Back in college, my folks decided that I couldn’t stay in the dorms anymore. There were a multitude of reasons, not least of which was when the guy next door to use tried to get into our room with a credit card and then peed on our door. Long story for another time, but before you ask, yes, drugs were involved.
We ended up looking at something like twenty houses. My only real criteria was that it had to be in decent shape, and it also had to be under twenty minutes from the MU Campus. I worked at the veterinary teaching hospital at the time, and if we got an emergency page, we had to get there within twenty minutes. A little bit of land around it would be a bonus.
One house we looked at seemed to fit the bill. It was about ten minutes from campus, had several acres around it, and the house itself was in good shape. On paper, it seemed pretty perfect, and the price was certainly right, about 50k below market value (in hindsight, this should have been red flag number one).
I felt something off when we pulled up on the property. There was nothing there. No birds, squirrels, nothing. It was also creepily silent. Red flag number two.
The interior of the house was strange. There was no furniture, and it looked like it had been vacant for a while. The appliances were decent enough, and the carpet was okay, if a bit worn. One feature that struck me was that the bathrooms were carpeted, and with shag carpet, no less. Not a red flag in itself, but still weird.
The whole place had an overall creepy feel. Normally, that kind of thing doesn’t bother me too much, but I was getting uncomfortable. So were my mom and the realtor, from how they were behaving. Both of them wanted to get out of the house. Oh, it gets worse. I felt like I was being drawn to one of the back rooms that was down a short hallway (maybe a bedroom?). It was very much a ‘come hither’ feeling, and in my experience, that sort of call is never, ever good. We bailed out of there a few minutes later, and crossed it off our list with prejudice.
Fast forward a few years. We did get a house, and I was talking to a friend about our home search a few years prior. She’s lived in the area for about thirty years, so she knows most of the spots around town. I mentioned the creepy house and the street it was on. Talk about coincidences…this friend lived very close to that particular property, and knew instantly the house I was talking about. She was able to fill me in on some details about the house, which made me even more grateful that we gave the place a pass.
Turns out there was a suspicious death on the property, maybe in the 1980’s to the best of her knowledge. The police didn’t outright call it murder, but reading between the lines, that’s sure what it sounded like. My friend said you will never see animals on the property, and even birds seem to shy away. Deer tend to skirt the tree line, but rarely cross onto the property. She also said that house goes off and on the market very frequently, sometimes twice a year. We couldn’t find any officially documented paranormal stories associated with the property, but the feeling was undeniable. Something was, and very likely is, still in that house, and it’s decidedly unpleasant.
Out of curiosity, I looked up what I think is the address. It’s not currently on the market, but was about a year ago. We will see if it comes up for sale again.
Hilary
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