We closed on our house on September 12th. A 1940s colonial with the original hardwood floors, a wraparound porch, and a price that made our realtor do a double-take. “Estate sale,” she said. “Priced to move.” We thought we’d won the lottery.
Three weeks later, my boyfriend Jake is sleeping with the hallway light on, and he asked me — dead serious, over dinner — if we could break the lease on our old apartment’s storage unit because “we might need to move back.”
Because the house is haunted. That’s his theory. The house is haunted, and Halloween is in four weeks, and he is genuinely afraid of what might happen when October 31st rolls around.
It Started With the Attic Door
The first thing was the attic door. There’s a small access panel in our bedroom ceiling — the kind you push up with a broom handle. The morning after we moved in, I woke up and it was open. Just… open, hanging at an angle, dust drifting down in the sunlight.
Jake went pale. “Did you open that?” I hadn’t. He hadn’t. We don’t own a broom handle yet — we were still living out of boxes.
Okay, I said. Old house. Latch is loose. Gravity. We pushed it shut and forgot about it.
Then it happened again. And again. Three mornings in a row. On the fourth morning, Jake put a strip of painter’s tape across it before bed. The tape was peeled back in the morning — not torn, peeled, like someone had carefully lifted it.
I told him it was the humidity. He told me I was in denial.
The Things He Won’t Let Go
Here’s the list, because Jake has started keeping one on his phone:
The footsteps. Every night around 3 AM, slow steps across the living room ceiling — which is our bedroom floor, so there’s nobody up there. I’ve heard them too. It sounds like someone pacing. Jake says it’s “too rhythmic for pipes.” I say old houses settle. He says houses don’t settle on a schedule.
The cold spot. The hallway outside our bedroom drops about ten degrees. You can feel it walk through it — one step you’re fine, the next your arms go goosebumpy. Our home inspector said it’s probably a draft from the attic access. Jake measured it with a meat thermometer. I wish I were joking.
The dreams. This is the one that actually worries me. Jake has started having the same dream every night: he’s standing at the bottom of our staircase, looking up, and there’s a woman in old-fashioned clothes at the top. She never moves. She never speaks. He wakes up and can’t go back to sleep. He’s had it six nights running.
The dog. We don’t have a dog. But twice now, we’ve both heard what sounds like nails clicking on hardwood in the hallway. Our neighbor has a golden retriever, but the sound was inside. I heard it too. I don’t have an explanation for that one, and it bothers me more than I’ll admit to Jake.
The Halloween Ultimatum
The breaking point came last weekend. We were carving pumpkins on the porch — trying to be normal, trying to make it feel like home — when Jake just stopped, knife in his pumpkin, and said: “I don’t want to be in this house on Halloween.”
I laughed. He didn’t.
“I’m serious,” he said. “If there’s something here, Halloween is… it’s like an invitation. I don’t want to find out what happens.”
And now he wants us to move. Back to a one-bedroom apartment with a storage unit full of furniture that doesn’t fit. He’d rather pay two rents than spend Halloween night in our own home.
What Reddit Thinks
I posted the whole thing on r/relationships expecting people to tell me my boyfriend needs therapy. Instead, the top comment — with 4,000 upvotes — said: “Check the history of the house. 1940s colonial, estate sale, priced to move? Someone died in that house and the sellers knew it.”
Someone else found our county’s property records and DM’d me: a woman named Eleanor V. lived in the house from 1948 to 1989. She died in the house. Alone. She wasn’t found for eleven days.
I haven’t told Jake yet. I don’t know if it would make it better or infinitely worse.
Where We Are Now
We’re compromising, sort of. Jake agreed to stay through Halloween on three conditions: every light in the house stays on all night on October 31st, we sleep at his brother’s place that night (“just in case”), and we get the house “checked” — his word — by someone who does that professionally.
I agreed because I love him, and because honestly? The attic door was open again this morning. The tape was peeled back. Neatly. Like someone being polite about it.
I’m telling myself it’s the humidity. But I’ve started sleeping with the hallway light on too.
Update: We’re getting a home energy audit next week (Jake’s compromise with me — “let’s rule out drafts first”). And yes, I’ve ordered a broom handle. If that attic door opens one more time, I’m going up there myself. During the day. With Jake on speakerphone. Probably.
Speaking of Halloween nightmares at work — you won’t believe what happened when a boss scheduled a mandatory meeting on Halloween night and someone showed up in full costume: https://digidia.org/boss-mandatory-meeting-halloween-costume/