11 Bone-Chilling Experiences From People Who Survived Living In Haunted Houses
Recently, I asked the BuzzFeed Community to share their stories about living in a haunted house.
Here are 11 of the creepy and scary experiences they shared:
1."My husband and I used to live in a 100-year-old, hand-built craftsman home. Any time we would change something (paint, hang pictures, etc.), we would hear footsteps, doors slamming, and glass breaking and find our things moved around. Neither one of us ever felt 'alone' in the house either. However, it never felt scary or dangerous until we started having marital problems."
"Long story short, after an incident, I asked my husband to leave, and he went to stay with his parents for a few days. It was really looking like we were headed for divorce.
One day, he came to the house to get some of his things. We were standing in the kitchen talking before he was going to leave, and the lights flickered and the back door slammed. We heard heavy footsteps RUNNING up and down the basement stairs, followed by a bunch of crashing noises. It was the first time that I felt true terror being in that house.
We both checked the basement, and there was no one there, but we could hear the noises continuing upstairs. I burst into tears and told him I did not feel safe staying in the house alone. He said he would stay over and sleep in the guest room, and as soon as he said that, the noises stopped.
We ended up going to counseling and working things out. Eight years later, and we're still married, have two kids, and are happier than ever. That darn ghost saved my marriage."
2."I spent my childhood in south Louisiana in a home just off the Bayou Teche with a ghost. My 83-year-old mother lives there to this day. We often saw a translucent young man walking slowly across the front window and through the yard. Lamps and radios turned themselves on and off all hours of the night. The worst growing up was the heavy boot steps that were up and down the long back hallway of the house leading to the addition that held my bedroom."
"My parents were far too poor to consider moving five kids to another house, so their solution was to always be really frank and calm about what was happening and that it couldn't hurt us.
The one terrifying memory I have is one night when I was 8 years old. I laid awake for hours most nights listening to the ghost's steps that would approach my door and then pace back down the hall. This night, for whatever reason, I got really frustrated and yelled, 'Just go away! Now!' The steps stopped at my door, it opened slightly, and the pillow under my head was yanked furiously and thrown completely across the room. I still remember the feeling of the fabric being pulled against my cheek. Crying and screaming ensued, and my parents ran into calm me. Not much sleep was had that night."
3."After both of my grandparents had passed, my 6-year-old son and I moved into their home. It has been in our family since the 1960s. On our first night staying in the house, I was walking down the stairs, and my son was waiting at the bottom. He looked up at me and asked, 'Who is that guy behind you?'"
"I whipped around and didn't see anything. I asked what he meant, and he just stared for a few seconds then said, 'Never mind.'
As soon as he said 'guy,' I knew who he was talking about. I had an uncle who was 16 when I was born. When I was about a year old, he shot himself in my grandparent's room and passed. He had friends with him at the time, and they said he was playing Russian roulette, but we will never really know what happened.
Anyway, one of the wildest coincidences is that my son and my deceased uncle share the same birthday. Our kitchen door opens on occasion, but other than that, my uncle has been fairly quiet the last several years."
4."I lived with my mom and grandmother in a house outside of Gettysburg, PA (technically Cashtown) and SUPER close to all the spooky stuff. My grandparents built their house on a mountain in 2000. There was nothing on the land before, but being so close to Gettysburg, it's not surprising that we still had creepy stuff happening in our house."
"One time, I went to the kitchen to get a soda and went back to my room in the basement (there were five bedrooms upstairs, but the vibes upstairs were OFF and mom and I refused to sleep up there). I set my drink on my desk and went to take my dog out. When I came back inside, my drink was gone. I looked all over my room, went back to the kitchen, but couldn't find it anywhere. I figured I was losing it and went to take a shower, and when I opened the curtain...my drink was IN THE SHOWER.
Another time, I was sleeping (I am a HEAVY sleeper...I've slept through fire alarms...I don't wake up easily) and heard my name whispered, which woke me from a dead sleep. On multiple occasions, my mom had seen 'me' walk by her...and when I actually entered the room, she looked at me like I'd grown three heads, convinced that I'd been in the room long enough to have a conversation.
Another time my grandma saw 'me' sitting at the kitchen table at 4 a.m....just sitting...not reading or on my phone...just a creepy silhouette with the stove light on...I was not awake. My mom also got home from work (like 4 p.m., so sunny and bright) and said I was in the backyard and didn't answer when she called down to me. She figured I had headphones or something in and went inside and found me passed out on the couch and shook me awake, asking why I was messing with her.
All around creepy place. ESPECIALLY since SOMETHING kept impersonating me, which isn't always a great omen, but at least I never saw MYSELF."
5."I lived in a typical 'haunted' house as a young woman. All the usual bumps in the night, footsteps on the stairs, doors and cabinets opening seemingly on their own. I just kind of got used to it. One day, I was standing at my kitchen sink and looked over my left shoulder to see what I can only describe as a glitch in the matrix. I saw my living room, but it wasn't how I knew it."
"People were milling about the fireplace as if a party was going on. Someone went to set down a cup on the mantle and missed the edge.
Just as the cup came crashing down to the floor, the scene changed back to my modern-day living room setup. It was bizarre, to say the least, and still after over 20 years, I have difficulty truly explaining exactly what I saw for a moment in time."
6."The house I grew up in was haunted (IDK why, I think it might have been more so attached to a physical object than the house itself), which included full-blown apparitions, hearing people talk (including once a child calling my name), and slight poltergeist-like activity, including objects disappearing and later reappearing, loud noises, and shouting at night."
"I mostly was afraid because it's that feeling of never being alone and not knowing what their intentions were. There were times I would be home alone at night and hear people having a conversation, and I was scared because I wasn't sure if it was just the ghosts or if people had broken in."
7."I've lived in our haunted house for about 22 years. Mum deals with the ghost the most. They really like walking on our flat roof. At first, we thought it was animals or people. Nope. You hear very distinct human footfalls, but when we go check no one is there. It freaks the cats out something fierce."
8."I have so so so many stories. I lived in a very active haunted house from the age of 6–22. You could not go more than a few days without seeing someone who wasn't there on the steps or in window reflections, seeing things moving, hearing someone run the hallway and steps, hearing voices calling your name when home alone, or hearing voices in another room, only to open the door and find the room empty."
"I saw the first apparition when I was six. A woman in white followed my mom into her bedroom.
The last experience I had there was the night before we moved out. Activity had been high all week, but that last night, I saw the man on the steps. I smiled at him and said, 'I'll miss you guys' as I walked up the steps.
I could fill pages with what myself, my family, and my friends experienced in that house. I still miss it sometimes."
9."I grew up in a haunted house, but it was pretty mild. We would see what looked like human-shaped smoke clouds, especially in my room, the living room, and the kitchen. There were also times I'd see a bearded man looking at me through my doorway, and I would think my dad was home when he was not. On two occasions, I was sitting on the floor and felt hands holding my legs down. The most memorable incident, however, was when I was trying to pour myself a cup of water and something kept pushing the cup away when I tried."
"After the third time, I told it to stop, and it pushed the cup toward me, and that was the end of it."
10."I currently live in a haunted house and really, it's great. Our ghost, who we have several names for (Salty Ghosty, Salty One, S.G.) is honestly cool. I think he's just lonely. Someone did die in our home 20 years ago, and he never seemed to leave."
"He's pretty inactive spring through early fall and makes himself known again by slamming our bedroom door. He moves specific figures around in the TV room. He also likes messing with the blinds. But when he's feeling salty and moody, that's when he messes with the doors. So, I talk out loud, and he settles down. It's never felt malicious; it's never felt evil. I just think he's not ready to move on just yet, so we're not forcing him to. One cat really likes him, too, LOL. So we have a chill ghost.
I have always told him that when he's ready to move on, move the fan pin on my shelf, and I will make it happen."
11.And finally: "The house I grew up in was haunted. The biggest event happened when I was in middle school. My sister and I were having a sleepover, and we usually all slept in the living room since we had a big sectional couch. At the time, my mom was working nights at a casino, so she wasn't home yet when we went to bed. When we woke up the next morning, my dad asked us why we left all the downstairs lights on. This was weird because we had several overhead lights in our house, and when they were all on, they lit up the whole downstairs. When we had sleepovers, we tended to leave the oven light on for mom or dad if they were coming home late from work, but not the over head lights. We explained that we hadn't, but our dad said when mom got home that night, they were all on. We kind of just forgot about it until a few days later. Our dad was reading the paper one morning when he said, 'Holy shit!' and started reading one of the obituaries."
"The women who had owned the house before us had passed away a few days ago — the same night that my mom said all the downstairs lights were left on. My dad says she came home to visit.
After that, we had other things happen. Footsteps in the hall, doors swinging open, lights flickering. Her name was Mrs. Swanson, so every time something happened that we couldn't explain, we said it was Mrs. Swanson saying hello."
Which story did you find the most frightening? Do you have any similar ones? Share your own experiences in the comments!
Some entries have been edited for length/clarity.
