eyes. He was a white man wearing overalls and had a red flannel shirt and an "old man's" hat pulled down on his head.

When my senses came back I could hear my Mom screaming from the receiver, "What's wrong? Can you hear me?" I didn't tell her what happened because I didn't believe it myself.

A few days and a few weeks passed and the uncomfortable feeling began to make me cringe like someone was constantly watching me and not approving of me being there. I had seen some shadowy movements and felt an eerie presence that was almost like a zone that became physically noticeable in a line that passed from the dining area/den into the formal living room. If you crossed from the kitchen into that area, the air, though breathable, seemed to become heavy like it was owned by someone else.

One evening, about another month later, I had noticed that this feeling was affecting my mood, my thinking and my quality of life. It was just before sundown and the sun was shining in at that low angle like it does. This zone area was on the front part of the house and was perfectly lit by the sun coming through the kitchen window.

I was frustrated at not knowing what was going on and being drawn by the light I walked to the window in the dining area to look out. No answers came to me, just that feeling. So I walked toward the living room to look out the picture window. Just as I passed through the archway and past the phone, I began to shiver. Somebody was there!

I looked immediately to my left and behind the front door there stood a small framed black gentleman who almost seemed scared of me. I raised my hand as I was going to speak and he disappeared.

Finally, the feelings made sense to me. I had found out that the black gentleman had died not long after the white gentleman and together their spirits were apparently holding the ground that they were bound to. I was invading their space and so had everyone else that had lived there.

I immediately went into the dining/den area where the feeling was always most fierce and began to shout to them. I told them they were dead. I told them I had had enough. I told them that this was my house now and that they had to let go of it. I told them that as long as I lived there I would respect it and their memories if they would just stop being so oppressive.

In almost an instant the bad feeling began to recede. In another month's time it was completely gone.

They apparently decided to live with me rather than against me. Though the "bad" feeling was gone there was an almost domed-effect in that same area for the rest of the time I lived there. Maybe they just let me live with them in peace. I knew I was still being watched, only now, by kind eyes.

An ending to this story is that, in the six and a half years since I have been moved from there. The house has been sold at least three times. Each owner has reported strange events and odd happenings. All were older citizens and at least three have died while living there. A friend of mine liked the house very much and wasn't afraid of ghosts. She was single but didn't like the idea of two male spirits living with her. She decided to look at the house one day while it was for sale. The pictures she took of the house that day show two very unexplainable figures. One in the dining/den window and one in the picture window in the living room. She believed they were ghosts so she didn't buy the house. She bought a house up the street.