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August 14, 2007
Ghosts
Recently bought a brownstone in Bed Stuy and pretty sure there are ghosts here. Anyone else experienced this? If yes, how do I deal with this?
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Mr.B
You have nothing more productive for this site.
Categories:History
Shame on us wasting our time here.It's not about the community anymore it's all about the pay per click.
Posted by: guest at August 14, 2007 8:26 PM
8:26 Not a fair comment to direct to Mr.B This is an open forum open to all thoughts and queries! Your "click" is the waste - just don't respond if you have nothing to contribute to the post!
Posted by: guest at August 14, 2007 9:27 PM
i actually lived in a house with ghosts or spirits or whatever you want to call it in virginia about 10 years ago. we actually went and researched the house and a child had died in the house many many years before.
once we realized who and what it was and that they seemed harmless, we managed to pretty much live in harmony.
there was the occassional incident where a book would open and the pages would flip or a window would open or close, or something of that nature, but we chalked it up to the little girl's spirit just trying to play with us.
Posted by: guest at August 14, 2007 10:20 PM
you know who to call...ghostbusters
Posted by: guest at August 14, 2007 11:02 PM
We most certainly had a ghost, it was an unbelievable event. We had torn down a bathroom that had been boarded up in the house. It was a disgusting room- we didn't know what was behind that wall before we broke into it- totally soiled, floor rotted through, but a charming old 1940s toilet that we have since cleaned up and now use in our half bath. Once those walls came down, all hell broke loose in the house. Our neighbor complained about all the nighttime noise, though we were not doing anything past 7pm, it was that bad. The final incident came when a knife "fell", or more like it was thrown!! with a force to the ground, sticking in the floor, just barely missing my partner's hand. It was unreal. I had read an article in the NYTimes a week before that happened about a woman who was dealing with a ghost in her apartment, and she spoke to it, and it worked for her (the article is called "A New Home, Not Quite Vacated" By SUSAN MILLAR PERRY
Published: October 30, 2005 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/realestate/30ghost.html?ex=1187323200&en=5926d5b05f3219a8&ei=5070)
so I tried it too, at that moment, as soon as the knife incident happened. Somehow, in my most Brooklyn of Brooklyn accents (maybe because I was so scared, my "mother tongue" came out?!), and I explained to the ghost who we were, and that we were trying to make the house lovely and beautiful again. I feel certain that something awful happened here in the past, due to the condition of everything when we bought it (rotten kitchen and bathrooms, boarded up rooms, etc, and people were living this way), so whatever was trapped in that bathroom has now decided to leave us be in peace. I choose to believe that this energy is now pleased with the improvements we are making on the house, and it is now a lovely place to be. Read that article, hope it helps!
Posted by: guest at August 15, 2007 11:17 AM
I have a friend on my street here in Brooklyn Heights who had "something" in his house. Some Jehovah's Witnesses gave him a bible and told him to leave it open to Psalms 83:18 and read it aloud when you hear anything. I guess the name of God scares spirits away. Personally, I am an atheist, but who knows these days?
Posted by: bheightsejp at August 15, 2007 12:13 PM
I share bheightsejp's lack of belief in the supernatural, but I nevertheless have a possible ghost story.
We bought our house from the last of four sisters whose father had bought the house for them in 1927. The three sisters who had passed away prior to our purchase might well have died at home. From the time we bought the house in 1974 we had occasional incidents where we'd feel a cold draft and see a shadow pass us on the stairs.
In 1977 we installed a wireless burgler alarm system that depended largely on "sound discriminators" that were supposed to be triggered by breaking glass, or other sounds caused by breaking and entering. A few days later, we were awakened by the alarm in the middle of the night. I checked, saw that everything was OK, turned the alarm off, and went back to bed.
The next morning, we noticed that a collection of German beer steins, inherited from my grandmother, on our back parlor mantel had been re-arranged. Could the "ghost" who, if she were one of the sisters, would have been German, have been examining the steins, clinked them together, and triggered the alarm? If so, the sound must have scared her because we never had another incident.
OTOH, it might have been our cat jumping up on the mantle (although this particular cat was always VERY careful about walking around objects and never did anything like that in her entire life).
Posted by: Bob Marvin at August 15, 2007 1:55 PM
Burn some sage.
Posted by: guest at August 15, 2007 4:19 PM
Oh, and open all the windows as you "smudge" the house with sage.
Posted by: guest at August 15, 2007 4:22 PM
this post kicks ass. i wish i had a story. i did just find out that during the crack years, people who lived in my house were dealers and were shot dead somewhere on the premises. apparently they went peacefully as we haven't had any interesting incidents. alas.
let's hear more ghost stories!
Posted by: Jimmy Legs at August 15, 2007 4:38 PM
No ghost stories but in one of my first jobs in Richmond, VA. I had to go around inspecting HUD financed multi-family property for general condition and compliance with code. One apartment, a duplex in a spread out 60's style complex with a central courtyard, had this strange musky smell, really strange. All the person's belongings were in big black contractor garbage bags. The pipes in the bathroom, the shower head and the metal curtain rod rings were coated with a black film. And there was this weird yellowish powder everywhere throughout the apartment. Otherwise the apartment was in excellent condition. The building super said that the person who lived there burnt sage every night to ward off evil. They had to keep their stuff in bags so it didn't get ruined. As a renter I'm assuming the condition of the plumbing was of little or no consequence....
Posted by: guest at August 15, 2007 5:15 PM
11:17 - glad you figured out your ghost problem. Most knife throwing ghosts are angry because of neglected upkeep of the house, outdated furnishings, tacky flooring and just plain ugly color schemes. I would advise anyone experiencing a poltergeist to contact an interior designer ASAP. That should calm the spirits and make them forget about the horrible, tortured, grusome death they experienced IN YOUR HOUSE!
Posted by: guest at August 15, 2007 6:27 PM
Thank you all for your feedback!
One question, why Sage?
Posted by: guest at August 15, 2007 7:54 PM
You use sage because it is a purifying herb and is thought to cleanse the mind and spirit. It's used for this purpose in some Native American ceremonies. It's also believed to be an herb of wisdom.
Posted by: guest at August 15, 2007 9:00 PM
I think there are ghosts in my house that keep stealing things like keys and cell phones.
Posted by: guest at August 16, 2007 12:23 AM
Cell phones??? What happened to good old-fashioned mediums? I guess even ghosts need more bandwidth.
Posted by: guest at August 16, 2007 12:32 AM
When I was a child we had a 100 year old lakehouse in MN, in the location of an historical "Indian war" and sometimes when my mother woke in the middle of the night and went downstairs, as she often did, she would smell pipe smoke. We also captured one of the most convincing ghost photos you'd ever want to see, out in front of that house, but now I can't find it! I think my father threw it out, in frustration with my mother's pack-rat ways. Sometimes he just grabs boxes in the garage and tosses them out whenever she goes out of town.
Posted by: traditionalmod at August 16, 2007 12:21 PM
I am not a believer in ghosts or the supernatural, but - my kids believe the top floor in our house is haunted. Our cat will not go up there. Once or twice when I was there by myself I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye and on another occasion had a creepy feeling I was not alone. So, is this real or not - I don't know but I consider it a lot more seriously than I ever did before because of my experiences.
Posted by: guest at August 16, 2007 1:44 PM
Oh, BTW you should not use the sage that you cook with. There are many places in Brooklyn that carry smudge sticks which are a tied bundle of white sage. You can also oder it online.
Posted by: guest at August 16, 2007 3:34 PM
walk into any botanica in broooklyn and they can help you out. there are a couple in park slope on the 5th ave (around 8th street), lefferts gardens (on flatbus) and I'm sure in other neighborhoods as well. and whether or not you believe in ghosts or christianity or paganism or nothing at all - i think there is value to performing a ritual to cleanse the house and calling for positive energy. even an atheist wants their home to be free of 'negative' energy.
Posted by: guest at August 16, 2007 11:41 PM
I think people forget how long people have lived in New York and Brooklyn. In particular, people forget how many people have died violently in every corner of the city over the past 300 years.
If your building is more than 50 years old, something unpleasant likely happened there.
Posted by: slick at August 18, 2007 2:05 AM
I have heard that due to the high density of energy etc. in nyc sage is actually not helpful and can actually do more harm then good. Has anyone else heard that?
Posted by: guest at August 19, 2007 11:29 PM
6:27 - Are you an interior designer?
Posted by: guest at August 20, 2007 8:11 PM
Gotta be wary of furniture you buy in those antique stores as well. Had a friend who bought a chest of drawers from an antique store on Atlantic Ave - the same evening he brought it home he heard the drawers opening and closing, when he went into the bedroom to look it stopped w/ two drawers opened. A couple of days later he came home from work and his refrigerator door was wide opened w/ a carton of milk spilled on the floor (he lived alone). He lived w/ it for about 3 days then took it back. The thing was clearly possessed!
Posted by: guest at August 20, 2007 8:15 PM
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