Living in a Haunted House as a Paranormal Investigator

by: Kady Harrington

Like many (if not most) people interested in hauntings and the paranormal I grew up in a haunted house. A great big active haunted house. And when I turned 19 a promptly moved into a little bitty REALLY active haunted house with a now team member and best friend for some 14 years. And we then spent 9 months trying every way we knew (which wasn't a whole lot way back then) to figure what was going on. We did end up with an impressive array of notes. That one little house sparked what is now Haunted North Carolina (you can read a little about that house on our site). Its been 12+ years since that first house and longer since my childhood home. In all honesty most of the homes my husband and I have lived in the past 10 years have been relatively quiet as these things go.

But when we decided to purchase a home rather than pay rent we managed to pick a house that was haunted (or it chose us?). We searched and looked. Every house we found fell through for one odd reason or another. Finally this one landed in our lap, with a ridiculously low price (based on its 'handy man special' not its additional residents) and no zoning restrictions against our horses. We held our breath and signed the papers. And a few weeks later met our first ghost.

Actually I believe my sister met him first (yes it does appear to be a he). She was lending her artistic talents to a mural of sorts being painted in our master bathroom. She heard heavy steps walking down the hall and assuming it was my husband called out. And she was a little offended he didn't bother to answer her. Of course she never heard him 'leave' and found no one there when she came out to look. And from there we were off and running.

We ended up using our house as a training investigation so much can be read about it on our web site. But essentially the activity was the loud sound of a rear sliding glass door being slammed open and shut, sliding in it's tracks (we actually watched to door stay still while we heard the sound at one point), occasionally the sound of the breezeway door unlock and open, and the regular sound of feet heading down the hallway. Well, except for some missed sleep it wasn't all that bad. We got rather used to it. Since we were no longer impressed he begin to appear. Our ghostly tenant is tall, brown hair brushing the base of his neck, lean and wears a red and white checked shirt. He likes to walk by my office at night quietly and disappear before I can get to the door. His other haunt - if you'll excuse the pun – is to walk out of what is now our laundry room, shut the door and walk across the sunroom disappearing in the doorway of the guest room He's done this twice to guests who confirmed our description... and once to a team member. He causes no problem except than only 2 people have willingly stayed an entire night in the guest room aside from us. Everyone else chose to sleep in the living room and usually found a nice hotel after the first night. The second one to appear surprised us and is very rarely experienced. A female child, she was first seen by my husband (a true blue skeptic) standing by our fireplace. There has a couple of times been the sound of a child crying quietly. Every time a family pet has passed away. Perhaps like all children she is sensitive to animals.

So from a paranormal investigators perspective what's it like? It rarely bothers me. We LOOK for this kind of thing. Its not harmful. Ironically I have had other investigators tell me they couldn't handle living in an active house. Why? What better way to fully be able to investigate a suspected haunting? We may never have found as much as we did if we didn't live here. This ghost will not show himself on film and took great delight in making monkeys of us when we tried a formal investigation. Had it been a one-night investigation we probably would not have caught anything and perhaps even written off a truly active location. Makes one have a little more sympathy for people who call saying their house is haunted, and when we go out we get nothing. Does not mean it wasn't true. My personal wish for my home is that we might someday catch something via film. It has allowed me to carefully see when and under what circumstances he manifests. It allows me a much better understanding of what may cause it. After all, there is only so much one can do in a few hours at a location. Yes, there are times you just want to say "stop it!" when it gets noisy (or riles up the many dogs in the house), or you walk a little quicker down the hall at night when the lights are off and you feel watched. But most of the time it's peaceful. In an odd way perhaps it's a privilege to live in a haunted home. There is so much you can learn! And it WAS his home first.