My husband and I got married in May of 1985. We were on the fast track. We both had good jobs, bought nice cars and a brand new house. In November of 1988 I had my first beautiful baby boy. Exactly one year and two weeks later, I had my second baby - a beautiful baby girl. Needless to say, I was a bit overwhelmed! My husband and I were both working full time, had a son living with us from his first marriage and we owned our own hair salon. I finally told my husband that something had to give. We decided to sell the house and buy a cheaper one so that I could stay home with the babies. We proceeded to do just that. We bought a house on the west side of town that was built approximately the turn of the century. The first thing that was a little odd was that when my husband went over after we first received the keys to the house from the realtor, when he tried to go inside, the keys wouldn't work. He was very frustrated and yelled out "This house is condemned!" As soon as he yelled that out, the door and window began rattling and the keys jangled. After they stopped rattling, my husband tried the door again and gained entrance.

Over the next few days, we commenced moving. This was no small task as we had two small babies, one and two years old! We managed though. After we loaded our first truck load, we all went over to the house to unload. We unlocked the house and all went in. My husband and his 8-year old son went into the room that was to be his bedroom. They were checking it out and his son went over to open the blind. These were old-fashioned blinds, the kind that you have to pull down slightly and let go, they then sort of quickly roll up with a kind of snapping motion. It is hard to explain; however, if you have ever been in an old house, you probably know what I am talking about. Randy (the son) went over and was trying to make the blind go up with his dad explaining what to do. When Randy finally got the blind to go up, both my husband and step-son witnessed the blind snap up all the way open then go back down as if someone was standing there pulling it down. Now, I am not a rocket scientist, but I am sure that goes against physics or someting! ONce the blind is in the open position, you have to tug it down against tension. Both my husband and step son came out of the bedroom talking fast and explaining this to me. Well...my husband has a good imagination and tends to embellish stories and I had much bigger fish to fry with the moving and all so I listened with half an ear and said "yeah, yeah, yeah..."

We commenced with the move and were finally moved and somewhat settled. After we had been in the house for about two weeks, I was watching tele- vision late one night probably about midnight. I was laying on the couch in the living room. Everything was quiet as everyone else in the house were in their bedrooms asleep. My son's room was right off the living room and I began to hear what I can only say was the sound of a rolled up piece of paper being batted around (by what I thought was our kitten.) I was annoyed that no one had put the kitten to bed for the night on our back porch which leads to the basement. On the landing, we kept the kitten's food, litter box and bed. After this batting sound went on for about five minutes, I decided I should go get the kitten and put him to bed. I went in to my babies room and didn't see the kitten. I turned on the light and got down on my hands and knees and looked under my son's bed (my son was in his crib on the other side of the room. There was nothing under the bed. No kitten or paper. I looked under the crib, in the crib, in the closet - nothing. I thought that was odd but thought perhaps that the kitten had snuck through the living room while I watched TV. I looked in the living room then proceeded to the back porch. I looked through the window of the door (that was closed and locked) and there was my kitten looking up at me! I thought "jeez, am I going nuts or what?" I just let it go as I didn't have any explanation (I think you sort of deny stuff at this point!)

I told my husband about the phantom cat experience the next day and he thought it was odd but we didn't really discuss it much after that. A few weeks went by without any other weird experiences; however, my baby daughter's room was just off the kitchen. Keep in mind, this is a real old house and it has no hallways. All the bedrooms, bathroom, laundry are just off the main rooms through doorways. My daughter's room was a very odd room. According to our realtor, the previous owner had repainted that room over and over but the paint would never stick. Then, they tried to wallpaper it, but the wallpaper would always peel off. Supposedly, they had the house inspected both on the ouside and the inside to see if water was leaking somewhere to cause both paint and wallpaper not to stick. The results of that survey were normal, nothing wrong could be found.

My husband and I were in the bathroom right off the kitchen one day as we were trying to potty train my two-year old son. My son was sitting on his potty chair, I was sitting on the potty telling him all the information about going to the bathroom on the potty, making him a big boy, etc...My husband was perched across from me on the edge of the tub. After a while we decided that he wasn't going to be going on that potty anytime soon, so we decided to give him a bath. My husband reached in the tub and turned both the hot and cold water taps on. As I have mentioned before, this is a very old house. The two water taps in the bathtub are separate from the spout where the water comes out. Both taps are silver handles that point down at about an angle and the spout comes out of the porcelain in the middle of these two handles. To turn on the water, each handle must be pulled upward for both the cold and hot. My husband turned both on and we watched both handles shut off and the water stop. My husband and I were both stunned and stared at each other speechless. This would seem totally impossible, as it needs pressured to push those levers down to the off position. My husband and I didn't say a word, he reached over and turned both on again. The exact same thing happened a second time - both were "pushed" down to the off position again! Now that I think back on it, this seems so totally unbelieveable but both of us watched this happen not once but twice. My husband and I never said a word to each other. He reached down and turned them on a third time and ran the bath water. As I think back on that day, I think my husband and I were both in denial as we did not speak of this for a long time after we moved from that house.

We only lived in that house about eight months. Now I wonder if we unconciously wanted out of there even though nothing ever really scared us. We sold the house for a profit and bought a three bedroom ranch house in the same city. When we sold the house, we didn't disclose those happen- ings. We were not trying to hide what happened to us, but the incidents we had there seemed minor and like I said, I think we were in denial as we never spoke of it at that time. Well...the things that happened to the next family were not minor and we were almost sued! My realtor, who was a friend of mine, went through a lot of stuff after the new family moved in and didn't tell us until it was over. According to her, she was contacted by the new family's attorney about two months after they moved in. He said that from the day the new family moved in, they had nothing but trouble in the house. Remember my daughter's bedroom where the paint always peeled off? I guess the new owners would hear a little girls voice coming from that room saying "Mommy, I'm home." Jeez, if that would have happened to us, I would have left there running! Also, there was a natural gas stove in the kitchen which we never had any problems with. I worked perfectly while we lived there. The new family started to not feel good after they moved in. Both the mom and the two children were lethargic, nausous and headachy. Finally, the mom was hospitalized and treated for I believe carbon minoxide poisening. The doctor at the hospital said that her levels were very high and the two children's were also (the dad's were not as high as the other family members as he was working out of the home everyday.) They had the local gas company come in and check the stove as that was the only source of natural gas on the premises. The man from the gas company wrote a report and told the family that the leak from that stove was so bad, that the "previous" family (which was us of course) could not have possibly lived there without getting sick! We lived there for eight months and never once were any of us sick or noticed any problem with the stove or a smell or anything! Because of that report that the technician said that we had to know about that, the new owners were ready to file suit. Our realtor, bless her heart, was able to smooth things over and prevent the lawsuit. We didn't even know this was all going on at the time.

The new family only lived at the house for a few months. It was sold a couple of times after that. The present family has fixed it up and has lived there for a few years now. I drive by it occasionally as my sister lives in the same neighborhood.

My husband, step son and I do not know what happened while we lived there (the babies were too young to remember anything) but we all know that we were involved in some type of paranormal event. We love the house we are in now. It is home. My step son is now 21 and living on his own and my children are 10 and 11 and thank God nothing paranormal happens to us now! I enjoy stories of the paranormal but don't necessarily want to go through another one!