What's October without a good ghost story?

It wasn't long after we moved in March to our new brownstone apartment on the Upper West Side that we noticed odd things going on in the apartment.  One day in April Cameron was home from school sick.  She was sitting on the couch in the living room and a piece of objet d'art fell off of the mantel and brought a candle down with it causing the glass candle holder to shatter on the floor.  Ok, yes, the window was open, but the window is seven feet from the fireplace mantel and there wasn't enough of a breeze to even flutter the curtains.

We have had ongoing issues in the kitchen with the ceiling lights. Not a big deal, for sure, but electrical shorts that just don't make sense. 

Ok, ok, you want more that short circuits in a building that is one hundred and ten years old.

This summer my sister Elizabeth, my mom, and my niece Rebecca came to visit.  One night Cameron, Rebecca, and Cameron's boyfriends (Dan) stayed up late watching movies.  Not long after they turned off the light Rebecca, who was on an air mattress, shouted at Cameron, "Cam, leave my feet alone.  Seriously, I'm trying to get to sleep." Cameron had gotten off of the air mattress and was sleeping next to Dan on the couch and replied, "Rebecca, I'm over here with Dan.  I'm not touching your feet."  A few minutes passed and Cameron felt pressure around her ankles as if someone was pulling her."  She tucked her feet up and buried her head under the covers.  You might wonder why Cameron did not jump out of he skin, but in fact by July when the family was visiting we were very familiar with the presence of a ghost in our apartment. There is no explaining the feeling, except to say it is just an energy in the rooms, in particular the living room where they were sleeping.



Cameron and Rebecca asleep in the living room

The next night while Cameron and Rebecca were out  for a few hours Elizabeth and I got out the K-2 meter and set out to do some ghost hunting.  We started off in the living room.  We asked the spirit some questions hoping to get the light gauge on the meter to move.  Elizabeth then said something akin to, "Do you think children these days are disrespectful?" (I can't remember what the girls had done to prompt her to say that, but it did the trick).  The meter shot from green to red and back again.  I think Elizabeth jumped up off of the footstool and landed on my mom's lap on the couch. We could not believe that we had gotten such a decisive response. I guess modern day children sassing their parents doesn't sit well with our ghost.

The owner's of the brownstone have not moved in yet (they are doing an extensive renovation on the two lower floors - ghost don't like renovations), so we took advantage of having the house to ourselves and went downstairs and sat in the foyer. We continued to get some positive, yet not dramatic, responses.  Then we heard the front door to my apartment on the second floor slowly creek opened and close. It wasn't until we heard the door open and close again that Jeff, Elizabeth, and I looked at each other.  We all realized at the same moment what we had heard.  Jeff ran up the stairs to see if my mother was walking around listening down the staircase to see what we were up to.  He reported back that she was sitting on the couch putting curlers in her hair and watching the news.  What's even more mysterious is that my front door does not creek when it opens and closes, and yet both times when we heard the door it creaked loudly.

Living room

The next day we told the girls about out ghost hunting and they insisted that they wanted to do some detective work themselves.  Normally, with a group of six in a small house you can't expect much to happen due to too much talking and moving about. We were sitting on the staircase and trying to get a response on the K2 meter.  I was sitting next to Rebecca.  Out of nowhere there was a groan.  The sound happened in the space between Rebecca and I.  Our eyes locked.  We asked if anyone else had heard the voice.  Elizabeth said that she did, but that it sounded distant to her.  Rebecca and I assured her that it was not "from a distance", but in fact exactly in between the two of us.  If I had been the only one to hear it I would brush it off, but because Rebecca and I acknowledged it as it happened there was no denying it.

I have a friend who is a medium.  I had the opportunity to ask her if she felt there really was an energy in our building, or had our imaginations run away with us.  She said it was definitely a male spirit in his late 20's or early 30's dressed in working class clothing from the early 1900's.  Initially she said that she thought he was simple minded, but then she realized that he was trying to communicate to her using his hands.  She said in fact he was deaf.  His seemingly arrested development was due to his sheltered life because of his lack of hearing.  Because he never had a mature relationship with a woman in his lifetime he is still drawn to woman in his spirit life.

Elizabeth and I  have a history of living in haunted houses, or maybe we bring the ghost with us.  Either way, we think that a reality show based on our combined families ghosting hunting would be a ratings bonanza!

Television show pitch - Malcolm Family Ghost Hunters