1st web page THIS IS MY STORY OF THE PARANORMAL

My story of the paranormal began in 1993 when I moved into a rented house in Bognor Regis with my one year old daughter and my friend with her son. My now husband Steve also spent a lot of time at the house. It was a three bedroom Victorian property with two downstairs reception rooms, a kitchen, a scullery and a small back yard. The house was large and very messy with loads of stuff left under the stairs .We moved in and sorted the place out when we had been there about a week I started to notice that the toilet window always seemed open, it was a small original window, I was always closing it and assumed my friend was opening it when she asked me why I always opened it we realised something was strange. The large bedroom at the front of the house had a thick carpet and when the door was pushed open it would not close with out being pushed but we kept finding it closed. We knew it could not be the children as they could not go upstairs by themselves .By this point we had began to wonder if maybe something paranormal was going on in the house as we had started to hear bangs upstairs when we were downstairs .Over a few days the bangs got worse and was joined by the sound of a bell. One morning Steve went to work early and had to unchain the front door and undo a little bolt when myself and my friend got up later the chain and the bolt had been done up again this really shook us as we now new something was going on. We checked that the house was secure which it was so no one could have got in without a key. We even changed the locks and spoke to the agents who thought we were rather strange asking if anything paranormal had happened before they said they did not know.

A few details about how the children were needs to be included for the first few nights they shared the back bedroom in separate cots but then my daughter started to wake up a lot crying and could not be settled after a few nights of this we moved her cot into the dining room downstairs and she slept soundly. My baby monitor was one that had a long cable between transmitter and receiver it did not work on radio waves so we had the cable running up the stairs when my daughter was in bed in the night we started to hear a radio station over the monitor which was playing the sort of music radio 2 played it would last for about 10mins sometimes and would hear my daughter chatting but when went to check she would be asleep no radio was on.

At this point we had only been in the house about two weeks when things started to happen that left us in no doubt the property was haunted we began to smell pipe smoke in the toilet , bacon and eggs cooking in the kitchen and whispering was heard in the bathroom. So many things happen I think it would be easier to tell you what happened in each room separately so I do not miss anything out:

Lounge: I kept budgies at the time and had four in the lounge and once I had taken the budgies out of the property they could still be heard as if the house records sounds which would fit with some haunting theories. The lounge door would sometimes be stiff to open which was normal but at other times it would be impossible to open. We had Steve’s brother and some friends come round to the house one night to investigate what was going on and he got trapped in the lounge for about 10 minutes unable to open the door by pulling on it then all of a sudden it opened easily. They also all had torches on them and the batteries went dead so they replaced them with new ones and these also went dead. We had the plug on the television blow the fuse twice for no apparent reason.

Dining room: as said previously we had the sound of radio from this room over the baby monitor also my daughter would be chatting then we would check and find her asleep this she would not normally do. The light flickered most evenings which they did in the rest of the house but not all at the same time.

Kitchen: We heard a loud crashing sound in the kitchen one night and when went to check a glass fruit bowl was smashed in small pieces over the floor no one

was in the kitchen when it happened accept for the cats and they are normally very careful about walking round objects so could not assume it had been them knocking it off . It was on the fridge and broken in the middle of the room. We would smell bacon and eggs cooking when no cooking was being done.

My friend was cleaning out the fridge freezer which was unplugged when it started to rock slightly and vibrate she left the room quickly and when we went straight back it had stopped.

Downstairs Hall: a number of people on different occasions had been sitting in the lounge with the door ajar and the hall light of and seen a bright white light go pass the door as it would if a person had walked past. The front door had also got bolted again as previously mentioned.

Back bedroom: this was the children’s room and the only thing we noticed was that batteries in the kids toys went dead quickly then if you took them out and tried them again they would start working again for a few days. My friend’s son had a toy fire engine that had a bell on it that was like the bell sound we heard coming from upstairs but not from this room. When we had heard the bell we would check were the fire engine was and it would not be were we had heard the bell or being played with at the time. We even went round to see the neighbours to ask if they had a chiming clock but they did not.

Bathroom: as previously mentioned whispering was heard in this room.

Toilet: we started to smell pipe smoke in here and also the window would open and close by it self.

Middle bedroom: this was my friend’s bedroom in which bangs would be heard and lights sometimes flickered. The events at the house had started about two days after we moved in and coincided with her having brought some second hand furniture for this room which we did remove from the house for a day to see if things stopped which they did not.

Front bedroom: this was the most active bedroom when you were in the lounge footsteps could often be heard walking up and down in this room. The door would close when wedged open on the carpet. One evening we went out and I looked back up at the window and saw four or five balls of light that looked sort of tennis ball size moving round the near the ceiling light. I saw this on a couple of other occasions but not so many. In this room a main event happened that caused us to leave the house in the middle of the night which I will detail later.

These things happened over period of about eight weeks in the summer. We looked into the history of the house but could not find a explanation or speak to anyone who had lived there previously. Things where witnessed by ourselves and also about eight other people. Over the weeks things got gradually worse to the point one evening we heard a loud bang like a chest of draws or something falling over upstairs when we rushed up there nothing was moved and then we heard bangs downstairs and when we went back down the bangs were upstairs joined by the bell sound. We all spent the night in the same room. We asked the agents if we could be let out of our tenancy contract which was for six months and when they asked the landlord he said we could leave at the end of the month about three weeks away. Things continued as they had been but not as bad as that night. Steve also got touch on the shoulder and so did someone else and also two dogs that came to house would not go upstairs.

Things took a turn of events one evening about a week after the night I just mentioned. Steve and I had been out to his works do and got back about 10.30pm.

Steve was driving so had not had a drink and I had only had a couple. We got out of the car opposite the house and Steve looked up at the front bedroom window which was a bay window and said to me “look at the bedroom window and tell me what you can see” I looked and could not believe it standing in the side window of the bay was a bright light coloured glowing figure about the height of a person but a long oval shape. Steve later described it as looking like the glowing alien in the film cocoon if you have seen it. I said to Steve can u see the figure when he said yes I panicked went running in to the house told my friend to get the kids and we must get out of the house two friends were also staying over, they all looked at me but came any way we got in two cars and ended up on Steve’s parents doorstep. Thankfully they put the five of us and two kids up for the night. The next morning I decided that there was no way I could stay in the house we went back there and got the pets and some things. The pets went to my mums and we stayed between a friend of mine and Steve’s parents for two weeks until we could sort out other housing. My friend did return to the house for another two weeks but had friends stay over so was not alone and slept downstairs. Where she had not seen the figure was not as worried as I would have been staying in the house.

We wanted to find out what was happening in the house so contacted a local medium who came round to the house and arranged to come round for a few hours one evening. On the evening he came round about five of us where also at the house, he wanted to spend time in the upstairs front bedroom. He sensed a presence of a previous occupant of the house then Steve’s dad said he could smell rotten eggs which no one else could. A few minutes went by then I smelt a really strong horrid smell like rotten eggs but again no one near me could smell it. The medium said a women who used to live in the house was the spirit in the house he had known her when she was alive so could of known certain details but when we asked her first name he said she would not tell him. She was not known by her first name and we did know what it was as we knew someone who knew her when she was alive. The fact that the medium did not just say a first name makes me think he was picking up information from this lady as we did not tell him that we knew someone who had known her. He said she was happy in the house and would not harm anyone.

About a week later my friend also moved out of the house but my story does not end here in a way it is only just beginning. Six years went by and in 1999 the house came up for sale. I wanted to know what had happened so long before so after lots of convincing Steve we brought the house as a investment. We let out the property for about five years to various tenants nothing paranormal had happened as far as we new but we had a lot of tenants who left early. We had done work in the property but the only things we had experienced was Steve had tools being moved in the loft when he was doing insulation. Then last year Steve was on the phone to our current tenants when they asked him was the house haunted he had to say yes. I could not believe that after 12 years someone else was experiencing what we had there. They have had lots happen to but that is not my story to tell…………

Jo farmer .

2008 update

Have had a lady get in contact who lived in a house that was haunted in the same road as our house and got in touch to find out which house ours was it is the same one she lived in for about 28years. She and her husband moved in around 1952 and stayed there till about 1980. To begin with she and her husband lived downstairs as the house was two flats then. Mr and Mrs Paton lived upstairs. - Mr Paton was an ill man and passed away. A new couple then lived upstairs. When she had her first child about 10 years after moving into the flat the people upstairs left and they took over the whole house. The house was a tide house for people working for the next door laundry.

After having her second child when he started to talk he said he spoke to a man and was scared of going to the upstairs by himself and crossing the landing which he would not do. They did not take much notice of this but as her son grew up he still said he spoke to a man and said his name was Mr Paton – he had not known a Mr Paton had lived in the upstairs flat as was before he was born. The family moved when he was about 14 and he still said then he spoke to Mr Paton but that he was not scared of him any more .