"You could hear it sit next to you..."

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Growing up in my household, from time to time my mother would tell my brother and I stories about when she was younger... and how she used to live in a house she and her siblings believed was haunted. There were many spooky little occurrences that finally made the family members realize that this was not just the wind, something was off.

Common incidents included hearing footsteps upstairs when no one else was home, hearing footsteps walking down the stairs, and-one of the spookiest things of all- hearing 'it' sit in an old wicker chair in the living room. As many know, when anyone sits in a wicker chair, there is a very specific sound, and imagine sitting in the couch next to this chair, when an invisible 'something' or 'someone' would sit down next to you when you are home alone.

This presence was not shy in front of guests either. One night, while the family was having people over, the front doorknob kept turning on its own. When one of my uncle's checked to see who it could be, of course he found no one, let alone anyone who could disappear fast enough. Another incident that took place the same evening with the guests still in the house was when the portrait above the mantel flew off the wall. Instead of falling straight down as if a hook had gotten loose, the large picture practically leaped off the wall and landed on the floor all the way across the room.

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One of my mom's scariest experiences occurred after she came home from school one day. She went into the bathroom and when she went to open the door to get out, she couldn't open the door. Living with two older brothers, she assumed it was them playing a trick on her, even though she knew she was home alone, but suddenly she could see the doorknob twist and hear loud pounding from the other side of the door. At the very same time, she could hear the doorbell ringing over and over, and other pounding noises all throughout the house. As she put it, "the whole house was shaking." There was no one way her two brothers could be behind this because of all the noise coming from so many different directions. After it all ended, my mom got the courage to get up and check around the house. After finding nothing, she asked her neighbor who always worked in his office where he had a clear view of her front door, if he had seen anyone come to the house. He hadn't seen anyone go to the front door except her when she had come home from school.

One of the most terrifying things my mom ever told me about this "haunting" was her experience with an antique fox fur. My mom, like myself, loves antiques and has been collecting them for many years. She had had an old fox fur in her room when one night she heard the little fur make noise. According to her it made some weird little grunting noises and even moved a little. As I recall, she said she threw it out of her room and hid under the covers the rest of the night. The fur remained in the middle of the hallway for a few days until anyone had the courage to pick up and get rid of it.

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My mom and other family members of that side of my family as well as family friends have had many bizarre ghostly/spiritual encounters. Makes me wonder if this sort of thing is somehow passed on, after all my great great grandma all the way down to my mom and her siblings have all had such interesting tales to tell. I promise to share even more of these encounters with you in more posts to come.