Writer's Block: If these walls could talk

[apocalypticbob]

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I can actually answer this one from experience, in a way. While not the home of my dreams, I rented a house here in Cushing for a while that always felt uneasy to me. I rented it purely because I was desperate and it was in my price range. After moving in, I sank into a deep, deep suicidal depression. My brother came over and almost committed suicide in the kitchen. Smog suffered horrible nightmares. I would resist going home, staying later and later at work. I started drinking, at home, alone, which I don't do and had never done before. I would hear things that weren't there, and I would hear this constant ticking in the wall that was starting to drive me crazy.

One day, a friend and long time Cushing resident dropped me off after I went out with them, and he casually said, "Oh, you live in the Murder House."

I boggled and asked for clarification.

He explained that one of the last murders that happened in Cushing (they don't happen here often) was a man who killed his wife and then himself, in front of their children.

Yeah. I moved out as soon as possible. I've always wondered what might have happened had I stayed there, and I'm pretty sure it would have been something horrible.

When I was a child, we lived in a house in Scotland that was very haunted, but there wasn't the same sense of malice and anger in it...more playful and prankster like.

Comments

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

Okay, that freaks me right the fuck out. Yowza.

[nottygypsy.livejournal.com]

You lived in Scotland! COOL!

Also yes murder house creepy.

[apocalypticbob.livejournal.com]

Yep, when I was a kid. Navy brat. First we lived off base in this big old farm house, and then we moved on base when housing became available. I started school there.

[softpaw.livejournal.com]

ok..that's creepy and disturbing as all get out. *shudders*

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

I think if I KNEW about it going in and could make arrangements to have the place properly cleansed then yes.

[apocalypticbob.livejournal.com]

When you sell a house, you are legally required to disclose things like that. When you rent one, not so much. If I had known why I was feeling the way I was, I could have at least shielded some, but I had no inkling.

[lexpendragon.livejournal.com]

How many witches and pagans do you know? They should have been able to clean the place out for you...

[apocalypticbob.livejournal.com]

At the time, I really didn't know very many. (This was before I got back into the faire scene and before I joined LJ, so it's been a while...) There were several other reasons to leave that place, too, including an insane landlady that would go into my house when I wasn't there and go through my things. (Yes, I know that isn't legal, but I didn't have the money for a court battle...I just wanted out.)

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Speaking as someone inclined to skepticism towards this kind of stuff... that's really, really fascinating.*

Thank you for sharing it.

Now, of course, I'm curious to see if whatever it is about the house would manifest the same way for a variety of folks, and if there might have been something earlier in the house's history that might account for the previous event.

* And that sounds really, really lame, but "interesting" sounds condescending and lacks nuance, and "cool" doesn't seem quite appropriate. Whatever it is that makes folks watch the unglamorous parts of "Shark Week," what I'm doing an abysmal job of describing is it.)

[apocalypticbob.livejournal.com]

I don't know if everyone sensed it, but I know most of the people who came into the house that were the least bit sensitive to that sort of thing did. I know my mom did, my brother did, and of course myself and my son. I know no one stays in that house very long...there are always people moving in and out of it.

I have no idea if there was anything in the house prior to "the murder" that would have been giving off bad juju. I just know I'm glad I don't live there anymore.

[ladyniniane.livejournal.com]

Well, as a couple of others have suggested, it *might* be possible to cleanse such a place, but I am personally of the opinion that the circumstances involved (one parent killing another in view of their children) would make it almost impossible to purge, except by fire or something similar. As that would most likely result in the wholesale destruction of the house, I suppose that you might call that a 'final solution'.

I have often wondered if the house we rented in our previous location had some negative energy in it, possibly associated with the circumstances that resulted in two back doors (a messy divorce, from what we were told). I know that family members and others indicated that there was a sense of a past fire in the place, although there was no visible evidence of such.

[apocalypticbob.livejournal.com]

Yeah, when I was living there I was still coming down off my uber Baptist high horse, so I don't know how open I would have been to a cleansing. I just know that when Shannon told me what had happened there, it was like a light bulb going on in my head, and by the end of that month, I had moved out. It wasn't the only reason I moved out, but it was definitely a contributing factor.

Once I knew why I was feeling the way I was, though, it was easier to shield, and I was able to hold it together long enough to get out. It was a near thing at times, though. I think if I had stayed there much longer, I wouldn't be here now, and I might have done even worse things.

[tapestry01.livejournal.com]

For about two years, some friends lived in a house I knew was the scene of a rape. (I got to see police reports sometimes back when I worked at Police Records.) I never told them.

[apocalypticbob.livejournal.com]

Did they ever mention any kind of negative experiences? I would think something like that would certainly leave its mark.

[padawansguide.livejournal.com]

How scary!!

[morpheus0013.livejournal.com]

For some reason, the fact that they needed to specify "brutal murder" in this question fascinates me. Because people would be okay if it was a "kind and gentle murder?"

The house I lived in after I was born had had a suicide (hanging) and a murder (stabbing,) which I didn't know about until after we moved out when I was 6 years old and we moved into a house where a 5-year-old boy had died. The old house, there was...other stuff. The walls of the basement were made of boulders taken from the Delaware Water Gap, and later on when my father finally sold it (he rented it out for a couple decades after we moved,) I went back for a last look and got chased out of that house by a woman who stood in the window of my parents' old bedroom glaring at me and moving the curtain. I've done plenty of "ghost-hunting" as it's called now that it's in vogue, and that was the only time that happened. And I was pissed.

The strangest part of the old house for me: when I small, I would lay in bed next to my sister and hear these voices just calling my name, over and over. There might have been a dozen or so, all different. When I got home from my first day of kindergarten, I marched up to my parents and demanded to know what my first name was. I had gotten in trouble because I hadn't answered during attendance, because I didn't know my name was "Rebecca." No one had ever called me anything but "Becky," ever. It was years later that I realized those voices had been calling "Rebecca," not "Becky." So even though I hadn't known my own name when I went to school, somehow I--and they--had known it before that.

Apparently I'm in Sharing Mode today. Sorry. =P

[naamah-darling.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, pfft, I'd be totally fine living in a house that had been the site of a jolly tickle murder. Who wouldn't?!

The rest of your reply creeps me out.

[spacezombie.livejournal.com]

Holy shit! "Murder House?" I don't think you ever told me that. I really think I'd remember a story about the frickin' Murder House.

I'm very skeptical anyway, but I do, I do, I DO believe in spooks.

*shudders*

[naamah-darling.livejournal.com]

D:

CREE-PY.

Oh my god, screw that. So much D:

I would live in a house where a murder had happened, but not if it felt creepy and evil like that.

One of the houses we looked at had what really, REALLY looked like bloodstains on the upstairs master bedroom floor. I mean, I know what bloodstains look like, and this was quite a bit of it. These had been sanded over professionally and then the lovely wood floor had been re-coated. It was still way obvious.

I liked that house pretty well, actually, but we decided against it because it had a really dreary feeling.

[apocalypticbob.livejournal.com]

It was a little Amnityville, and I'm glad I'm not there anymore, that's for certain.

I definitely would be against moving into a house with bloodstains...although if it wasn't dreary, I'd be damn tempted to paint a body shaped white line on the ground and then lacquer over that...but I'm morbid.

[naamah-darling.livejournal.com]

*slow blink*

I . . . I can't believe I didn't think of that. That would be so cool. I kinda want to do it anyway, on the tile in my studio.

[apocalypticbob.livejournal.com]

If you do, you should put the head right where you sit, so it's like you're crushing their head everytime you sit down.

I may have issues.

[naamah-darling.livejournal.com]

Or put part of them under a bookcase. The possibilities here are endless.

[apocalypticbob.livejournal.com]

You could do it in the kitchen and have the fridge on their head.

I'm far too amused by this.

[naamah-darling.livejournal.com]

On the driveway, with the head under the garage door. But probably only for Halloween, because the neighbors might complain.

[bleuberi21.livejournal.com]

This almost made me snort water out my nose.

[revsphynx.livejournal.com]

Before we finalized the deal on our house, there was a murder at the neighbor's directly across the street to the side (we're on a corner). A young man had become obsessed with the daughter of the family (it's unclear whether they had dated, or if he was just a stalker), and shot her through her bedroom window. He then drove to a park and shot himself.

At that point we could have backed out, but we were getting a great deal (this was in 1997 before the market started declining). And it wasn't as if this was random, or even that it was because it was a high-crime area.

12 years later, a man who had been released from prison after holding a Big Boy restaurant hostage stabbed 2 women in a house 3 doors away. The stabber moved in with family up the street, and was known for trying to sell cigarettes and DVDs around the neighborhood. 1 died, the other was gravely wounded. He was known to the women, and tried to get money from them before he stabbed them. They caught him sitting at a bar at a steak place 2 1/2 miles away. He asked, "Which one died," when he was arrested. That one made me VERY thankful that I don't really talk to people in my neighborhood much.

Fair bit of grisly murders going on all around me, but nothing directly in the house.

[nuclear-knight.livejournal.com]

Personally, it wouldn't bother me in the least. I've lived a few places that folks said were haunted. After a couple of slamming doors, I simply put my foot down that I wouldn't stand for such, and everything quieted down. *shrugs* Maybe it's me, maybe I've been lucky, but I rarely have trouble with any such thing for long. Could be I just have REALLY Big guardian angels. Either way, nope, no problems.