O'Neill's Ghostories: Don't Clean My Room

Don't Clean My Room
from Kiri
Hailing From: Owego, NY
Where it Happened: Littleton, Mass.

A few years ago, I sometimes stayed overnight at my friend Audrey's house. Audrey informed me of a ghost who resided there. The house used to be a small cottage which belonged to an elderly couple. The woman had been a rug maker. There was a central room in the house which used to be the main living area of the cottage. Additions had since been put on to the house and this central room was now just an extra room which Audrey didn't use for anything except storage. It was right between the kitchen and the master bedroom, and would have made a perfect dining room. I asked Audrey why she didn't use the room and she said, "Because she (the spirit of the old woman) doesn't like me to clean in there."

I was skeptical, so one day when I was helping out around the house, I decided to clean in the central room. A few minutes after I began dusting, I felt a very strong sense of disapproval which seemed to fill the room. I tried to ignore the feeling, but finally the feeling of disapproval became overwhelming and I felt compelled to leave the room. I found it frustrating because I wanted to clean up the room, but I never did get around to going back in there to clean.

One of the bedrooms in the same house belonged to Dori, Audrey's daughter. Dori always slept with her TV on and one time I asked her why she did that. She said it was because the old woman's rocking chair could be heard loudly creaking at night sometimes, so she kept the TV on to mask the sound. Dori told me one time she heard the rocking chair creaking away in her bedroom and it was keeping her awake. She yelled out loud, "Stop it!!" and the sound immediately stopped.

There were always various odd things happening in this house, but this was the strangest one that I personally experienced. One night I was baby-sitting Audrey's granddaughter, Alex. Her bedroom was directly off of the kitchen, opposite the central room (the one that couldn't be cleaned). There was a long hallway from the kitchen, next to Alex' bedroom door, leading to Dori's room and the third bedroom, where I stayed. The hallway was hardwood flooring and had no carpeting. Alex was sound asleep this evening in her bedroom, with her door partly open. I was at the opposite end of the hallway, in the third bedroom, reading a book. I had the hallway light on and the door to the room I was in was also partly open. The hallway had only one light switch, and it was right in the middle. I am certain I had the hallway light on because there was no way I was going to walk down that long hallway in the dark when I was in this spooky house alone at night! Yet when I looked up, the hallway light was OFF!!

I was really spooked because I knew Alex couldn't have turned it off. She was sound asleep. But even if she had crept down the hallway and turned the light off, I am sure I would have heard her on the hardwood floor because the house was perfectly silent. Anyway, Alex wouldn't have done that because there was no way she was going to walk back down that hallway in the dark either! I was a little shaky, but I bravely went down the hallway and turned the light back on. It was a typical lever-style light switch, and it had definitely been pushed down into the "off" position. I went and checked on Alex, and she was indeed sound asleep. I walked back down the hallway and said (quietly) aloud, "Stop it!" just like Dori had done. The light remained on for the rest of the evening.

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Hi all, this being Labor Day weekend, I'm going to put my "pen" down and just enjoy life. It's been another fun summer. Today, the weather is clear, the four way stereo is smooth, and the water in the new pool is perfect! I believe it is time to turn this contraption off and go for a swim ... so enjoy! See ya in September!
~~Keno