It’s easy to think that haunted houses are just a trope that the writers of horror movies use to give their viewers a quick scare. However, thanks to the internet, it’s easier than ever to find stories of modern people who have found themselves living in haunted houses. Below, read about 10 people who used Reddit to share their creepy tales.
10. The Christmas Saboteur
According to Reddit user u/mosaicevolution, she always took Christmas decorating very seriously in her house. She had numerous Christmas figurines that she displayed all around the house to bring the holiday spirit into every room.
One holiday season, she left her home one Sunday to spend the day with her husband’s parents. She inspected her Christmas decorations before she left and even took a snapshot of the tree to show her mother-in-law.
When they returned home at the end of the day, she was shocked to discover that while they were gone, every figurine in the house had been turned around to face backward. Horrified, she inspected her beloved Christmas tree. She didn’t notice anything strange immediately, but when comparing it to the photo she’d taken earlier, she realized the ornaments had all been moved. She stated that it seemed as if a ghost had deliberately done these things just to terrify her.
9. The Old Mortuary
Whoever thought of converting a mortuary into a house made a terrible mistake, according to u/sh*toutyourmouth. According to this Reddit user, he lived in a house that had once operated as a mortuary. The house even had an old elevator that had been used to move bodies between floors of the building.
The residents of the house regularly heard strange noises, such as eerie laughter. They also saw shapes moving out of the corners of their eyes, only to turn and find that they were alone in the house. Some nights, they suddenly woke up feeling the breath of an invisible entity on their skin.
The most frightening thing about the house was the effect it had on animals. Many believe that animals are able to sense things that humans can’t. This Reddit user had cats that would regularly start howling and scratching at the walls without explanation.
8. The Ghostly Rider
It seems Reddit user u/mosaicevolution has had multiple eerie experiences in a haunted house. This time they suffered through an encounter with a terrified furry companion. This user’s story begins on a night when her husband was working the night shift. She was in the bathroom when she heard a loud slap on the side of the bathtub. She quickly left the room and passed through the kitchen, where she heard the same sound hit the refrigerator. The Redditor went to the living room couch and held her dog close while the dog shook with fear.
Somehow, she felt that the living room and laundry room were the only safe places in the house. Even in those spots, she could hear odd sounds, including what seemed to be hooves galloping down the hallway. She cowered in fear on the couch clinging to her loyal dog until her husband returned home late in the night.
7. The Time Slip
Sometimes the ghosts that inhabit haunted houses do things that seem outside the realm of possibility. Reddit user u/MissMilenko1031 had such an experience in her childhood home.
She always knew that she was living in a haunted house. Most of the time, her ghostly experiences were run-of-the-mill: family members would hear voices calling to them from other rooms, notice strange shapes in the shadows, or see mysterious lights in rooms that turned out to be completely dark.
One day, she had a completely different experience. The user opened the bathroom door and was blinded by a flash of white light. She immediately turned and ran out of the room, only to be stopped by her panicked father; she had been missing for two hours. The Redditor recalls later having vague memories of a floating girl in white clothes speaking to her, but still has no idea what happened.
6. The Haunted Cabinets
When Reddit user u/tonadotwister bought a house with her boyfriend, she had no idea it might be haunted. As soon as she moved in she always had an uneasy feeling.
After the relationship ended and she was left to live there alone, things got worse. She started to notice that the hand-made kitchen cabinets sometimes appeared to have writing under the varnish. Later, it would disappear. Some nights, she would see a dark shape in the hallway. One night, the shape was accompanied by the feeling of an icy hand on her neck. She prayed until it went away. After that, she stopped sleeping in the bedroom.
She later had the kitchen cabinets replaced, and the bizarre occurrences came to an end.
5. The Home in Tuscany
Reddit user u/andreapiccin lived in a haunted house for years without realizing it. Her parents bought and restored a beautiful old house in Tuscany where the family lived for years. It wasn’t until she confessed to her parents that she had played with a Ouija board that they informed her that their home was quite haunted. It was so haunted, in fact, that the parents refused to sleep in the master bedroom: evidently, the most haunted room in the house. Before they stopped sleeping there, they would regularly awaken to spot an entity lurking at the foot of the bed.
The most frightening incident happened when the user’s older siblings, twins, were still young. Her mother had set one child down on the stairs so she could pick up the other twin. Before she could turn around, her child had been picked up and flung across the room. Luckily, she was able to catch him before he was hurt, but the incident was enough to terrify the entire family.
4. The Playmate
Some ghosts who dwell in haunted houses are friendlier than others. Reddit user u/Big…4hotcheetos says that when she was a child, she had a ghostly playmate. The ghost was a Victorian girl in a white cotton dress. She remembers that her mother was terrified of the spirit, even visiting a medium for advice. However, the young spirit never acted vengefully.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only spirit in the house. The Reddit user said that her teenage bedroom was haunted by the ghost of an old man who tormented her by hurling objects at her. She also suffered from sleep paralysis in the room. One night, she woke up face-down on the bed, unable to breathe, hearing the sounds of the ghost moving about the room. Her mother eventually ran in after hearing her attempts to scream.
The user also stated that she sometimes found photos of herself laying in their garden. The photos were always partially burnt, but no one could explain how or why.
3. The Night Terrors
Haunted houses often come with terrifying backstories. In the case of Reddit user u/Shootinbunnies, he and his girlfriend moved into a house that had been the site of a gruesome murder-suicide. If they ever had any doubt about the house’s history, they could just take a look at the large blood stain adorning the home’s wood floor.
While living in the house, the user’s girlfriend experienced horrible night terrors. She would have terrifying nightmares that were so real, she could feel every single thing happening. For example, one night she dreamt that she was in bed when someone came up the stairs, entered the room, and stabbed her repeatedly in the stomach. She reported that she could feel the immense pain of the blade. She would spend as long as 10 minutes screaming in her sleep before anyone could awaken her.
After the couple moved to a new house, her dreams immediately went back to normal.
2. The Murderous Doctor
It isn’t unusual for haunted houses to get a reputation around town. According to u/JackP133, his mother’s friend used to live in one such infamous house. The old house was built long ago by a local doctor. His design included a number of secret passages and doors, making it the perfect setting for a haunting. The doctor’s time in the house came to an end when he shot his wife before taking his own life.
When the user’s mother’s friend lived in the house, she often heard odd noises or saw electronics flickering to life on their own. A few times, she found mysterious black handprints staining her curtains.
Her scariest encounter by far occurred on the master bedroom’s balcony. When the woman opened the door to the bedroom, she was terrified to see the silhouette of a man against the balcony doors. According to the stories, the balcony is where the doctor took his wife’s life.
1. The Noisy Tenants
One Reddit user stated that although they didn’t have much experience with haunted houses, their time working in a bar made them believe in the supernatural. Many people said that the place was haunted, but the only problem they ever noticed while working there was that the people in the apartment above the bar were terribly noisy. One day when the bar was hosting a private party, the Reddit user spoke to the manager about perhaps asking the tenants to quiet down. The confused manager assured them that no one had lived there for quite some time.
They quickly called the police, thinking that squatters must be living in the space. When the police went inside the apartment, they found no signs of life. Yet, when the bar manager interviewed other members of the staff, they reported hearing the same scary sounds.
To make matters even eerier, the Reddit user then found out why the apartment had been uninhabited for so long: the last tenant died after hitting her head in the shower, and her two young children starved to death there alone.
