Tuesday, June 18, 2019

What would you do if you heard ghostly voices talking about you?


Usually when Jami Kehr tells people about her haunted house, she gets one of two reactions...


Some people roll their eyes and say “yeah right” and others ask why Jami and her family still live there?!

After Jami told me her story, I wondered how she could still live there, myself. I would have been scared stiff! What I can say for Jami and her family is they are BRAVE!

Without further ado, here is Jami Kehr’s ghost story!


In 2003 we were living in Saint Louis, MO. Our children were four and almost two. My boss at the time lived in a small town a little over an hour North in Illinois. We went to visit and fell in love with the area. Even better, we found a house that was in foreclosure and got it for a steal. 

The first sign that maybe something wasn’t right happened when my brother brought some furniture over to the house before we moved in. When he arrived, it was dark and all the lights were on in the house even though we hadn’t even moved in yet! Not only that, but the barn lights were flashing on and off. He was so freaked out, he put all of our furniture in the mudroom and left. When we arrived the next day all the lights were off. 

We moved in and unexplained things started happening right away. The first night, my husband went downstairs to get a drink and when he started down the stairs, he could hear people talking about us. One voice was a woman who asked who we were and a man said not to worry.

(Note from HP: At this point I think I would have promptly moved out!)

The TV would turn on by itself and switch through all the channels. Lights would turn off and on, doors would open and shut. We were constantly hearing voices and footsteps. 

One night our three-year-old son was in his room and yelled for us. He said there was a man with a top hat staring at him from the corner of the room. My husband got up to check it out and when he left, the door to our bedroom slammed shut. My son refused to sleep in that room ever again.

About a year after we moved in, I went to bed and my husband was watching TV on the couch. About two hours later, I saw him standing in the doorway. Then he walked in and got in bed. The next morning when I rolled over, his side of the bed wasn't touched. It turns out that he’d slept on the couch. I can’t explain who got into bed with me. 

When I went to sign my kids up for school, the nurse asked me how we were able to live in the house. She said everyone knew it was haunted. Apparently the house played a part in the Underground Railroad and rumor had it that the former owners were completely crazy. The man even painted his family name on the roof but no one knew why.

When we bought the house, there was a coffin and animal skulls in the barn. There was also a piano. We had a psychic come out and before she even stepped foot into the barn, she said, “there's a piano out there.”
Apparently, the piano had belonged to an older woman from the town. When she passed, somehow the piano ended up in our barn. The psychic said the lady comes back every now and then to make sure it's still there.

The barn where the piano showed up

The house has caught fire twice.

Eventually things calmed down. Now the house only gets active when we do some kind of major change to it or to the property.

My son still won't stay in that room though. 

Yikes! I don't blame him!

Interestingly enough, Jami told me that after she shared this story with me, the activity started up again... Jami's daughter was in the kitchen when the bathroom door slammed shut and the light turned off! 

I got chills when she told me that!  

Thank you to Jami for her story! 
 

If you have a ghost story you'd like to share on my blog, please email me


Tuesday, June 11, 2019

Why Does My Bedroom Smell Like An Old Lady? (and other questions you never want to ask yourself)

That's not a rhetorical question, by the way. 

Is HP Mallory's house haunted or is it time she retired her perfume?

 

It wasn't my perfume. Seriously.  

So is HP Mallory's house haunted or...

 

Short answer is: I don't know but I'm thinking probably not.
 

OK if it wasn't a ghost, then what was it? Start 'splainin', Lucy!

 

I'm not saying "it" wasn't a ghost but I'm not sure what it was. And, yes, an explanation right about now would be good... 

(Sound drum roll, thunder and lightning, maybe some distant wailing, the ominous bleating of Stevie Nicks' voice, and the thud of heavy footsteps)

OK now I'm ready... 
So, you'd think a paranormal romance writer such as myself would have had a bazillion experiences with ghosts, haunted houses, the undead, possession and the occasional DIY exorcism, right?

Um...I guess.

Yeah, not so much. In fact, I've only ever had one experience I still can't explain.

It happened about twelve years ago when I was living in beautiful Ventura, California, a few houses from the beach. I was married at the time and, no, the old lady smell wasn't my ex-husband.

Ahem.

Exey and I were living in a quaint, beach house that was built in the 1980s. Not exactly the playground for spiritual activity, or so you'd think. (The only activity I ever experienced was of the homeless rifling through my trashcans variety).


The not so haunted house


Anyhow, I'd never experienced any sort of ghostly phenomenon. No heavy footsteps, clanking chains, no whimpering dog staring at the wall, no children disappearing into the static of the TV...

Until the day my neighbor's kid did disappear into the Vizio...

Say What?!

Just kidding. No missing children here! I'll stop doing that now, promise.

So Exey was traveling on business and I was alone in the house.

There I was, keeping myself occupied by reading on my bed. When all of a sudden, the scent of tea-rose perfume was so strong, it smelled like the Golden Girls were having a reunion right there in my bedroom.

And the smell didn't just fade away either. It was like that Cranberries song and lingered.

I put my book down and looked around the room, trying to figure out how Judge Judy got into my room... and undetected.

My mental checklist:

*Did I leave a window open? In which case, the portal to old lady hell might have just opened and belched up a whiff of the ever-after? (Because, seriously, there's no way old lady heaven smells like tea-rose, right?)

I checked the windows but they were all closed.

*Is this early onset of Alzheimer's that's caused me to light a candle and then to promptly forget about it?

But no candles were lit. And, furthermore, I didn't possess anything that smelled like roses. I didn't even own a doily and I had zero cats!

That was the extent of my mental checklist.

So I just shrugged and started reading Outlander again, figuring this was one mystery that would forever occupy the annals of the unsolved.

I never did have another ghostly encounter...

Well, this one time I thought I was seeing floating orbs everywhere but that just ended up being a migraine.

Do you think I was visited by a ghost? I'd love to know your thoughts! Please comment below.

 

Do you have a ghost story I could feature on my blog? If so, I'd love to hear from you! Please just email me and let me know!