I once worked and lived in a house in Raleigh. The previous owner had passed away in the hospital and left the house to his daughter. His daughter wished to move into it, but was still living up north and needed time to transfer down to North Carolina. The house also needed work, and since she was a friend she contacted me, and we worked out a deal.
I wouldn't call the house a rancher, but it was a single story home with three bedrooms. From the style and age I would say that it was built in the late 20s or early 30s.
The house wasn't decrepit, but in his old age, the previous owner had trouble keeping up with the maintenance. Some of it was easy. Most of the trees in the yard needed to be trimmed, the landscaping redone and the brick path in front of the house relayed. It was maybe a week's worth of work outside, which I could do in the spring and then do the inside work in the fall.
The inside work was the type of work that keeps a carpenter employed. It was mostly refinishing woodwork (floors, mantle, bookshelves, doorways, etc.), adding a few piece of home decor like building a coat rack by the front door, and refinishing the garage and a small shed like extension on the side of the house. It was maybe two weeks' worth of work in all.
I had it made, and as an added bonus I was allowed to bring my sister with me, and it was furnished.
The previous owner was an engineer and his wife, in life, was an artist. They had amassed a large amount of paintings and antique furniture. One of these items was a small, metal, ink stained desk, which was almost forty years old. It still had all of the previous owner's tools in it from slide rules to rulers, compasses, special erasers and drafting pencils. This desk also including writing supplies, including a set of fountain pens from the sixties and seventies.
I found myself drawn to the desk constantly, almost as if by impulse. It was as if the desk was calling to me. The tools were familiar for me as I was an architectural major in college, and had used a similar set of tools, yet wasn't skilled due to the digitalization of design work and the use of CAD in modern day architecture and engineering. I had only taken one class on drafting by hand - and that was outside of college.
I have always been the early to bed, early to rise type. I go to bed at 10:30 and wake up at 6:30 for work during the work year (Late Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall). Despite this, I found myself working at the desk at odd hours of the night, sometimes going to bed at 2:00 or 3:00am. I always felt as if there was a force inside me, driving me to work.
I produced the best plans and drawings of my life at that desk, in that house. I was functioning like someone with decades of experience in drafting, and have never had the same ability since I moved out. Occasionally I could feel a presence there with me, as if someone was watching - standing over my shoulder and I would stop to look around the room before continuing.
One weekend the guys daughter came to stay with us. She was checking up on things and seeing a friend that lived in town. Upon seeing me working at the desk, she said "you look like him when you're working...you have the same presence".
My sister took on the job of cleaning out the previous owners clothing. Since his daughter did not want to clean out the closets, as we were also tasked with taking the clothing of the deceased to charity shops. This meant cleaning out closets and attics. One of the things that she found was his wife's art supplies, neatly tucked away in the back shed along with both an old foot powered sewing machine and an old electric one. It only took her a few hours to put this up in what was the wife's art studio in the back of the house. I found her deviating from her usually routine, and also working with these things throughout the night.
Then there was the house. When I wasn't working at the desk, or working at the desk, my sister and I were working on the house. I found myself, again at odd hours, painting or making minor modifications on the house. She would find herself cleaning or doing odd housewifish things that were well outside things she normally does (I've know this girl 25 years, we're twins. I know when she's acting weird. We have literally lived together except for our freshman year in college).
Other weird things were happening too. I sometimes felt as if someone was watching, or a presence in the room. Other times I felt at peace as if someone was watching over me. Sometimes I would find myself talking out loud, asking a question to someone when there was no one in the room, mostly technical things while I was drafting like "If I wanted to build a 10 foot by 10 foot addition then would I want it off the living room or the kitchen?" or "If the addition was off the kitchen, wouldn't that disturb the flow of sunlight in the sun room?". I would then instantly know the answer.
Sometimes I would go to sleep in the bedroom and wake up other places. I once went to sleep in bed, and woke up sitting at the desk in the office with the TV running. Another time I went to bed and woke up on the couch, with my sister laying asleep on my lap. Neither of us knew how we got there.
At the end of the six months, I talked to the owner of the house. She informed me that she was going to sell about half the furniture, when I asked about the desk and the tools, she told me that they would be sold as well. I shelled out 120 dollars for the desk and the equipment. I still have them today. I don't sit at them and work impulsively anymore, nor do I work all hours of the night. My hand done work isn't near the quality it used to be. Occasionally though I still find myself talking to someone that isn't in the room.
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Originally Posted by natertot
Tok, I agree. I have had a few "unexplainable" things in my life. Can I prove them? Nope. Did I see any actual presences? Nope. Can I say with certainty of what caused my experiences? Nope. I sure can't. I don't really believe in ghosts, per se. I believe in God and that there are angels and demons around us. I tend to believe that when people see or experience so called ghosts that they are actually angels and demons. I also believe that we can see and experience angels and demons and not realize it. Just my personal beliefs.
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