Haunted House For Rent

Last night I drove past our old house where we lived when we first moved here to Tennessee and I noticed a sign on the fence saying the place was for rent. I couldn't help but wonder why the tenants had moved out as they were the longest lasting tenants since we moved out so many years ago.

After we moved out on Halloween night of 1996, it seems like that "for rent" sign was hanging on the fence every few months. I'm sure the poor landlord wondered why he never could seem to keep a tenant for more than six months at a time. When we lived there, we lasted all of four months, and I can tell you we were lucky to have survived that long! Why, you ask? Because the place was HAUNTED, that's why!

Yes, I said haunted! A real honest-to-goodness ghost or spirit or lost soul, whatever you care to call it, lived there in that house with us for four long months, and if that constant "for rent" sign is any indication, it still lives there today.

When we moved to Tennessee, we didn't bring much with us because we really weren't 100% sure we planned to stay. It was the first time either of us had ever lived anywhere other than our home state of Oregon, 2200+ miles away, and moving to Tennessee was one of the biggest steps either of us had ever taken in our lives. We left all our furniture and belongings in storage, just in case we didn't like it here and wanted to move back home. So, when we moved into the house near the corner of Parker Branch Road, we didn't have much to bring with us besides some clothes, a daybed, a few dishes we'd bought at a yard sale and a cooler.

We eventually bought a few more items at weekend yard sales, like an ironing board and iron, a pair of rocking chairs for the front porch, and an old antenna tv that only got two clear channels. We put the daybed in the living room, in front of the fireplace, and used it as a couch during the day and a bed at night. We set the tv on top of the cooler and set up the ironing board in one of the back bedrooms. Sounds luxurious, doesn't it?

The first few weeks living in our new little home were pretty uneventful as we settled into our new life. We both had new jobs that kept us out of the house during the days, and at night we didn't have much to occupy ourselves, with only two tv channels to choose from and no new friends made as of yet. My husband's hours fluctuated so I was home alone more often than not.

The first sign that we weren't living in that house alone came one late afternoon while we sat in the living room watching the news. One of the rockers on the front porch started rocking wildly back and forth, so that you could hear the deck floorboards creaking. I could see the rocker through the front window. My first thought was that a dog must have made its way up onto the porch and he was the one making it move. I walked to the front door, opened it and looked out the storm door and the rocker stopped. I glanced around and didn't see anyone, or anything. I looked out toward the nearest tree and no branches were blowing in the wind. Puzzled, I shut the door and went back to sit on the daybed. A few minutes later, the rocker started back up again. I opened the front door, and the rocker stopped. (insert Twilight Zone theme song here)

The next wierd thing that happened occurred in the middle of the night. We were sleeping in the living room. Because the daybed was only big enough for one person to sleep comfortably, we took turns. One of us would sleep on the daybed and the other would sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor. It was my night to be sleeping on the floor and I remember being sound asleep and waking to the sound of water being turned on in the kitchen. I could hear it tinkling in the sink basin, and then I heard the refrigerator door open and close. Then I sensed someone standing over me in the dark, so assuming it was my husband who I thought had gotten up for a drink of water, I rolled over onto my stomach and propped myself up onto my elbows and looked up to what I figured would be my husband standing over me to hand me a glass so I could have a drink too. There was no one there, only empty darkness. I looked to my left and there on the daybed lay my husband fast asleep.

Eventually, we scored an antique iron bed at an estate sale and were able to sleep on a real bed in one of the back bedrooms. One night my husband went to bed early because he had to get up earlier than usual for work the next day. I stayed up watching tv in the living room. After a bit, I could hear my husband in the other room, yelling out in his sleep. He was saying, "Knock it off! Quit it!" I figured he was having a nightmare, so I went in the room to shake him awake, but when I got in there, he was already awake and looking at me with a grumpy look on his face. I asked him what all the yelling was about and he said, "You need to stop pulling on my toe! I'm trying to sleep!" I told him I wasn't pulling on his stupid toe, I was watching tv in the other room! Sheesh! Needless to say, he didn't believe me. He had distinctly been awakened by someone (or something) repeatedly tugging on his big toe!

Another night, we were both sound asleep in the back bedroom and about 3:00 in the morning we were awakened by pounding on the wall behind our bed. It sounded just like someone was hanging pictures on the wall with a hammer and nail. Bang! Bang! Bang! on and on and on. Every so often the pounding would stop and then you'd hear what sounded like a parrot squawking and then the pounding would start up again. My husband had to be at work at 5:00 a.m. and we were both not only bewildered but angry and exhausted! He pounded on the wall with his fist and the hammering stopped.

The absolute scariest occurrence happened one dark night, again in the back bedroom where we were sleeping. I can't say what it was exactly that first woke me up. A sound maybe. All I know is I was wide awake and laying there in the pitch dark petrified with that awful tingly feeling all over my body and I knew without a shadow of a doubt there was someone in that room with us. I was so scared stiff that I couldn't move an inch. My husband was laying there asleep, right next to me, but I was so frozen with fear that I couldn't even turn my head to whisper him awake. I was straining my eyes and ears in the dark, trying to see or hear wherever he/she/it was, and my heart was pounding wildly out of my chest. All of a sudden I felt the intruder sit down next to me on my side of the bed. I actually felt the mattress sink down with his/her/its weight and felt it lean in toward me, heavy against my hip. I felt it moving closer and closer until I could feel it positioned right over me, his face over my face, as if it was almost nose to nose. I can't explain the terror I felt and I could feel the thickness in the air between us. I held my breath and squeezed my eyes shut tight and just kept praying over and over again, "Please make it go away! Please make it go away!" After what seemed like forever, I felt it lean back and ease itself off the bed and then it got real cold in the room and I didn't feel it in the room anymore and knew it was gone. As soon as I felt I could finally move, I rolled over and shook my husband awake and hysterically told him everything I'd experienced. After that night, I never wanted to be alone in that house and I avoided it at all cost. It never felt like a real home and it never would!

Thankfully, we moved out soon after. I came across a book about the history of the area at work one day and as I flipped through, I found a chapter on what once was considered the community of Bingham, situated right there near the corner of Parker Branch and Old Hillsboro Roads. The author described the area as far back as the late 1800's and told about a pair of brothers who were charged as horse thieves and one of them was beheaded and his head was impaled on a fence post as a warning to other potential horse thieves. There was also a crudely drawn map on one page that showed a cemetery once sat strangely close to the very spot our old house now sits. Could our ghost have been that headless horse thief, or someone from the long forgotten cemetery, angry because a house was built on top of the graves?

Whoever or whatever it was, it put us through enough to convince us it was real and to scare the living daylights out of me, that's for sure! Do I believe in ghosts? You bet I do!