Do I have a ghost in my house?

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Alright, I was convinced there was a logical explantion for this but a quick google search has turned up nothing but tales of hauntings. ILx, please tell me if this is something you've heard of:

Last night, for the second time, the shower in our master bath turned on by itself. We were lying in bed, watching TV and it just came on. WTF?!?

My boyfriend also has claimed to have woken up once and seen a ghostly figure in our room. I ignored him figuring he was half-asleep or full of it. Now I wonder.

― Ms Misery, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 14:22 (eighteen years ago)

yes

― jhøshea, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 14:26 (eighteen years ago)

what about: the tap for your shower doesn't close too tightly anymore and at that precise moment the water company corrected the low pressure by adding more water to their network = water through your shower head?

― StanM, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 14:26 (eighteen years ago)

or was it really full power? then yes.

― StanM, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 14:26 (eighteen years ago)

I'm agnostic about this kind of thing Sam, but it does fascinate me. In my last house we had three vacumn cleaners blow up in a row. Everything else plugged into that socket was fine. It *did* have a weird vibe to it, that place, and an attic that just looked like someone had moved their whole life up there in 1955 and gone away, but it also had faintly dodgy wiring.

I'm really interested to hear if anything else happens.

― Anna, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 14:28 (eighteen years ago)

I've seen a ghost but don't believe in ghosts, if that helps.

― Mark C, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 14:29 (eighteen years ago)

It was only the wind...

― braveclub, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 14:29 (eighteen years ago)

argh! I don't like your responses!

The thing is we never use that shower b/c the pan is cracked and we haven't fixed it yet. It doesn't come on full power but rather just like you were in there about to take a shower.

The dogs, whose beds are right by the bathroom, always jump and run when this happens. But I suspect it's more that they're afraid of the water (showers=baths) rather than ghosts.

― Ms Misery, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 14:30 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.extirp.net/images/18.jpg

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 14:31 (eighteen years ago)

Flippant answer: Get shower blessed by priest. Shower comes on. Entity doused in holy water. Job done.

(Sorry I watched The Excorsism of Emily Rose last night and it's still in my head. I'm sure it's the water pressure or similar.)

― Anna, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 14:32 (eighteen years ago)

Isn't it most likely to be a perished washer or similar, which leaks when the water pressure changes?

― Mark C, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 14:32 (eighteen years ago)

Something might have interacted badly with the big back EMF from the cleaner motor but not with anything else without a powerful motor.

Shower coming on, less easy to explain but pressure changes, especially if they were repeated could have caused the valve to work loose, especially if it is old and some of the rubber inside is worn.

― Ed, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 14:33 (eighteen years ago)

I never really understand ghosts. Why would it turn on the shower? If it wants to freak you out why doesn't it turn the shower of when you're in it? Why does it do things in rooms you're not in? Ghosts always do spooky things-why? Why don't they just write messages or something?

― Ned Trifle II, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 14:51 (eighteen years ago)

[smokemonster.jpg]

― g-kit, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 14:55 (eighteen years ago)

I'm hoping it's something pressure-related. but it seems odd that that happens at night, when nothing else is running (maybe 30mins-1 hr after we've showered in the other bathroom).

An ex of mine lived in a haunted house. Neither of us actually saw the ghost although I once felt an eerie prescence near the room he was said to inhabit. However three other people claimed on different occasions to have seen him - and they all described the same person. I didn't care too much then b/c it was *his* house. Now this is my house and I don't really want my beleifs about ghosts soldified by experience.

― Ms Misery, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 14:57 (eighteen years ago)

ghosts are not for real dudes

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 15:00 (eighteen years ago)

if there were ghosts then somewhere would have like a dinosaur ghost, and that would rule, but there isn't, so ghosts = confidence scheme perpetrated by teenagers.

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 15:01 (eighteen years ago)

just for halloween

― Ronan, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 15:01 (eighteen years ago)

...and they would have got away for it if it weren't for that damn Tombot!

― Masonic Boom, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 15:01 (eighteen years ago)

OTMBOT to the rescue.

― Laurel, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 15:02 (eighteen years ago)

so what's turning my taps then, Tom? (srlsy, I'd like a rational answer)

― Ms Misery, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 15:02 (eighteen years ago)

Ghost writing in bathroom:
http://www.graffitiproject.com/content/416_bathroom01.jpg

― Fluffy Bear, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 15:02 (eighteen years ago)

how cold does it get at night when this happens, outside?

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 15:03 (eighteen years ago)

how cold does it get at night when this happens, outside?

not very, 50s. Both times it's been around 10 at night. Maybe I should go ask a plumber msg board.

And be laughed at. :(

― Ms Misery, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 15:06 (eighteen years ago)

ANSWER

― Fluffy Bear, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 15:06 (eighteen years ago)

argh, it's an asian girl doing it! it's the grudge!

― Ms Misery, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 15:07 (eighteen years ago)

I can't figure out how to type that noise she makes.

― Fluffy Bear, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 15:10 (eighteen years ago)

there's likely to be a pressure change when you get done using the other shower, just like when you fuck up and try to do the dishes while somebody's bathing, etc. and then there's going to be daily pressure changes according to the area usage and water company scheduled level settings on top. As Ed said pressure changes can work a valve loose over time if the washers are old - I suspect many of us have been in a hotel bathroom or similar where you get the temperature set just how you like it and the fucking handle keeps creeping too hot/ too cold while you're trying to lather up - same deal.

Alternatively I suggest you write to MythBusters and see if they'll do an episode on it.

― TOMBOT, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 15:11 (eighteen years ago)

we had taps that would turn on and off by themselves in a house during college. it was the turning off that freaked me out. also, we would lock the front door and then find it standing open a while later. that was the only place in which i began to think that there was something to the whole "ghost" business.

― lauren, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 15:18 (eighteen years ago)

if you want the opinion of a licensed plumber... the pan is probably cracked from the time the previous owners hastily buried a corpse under the shower.

― f. hazel, Thursday, 8 March 2007 00:37 (eighteen years ago)

At least you don't have pink gloppy form-shaping ectoplasm coming out of your bathtub faucet ike in Ghostbusters II.

http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/ghostbusters2/slimetub1.jpg

Look what kind of ghost it could turn into!

http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/ghostbusters2/slimetub2.gif

― Abbott, Thursday, 8 March 2007 00:55 (eighteen years ago)

Thanks Abbott, now I have plenty of bathtub nose penis nightmares to look forward to in weeks ahead

― Curt1s Stephens, Thursday, 8 March 2007 01:05 (eighteen years ago)

If you fill a toaster w/pink glop while playing Jackie Wilson's "Higher and Higher," said toaster will dance.

― Abbott, Thursday, 8 March 2007 01:07 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/user_images/pics/1/5006000/ngbbs4273a9d966a8b.jpg

― remy bean, Thursday, 8 March 2007 02:03 (eighteen years ago)

ha abbott beat me too it

― latebloomer, Thursday, 8 March 2007 02:37 (eighteen years ago)

use a ouija board to communicate with the spirits of the pipes

― latebloomer, Thursday, 8 March 2007 02:38 (eighteen years ago)

if there were ghosts then somewhere would have like a dinosaur ghost, and that would rule, but there isn't

dude, loch ness monster! plesiosaur ghosts! that's why they can't catch 'em...they're spiritses!!

it all makes sense now...

― latebloomer, Thursday, 8 March 2007 02:42 (eighteen years ago)

or not

― latebloomer, Thursday, 8 March 2007 02:43 (eighteen years ago)

Yah, if you're one of those hippy dips/furries/whatevs who believe they have a 'spiritual guide animal' you may well as make it a pterodactyl or anklyosaurus rather than an otter or a wolf.

― Abbott, Thursday, 8 March 2007 02:45 (eighteen years ago)

bigfoot/yeti/sasquatch=australopithicus spirits?

― latebloomer, Thursday, 8 March 2007 02:46 (eighteen years ago)

They were slight less robust, the australopiths.

― Abbott, Thursday, 8 March 2007 02:48 (eighteen years ago)

I've been scared I have a ghost living primarily in the spare bedroom. It may be something to do with that room having been stuck in a seventies timewarp when we moved in when all of the other rooms had been modernised and decently decorated.

It may also have something to do with the 'water feature' aka the leak running down the wall in that room that we're sort of trying to address.

The first couple of nights after moving in a small hi-fi I put in the kitchen began turning itself on and playing cd's - a short may have turned it on but it's set to default onto radio when powered up. We laughed it off, but now I'm not so sure....

Also I had the 'somebody is watching me' feeling one night when I decamped into the spare room because Mr was snoring. I fled back to his rattling noise with every hair on my neck standing up.

I'm just freaking myself out.

― rumpie, Thursday, 8 March 2007 07:17 (eighteen years ago)

I"m trying not to freak myself out. I've chosen to believe tombot and my aunt who both said things about washers and seats.

― Ms Misery, Thursday, 8 March 2007 14:02 (eighteen years ago)

The first couple of nights after moving in a small hi-fi I put in the kitchen began turning itself on and playing cd's - a short may have turned it on but it's set to default onto radio when powered up. We laughed it off, but now I'm not so sure....

I'd be concerned if it were playing CDs that were not in the machine when you turned it off or ones that you don't even own.

― Michael Jones, Thursday, 8 March 2007 14:08 (eighteen years ago)

This thread shit me up last night, and I had trouble getting to sleep. Thanks :(

― melton mowbray, Thursday, 8 March 2007 14:13 (eighteen years ago)

I've seen several ghosts, right from when I was a small child, but I tend not to talk about it because people might start thinking I'm bonkers.

― C J, Thursday, 8 March 2007 14:14 (eighteen years ago)

Time to spill the ectoplasm, CJ!

― Mark C, Thursday, 8 March 2007 14:23 (eighteen years ago)

ew!

― C J, Thursday, 8 March 2007 14:24 (eighteen years ago)

― Ste, Thursday, 8 March 2007 14:25 (eighteen years ago)

no?

― Mark C, Thursday, 8 March 2007 14:48 (eighteen years ago)

...because people might start thinking I'm bonkers.

Start? ;)

― Michael White, Thursday, 8 March 2007 14:50 (eighteen years ago)

You can go off people, you know.

― C J, Thursday, 8 March 2007 14:57 (eighteen years ago)

Even when they wink so debonariely?

Oh go on Ceej, tell us!

― Mark C, Thursday, 8 March 2007 15:09 (eighteen years ago)

I'm a bit too post-flu headachey to write much at the moment, but I will regale you with stories of dead roman soldiers floating around in my back garden, my deceased father travelling on a bus with me and finishing my crossword puzzle, the car which drove straight at me but disappeared into thin air instead of causing an impact, the bird which swooped at me straight through a closed window and then vanished inside the room, the house fire which happened but left no signs of it the next morning, the phantom hitch-hiker, the sound of a man being hanged (gruesome, that was), etc etc etc.

Bonkers, me.

― C J, Thursday, 8 March 2007 15:31 (eighteen years ago)

wow. . .and those are all from different places? you're the ghost whisperer.

one of my favorite supernatural stories (although not really a ghost one). . .My great-grandfather was in the hospital, dying, when he suddenly shot up and said "Harold, put down that girly magazine." At the same time my Uncle Harry was on a bus travelling back home from an army base when some other guys passed him a Playboy. He gave it a cursory glance and then passed it on.

― Ms Misery, Thursday, 8 March 2007 15:34 (eighteen years ago)

dead roman soldiers floating around in my back garden

Yes I hate it when that happens.

― Dr.C, Thursday, 8 March 2007 15:34 (eighteen years ago)

The roman soldier always walks several feet above the ground so he always appears to 'float', but the land on which the house is built was a different height in those days so it makes some kind of sense that he's walking on what used to be flat ground in roman times (our house was built on what was originally the site of a fairly large roman dwelling)

― C J, Thursday, 8 March 2007 15:58 (eighteen years ago)

where do you live CJ?

― Ms Misery, Thursday, 8 March 2007 15:59 (eighteen years ago)

Oxfordshire

― C J, Thursday, 8 March 2007 16:00 (eighteen years ago)

whoa cj, so neat
my brother has seen ghosts, in an old mining town my family lived in for a while. so far i can only 'feel' ghosts and not really see them :/ i think also that maybe we all do see ghosts but our rational minds rationalize them away, incorporate them into our realities so they don't come across as ghosts? as many as my hippie tendencies are, i'm phenomenal at rationalization/logic :/ and envy those who are wired differently or able to let so-called logic go more easily

― rrrobyn, Thursday, 8 March 2007 16:08 (eighteen years ago)

(which is not to say yr mind isn't logical/rational - just differently so? or maybe ghosts just like you)

― rrrobyn, Thursday, 8 March 2007 16:10 (eighteen years ago)

Does the soldier visit often?

― Dr.C, Thursday, 8 March 2007 16:12 (eighteen years ago)

That's so funny, R, because I always believed religious visions & ecstasies were to be taken at face value so I give credence to all kinds of weird-ish things, but ghosts & hauntings get extreme skepticism.

I'm afraid there are lots of...er, kind of underwhelming people in the world who like the IDEA of seeing ghosts and they make it hard to believe those who, as Robyn says, are good at seeing differently, letting go of rationality, etc. My mother is one of those people too, CJ, but it's channelled into religion and it's really very moving, transforming...it's really something! I like your soldier, I think.

― Laurel, Thursday, 8 March 2007 16:15 (eighteen years ago)

Does he show up on film?

― ledge, Thursday, 8 March 2007 16:15 (eighteen years ago)

About five or six times in the past ten years. The dog refuses to go anywhere near that part of the garden, even during daylight, and that particular spot is always really chilly, even on hot summer days. It's weird.

― C J, Thursday, 8 March 2007 16:21 (eighteen years ago)

I don't know about on film - I've never got a camera to hand when he's around so I've never tried photographing him. He doesn't hang about long!

― C J, Thursday, 8 March 2007 16:23 (eighteen years ago)

Have the kids seen him? What do they think?

― Dr.C, Thursday, 8 March 2007 16:23 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.rchistory.com/lanternbearers.jpg

"Instead of leaving with the last of the Roman legions, Aquila, a young officer, decides that his loyalties lie with Britain, and he eventually joins the forces of the Roman-British leader Ambrosius to fight against the Saxon hordes."

― Laurel, Thursday, 8 March 2007 16:29 (eighteen years ago)

No, they haven't. Neither has Mr C J (a total non-believer in ghost stuff), although there was one occasion when he got thoroughly spooked by being forcibly knocked to the ground by something while standing alone in that part of the garden. He says he just couldn't explain it since there was nobody else around at all at the time, and it really shook him up.

― C J, Thursday, 8 March 2007 16:30 (eighteen years ago)

Don't let that cover fool you, book = outstanding.

― Laurel, Thursday, 8 March 2007 16:30 (eighteen years ago)

One thing I never understood about the typical ghost sightings: why do all the ghosts occupy themselves with stuff like turning on faucets or making paintings swing or scaring the cat? If you were a ghost, surely you could think of more interesting and impressive things to do? Just think of the possibilities!

― Tuomas, Thursday, 8 March 2007 16:36 (eighteen years ago)

I always wondered what it was like for some Illyrian or Iberian soldier serving in Britain. Foreign, lonely, strange, cold...

― Michael White, Thursday, 8 March 2007 16:38 (eighteen years ago)

forcibly knocked to the ground! Crikey!

― Dr.C, Thursday, 8 March 2007 16:38 (eighteen years ago)

I suppose it depends on what your ghostly capabilities are. Some people believe it's a bit like a sort of residual energy, like when you've turned the cooker off but the hob is still a bit warm for a while. Maybe ghosts aren't capable of doing very much, they just sort of 'are'. Probably only temporarily 'are', at that. I expect they fade away eventually.

― C J, Thursday, 8 March 2007 16:40 (eighteen years ago)

Very cold and damp, I think, Michael. And rustic at best, unsanitary, uncivilized, uncomfortable. Some things never change.

― Laurel, Thursday, 8 March 2007 16:44 (eighteen years ago)

pwn

― brownie, Thursday, 8 March 2007 16:45 (eighteen years ago)

I wonder who provided the bulk of the British ghost population in Roman times?

― Michael White, Thursday, 8 March 2007 16:52 (eighteen years ago)

I have not knowingly seen a ghost, but I have had some strange experiences. One is a poltergeist (sp?) phenomenon that I am almost too scared to write down.

About 20 years ago I was enjoying myself at a gig and suddenly, for no reason, I KNEW that my father was ill and that I should get in touch. It was before mobile phones, so I didn't ring there and then. But I couldn't shake off the feeling that he was ill, even though he was in good health. When I got home, my flatmate was waiting up and told me that my mum had rung to say that my dad had had a serious heart attack and was in intensive care. I just said to my flatmate 'I knew'. My dad survived and is still around today btw. I've had a few more of those incidents over the years.

― Dr.C, Thursday, 8 March 2007 16:53 (eighteen years ago)

I had a dream about my grandfather on the night he died. He was very calm and told me he loved me but that he had to go. The next morning my father called to inform me of his passing.

― Michael White, Thursday, 8 March 2007 16:56 (eighteen years ago)

Dr C, that's not poltergeisting, that's more like ESP.

― emil.y, Thursday, 8 March 2007 17:01 (eighteen years ago)

Yes, my mother couldn't be at the hospital the day her mother died, but she was working on something in a far part of the house and was suddenly in the middle of a flood of memories, like watching a film, of her mother over the years -- scenes she never consciously remembered before. She sang all her mother's favorite hymns and the songs of her childhood and their lives together and was secure in the presence...and only found out later that it began at the time her mother entered a coma that lasted until her death that evening. I believe.

― Laurel, Thursday, 8 March 2007 17:01 (eighteen years ago)

(I'm not a believer, by the way.)

― emil.y, Thursday, 8 March 2007 17:01 (eighteen years ago)

Nothing remotely supernatural or paranormal has ever happened to me (and, until I was 12 or 13, I was really quite desperate for contact with ghosts, UFOs, evidence of telekinesis, etc). You can want it too much, I suppose.

― Michael Jones, Thursday, 8 March 2007 17:05 (eighteen years ago)

The ones around here tend to be annoyng and not dangerous, but this one who seems to be an 'old guy' type likes messing with me when I'm sleeping. Waking me up, mucking with my dreams. Sometimes I think he goes by the cat's food and just...hang out. Sometimes the cat just starts begging to no one, which he never does unless it's his feeding time or he just ate.

There used to be a little girl, but my sister says she's taken to playing with her kids(they've been able to talk with them forever).

― Windy G Moisture, Thursday, 8 March 2007 17:15 (eighteen years ago)

"One thing I never understood about the typical ghost sightings: why do all the ghosts occupy themselves with stuff like turning on faucets or making paintings swing or scaring the cat? If you were a ghost, surely you could think of more interesting and impressive things to do? Just think of the possibilities!"
I really thik they're just bored as hell. Imagine 20 years of being surrounded by people and not being seen, much less able to communicate. Now imagine that for 200 years.
Mary(as I call the girl) sort of sat on top of me crying(or something like tat0 for a day and half after POSSESSING ME AND MAKING ME RELIVE HER DEATH...
It was kind of "I'M DEAD AND BORED PAY ALL KINDS OF ATTENTION TO ME!! AAAAAAAA!" I think.
I think some of the faucet, swinging, cat freaking ones are pranksters. I think some of them might not even e 'ghosts' per se, just spirits of another kind.
'Poltergeists' and such are often classed apart, and many cultures have similar classifications.

― Windy G Moisture, Thursday, 8 March 2007 17:21 (eighteen years ago)

Typo central, biatch!

― Windy G Moisture, Thursday, 8 March 2007 17:22 (eighteen years ago)

I always wondered what it was like for some Illyrian or Iberian soldier serving in Britain. Foreign, lonely, strange, cold...

One of my little private shames is an affection for Lindsey Davis's Falco books, about a Roman informer (cross between a detective, a spy and hired muscle), and although the stories are silly and melodramatic, the scholarship is apparently excellent and she never hesitates to make it clear how miserable a place Roman Britain was.

― Mark C, Thursday, 8 March 2007 17:31 (eighteen years ago)

Haha, those books are partly what I was going on.

― Laurel, Thursday, 8 March 2007 17:32 (eighteen years ago)

I'm also of the idea that some people can sense them more readily than others, and some people can't even tell there's anything going on. However I think most people could tell if something was going on.

― Windy G Moisture, Thursday, 8 March 2007 17:37 (eighteen years ago)

Heh - I had to read one of them for work. I have now read 8, I think, and have taken to buying much-loved copies off Amazon for £0.01.

― Mark C, Thursday, 8 March 2007 17:37 (eighteen years ago)

xpost, sigh

― Mark C, Thursday, 8 March 2007 17:37 (eighteen years ago)

xpost sigh
is the new xpost

― rrrobyn, Thursday, 8 March 2007 17:46 (eighteen years ago)

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