Naturally, I asked what she had seen ~ exactly. She described a figure stood at the bannisters on the landing at the top of the stairs... even describing the white socks 'Craig' was wearing as his toes poked through the gaps inbetween the bannisters. She told me that the figure was wearing jeans, and had his hands on the bannisters, but she couldn't see the top of the figure or his face because he was probably leant backwards.
"Don't wind me up, Cha" she said with a giggle and a smile "Cos you know that I said hello to Craig when I came in, and you didn't say anything then". I assured Lucy that Craig really was at work, and that there was no-one in the house except for me and my youngest child (who, being only six months old, couldn't possibly be the person she had seen at the top of the stairs). By now, I was more than a little worried ~ had a stranger somehow entered the house without me knowing... was this person dangerous? Lucy was obviously thinking the same thing as me... and voted we both go upstairs and check the bedrooms. Armed with a mobile phone and a hammer, we both started to walk up the stairs. Nervousness must have been taking over as we both got the giggles as we jumped into each room with a scream and a yell, and proceeded by opening cupboards with a "Gotcha!"... but there was definately nobody there at all... we really were the only people in the house. Lucy was nervous, but tried to cover her feelings by letting me know that she 'just probably saw a shadow'. But she kept looking behind her worriedly, as I suggested we both go downstairs now.
"I just gotta use your bathroom first", Lucy said. I went on downstairs on my own to make another pot of tea. A few minutes later, Lucy came scrambling down the stairs, crying and out of breath. As she had been going into the toilet, she had felt someone push her into the bathroom with some force. She turned, and not seeing anyone behind her, had tried to close the sliding door of the bathroom... but the last few inches, as she pushed the door closed, the door seemed to move itself and closed with force. Then, from the outside, there was a knocking sound ~ someone was knocking on the bathroom door. The knocking became a banging, as the door vibrated violently. "Knock it off, Cha!" Lucy had cried... but it carried on. Lucy threw the door across, hoping to catch me out. But I wasn't there... nobody was there. I was downstairs making some tea, and we had already checked all the rooms upstairs before Lucy had gone into the bathroom. Thats when she had ran down the stairs and come to find me.
Lucy grabbed her coat and bag, and left my house within minutes. "I love you Cha, you're like my very own sister... but I swear I'll never come willingly into this house again", were her parting words to me. She did come back once, when she was expecting her little girl. But she never went upstairs, and sat in the garden for a while ~ but felt so uncomfortable that she told me she couldn't visit again. She hates this house, and can never understand how I can live here happily.
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Several people have had the same bathroom experience as Lucy ~ including Louise, Charlotte, and myself. Louise is a very frequent visitor to my home, and has shared some unusual experiences ~ all involving the knocking of the bathroom door and the 'phantom cough'.
I have since remodelled the bathroom, and have built a wall to seperate the W.C from the bathroom itself. In doing so, I have changed the door to form two separate doorways. Although the violent shaking and knocking no longer happens, there are still unexplained noises at the top of the stairs outside the bathroom door ~ including a shuffling sound as though someone were wearing slippers and shuffling along, and also the sound of someone brushing up against the door from the outside.
My grandfather wouldn't visit the house (he also wouldn't visit the house I lived in as a small child), and my mother still hated having to go upstairs alone. Strangely, I feel comforted by this 'prescence', and my children seem to feel much the same as I. Craig, my husband, says little on the subject, and is the voice of reason ~ he tries to rationalise all that happens in the home... and what he can't explain, he tries to ignore ~ though he does make jokes about him haunting himself.
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