Insane

This is one of the most disturbing experiences in my life, It all started when we moved to an old house in New Haven Ct. We moved for just a short period as my husband was completing his residence at the Yale-New Haven Hospital. So we were living a few blocks away, on Redfield St. We rented a house that was going to be put on sale soon, but the owner was trying to save some money to do some improvements before putting it on the market. We offered to pay 500 bucks and  do some improvements ourselves (paint, cabinets, major cleaning). He agreed. So we moved in during August. 

The house was in terrible shape, it needed first of all a good cleaning, walls, kitchen and bathroom were nasty. The second step would be to paint the whole house, and in the condition it was, it needed at least three coats of paint. There was one room in particular that had dark blue walls, it was a nightmare to paint that room. This was a three bedroom one bathroom house, it was located at a nice area, nothing fancy, but overall we thought we made a good deal. 

During our cleaning and remodeling, we were living mostly in the master bedroom, and during the day, there was a lot of movement. I was always working on the house, cleaning mostly and the wife of one of my husband's friend (Ralph) came frequently to check on me, we clicked immediately and became good friends (Danielle). After a few weeks and tons of garbage less, we were able to buy a small table and four chairs for our dining room. Our first guest were Ralph and Danielle. I made my specialty; lasagna. We had some wine and a great time, we were celebrating, it was a special night. 

A week after our celebration, I found out I was pregnant, I was thrilled. I had to cut down on the rough work, but I continued to do cleaning chores and Danielle was a great helping hand. One day, while I was taking a nap (pregnancy makes every woman sleepy), I heard a scream downstairs. I woke up and found Danielle sitting on the foot of the stairs. I approached her and asked what had happened, she looked scared and said in a low voice, "I am hearing voices and footsteps, I must be going crazy, can't you hear them?" 

I kept quiet and still, but I heard nothing. She was convinced that while we were talking there were footsteps coming and going all over the house, and voices, she was very insistent on the voices. I said nothing to her and , we both had a cup of tea and then she left home. 

That evening when my husband came home, I was upstairs in the master bedroom watching TV, he entered the room and had a puzzled face, he looked around and asked me  why had I left the front door wide open. I said I didn't, and I was pretty sure of that. Once Danielle left, I remember I locked the door and had lunch, and had been upstairs ever since. He told me to lock myself in the bedroom, while he searched the house. I kept the phone on my hand in case I heard anything. My husband came back after a good 20 minutes and said no one was in the house and he thinks nothing is missing. He didn't say anything, but I know he thought it was me who left the door open, and after a while, I doubted myself too. We got an alarm system that beeped if one of the doors or windows was open, it also had a light sensor that would light up when it detected movement. 

Things were strange at home, I noticed that the sensor light from the living room would light by itself, I would sit on the stairs and could see it go on and off, as if someone was passing back and forth. I would stay for hours looking, this is how it all started. My husband said maybe it was defective. One day while doing the laundry, I heard loud footsteps coming towards me, they became louder and louder, there was nothing there. 

My husband usually worked on the kitchen during the weekends, he was working on the cabinets, sanding and painting. I was folding the laundry, when he came and asked what was I saying, I turned and looked at him and was completely puzzled, I had said nothing, I was doing my thing upstairs and he was downstairs in the kitchen. He then told me he heard a woman's voice saying 'something' he could not understand. I told him I had been folding the laundry in silence. 

The very next day, I heard voices, loud voices. I was taking a shower and I could hear them even with the water running. I searched the house, there was nothing there, but the voices were still there, I could hear them as if they were following me. I thought I was going insane. I stood by the entrance door looking in all directions. The sensor on the alarm system was lighting  every other minute. this was crazy. I left to the supermarket, I stayed at the supermarket for a good 2 hours. I didn't want to come back. 

After a couple of months, me and my husband were having dinner and he kept staring towards the main hall. After a couple of minutes, he said "can't you hear the footsteps?, Is someone in the house?" I told him that I could not hear footsteps, but I was hearing voices that most likely came from up stairs. He said he couldn't listen to the voices. This was eerie. How could it be?

My friend Danielle used to come on a daily basis, after a while her visits were less often, and she would only spend a few minutes inside the house. During one of her short visits, I asked her, if she was uncomfortable in our house, she said she was very uncomfortable, and most of the time she could hear voices, hear footsteps and a couple of times she saw shadows go by the living room and going up the stairs. She told me she said nothing, as every time this happened, I was standing there, and it seemed as if I took no notice on any of this. We went out that day and sat at a coffee shop talking for hours. I told her that my husband and I heard voices and noises as well, but never at the same time, or never the same noise. It was as if each of us listened to a different noise at the same time, but were not able to listen to what the other was listening. I thought I was going crazy, the voices never stopped, and footsteps were going on all through the night. My husband didn't like to discuss this subject, and I felt so alone. Danielle suggested I should spend more time out of the house, she said I could stay with her during the day. I took her offer. 

Things escalated badly in the next weeks. My husband got pushed down the attic while working there. He had a bad back injury and he never went back to the attic. After a while he told me he hear growling when he got pushed and while he was on the floor he heard a loud laugh. He noticed I could not hear to the laughing voice. He was really scared. Two days later, I felt a hand scratch my belly, I was laying on my left side when I felt as if someone behind me tried to grab my belly. It left a mark. I could also hear growling sounds from time to time, and the most eerie was when I heard a deep scratchy voice on the upstairs hall saying "come, I'll hold you". My husband insisted he could hear knocking sounds on the wall. Some days we would wake up to find the front and back doors wide open. Once I found one of the burners of the stove on, one day I came back from my doctors appointment. I knew this was not me or my husband. I feared for my life, 

After a while, my husband and I sat down with a huge crisis, It was time to talk, things were not OK in that house, there was something in there, and it was becoming violent and dark. But first of all we established that this "thing" was trying to make us go insane, as we could not hear the same noises or voices while together, I can't explain, but we both knew we were not crazy, however we both heard different things at different times, even when together. It was like this thing was creating those noises only in our heads. We had to leave. I was almost 7 months pregnant by then, I didn't wan't to stay there for another minute, I was afraid to get pushed down the stairs of hurt. I didn't want the baby to spend a single minute inside this house. 

We talked to the owner, and told him we had to leave, we didn't mention any of the things that were going on the house, we just said we were looking for a place where we could receive our new baby. He said he was actually going to offer us the house for sale if we were interested, and as we had been working on the property, he would cut the price to what we believe is half the price it was worth. We was desperate to get rid of it and wanted nothing to do with the house. We declined, though it was a good deal, it had been unbearable to live there. 

We moved almost immediately, we found a small apartment, we had significantly less space, but it was over all much better. We eventually moved back to our hometown; Hartford. We still stay in touch with Danielle and Ralph. During one of their visits they told us our old house burned down. The house was empty.