THE STANTON HOUSE HAUNTING - A TRUE GHOST STORY
I remember the moment I first set eyes on the beautiful, old, yellow Victorian on Stanton Avenue. It looked like a mansion, set back from the street up a long driveway with grass and trees on both sides. It towered up three floors, rivaling the treetops for a view of the downtown Castro Valley.
My parent's had taken my two older brothers and I out to look at a few houses for rent and this was our first stop. My jaw dropped and I knew I didn't need to see the other houses, this was it. It wasn't in the best condition but as a budding 2nd grader, I didn't mind that kind of thing. I also had no experience with creepy old houses or I might have felt the dark energy emanating from every loose board and rotting window sill. We went inside and were charmed by the entry into the little sunroom, the white French doors that opened on to the living room and the front porch with 180 degree views, spanning from both side yards and down the driveway. I ran through the house with that childhood excitement, peeking into every odd little nook and century old detail exclaiming "Look at this!" and "I want this room!" Needless to say, we moved in the next month.
After moving the previous year from Arkansas with everything we owned and the five of us piled into a Pinto station wagon, this was a dream come true. We were moving out of a tiny two bedroom apartment where my brother's shared a room and I got a closet for my clothes and a few toys and the living room couch for a bed. I was too young to feel sorry for myself but old enough to be very excited about getting my own bedroom in our huge new house. Not only a bedroom but now we now had a basement, sunroom, attic, porch, a huge yard, our own trees to climb and a two-car garage!
My First Odd Experience...
The lowest floor in the Stanton house was the basement. It was dark, damp, and cold. This was the spider room with massive amount of webs constantly forming. There was a small door, about 3.5 feet tall that led outside and wood stairs leading up to the kitchen. We used this room for laundry and storing leftover paint and random other things a young kid doesn't care too much about, like rusty lanterns and cookstoves. I never really liked going to the basement alone, partly for the obvious reasons but primarily because it was the site of the first strange activity for me in this house. After entering the kitchen you could make a left into the dining room and a left from there was my new bedroom. Basically this circular loop ended up backing up my bedroom against the stairs to the basement.
This day was not particularly memorable aside from what became my introduction to the hauntings in the house. I was sitting in my bedroom with my closet door open. The back of the door was the closest location to the basement, resting directly above it. Clear and with force I could hear heavy, leather boots on the stairs below. Each step was loud and crisp, sounding almost intentional yet at the same time casual. Someone was coming upstairs from the basement up through the kitchen.
Now around age 6 or 7 I had no reason to think anything was out of the ordinary. Maybe one of my brother's was just being a kid taking an alternative route, going through the little side door of the house. It was usually closed but not locked so I wasn't alarmed. However, the kitchen door was always locked so whoever it was would need to be let it. Curious more than anything I circled through the house into the kitchen and swung the door to the basement open, expecting to see my brother standing there hopelessly with the light on wondering how he was getting in. The lights were off, the door to the outside was closed and everything was black. I stood at the doorway confused, trying my best to see through the darkness. "Hello?" I asked. I flipped on the light, still waiting for someone to pop out, maybe being silly or trying to scare me. I stood there only a few more seconds before I felt my first fear flood my body. As quickly as I had expectantly flipped open the door without a care, I reached in a swatted off the light and slammed the door back closed and locked it in a fury. Time slowed as I sat and waited for someone to come home.
The Sealed Off Room...
There seemed to be various reasons for the activity in that house. Sometimes if felt unintentional or undirected like the footsteps up the stairs. Other times it felt much more directed, timed and with varying degrees of intensity. There seemed to be things you could do to cause a backlash on yourself, why things seemed to be directed at you. For example, one day, early on while living in this house my parent's were standing outside and looked up at the upstairs bathroom. It was located in the center of the top floor on the Southern side of the house. On both sides of the bathroom there was enough space for a very small room or large closet which from the inside of the house did not exist. My mom was particularly interested in the extra space that was next to their bedroom. She went back inside and closely examined the wall and found no evidence of their ever being an opening. I remember listening to them talk about it and was very curious myself; I mean what 7-year-old kid isn't interested in secret rooms or passageways, right? Well, they decided to remove the bathroom mirror/shelf and see what they could find out. To my surprise they pulled out the mirror which left a gaping black hole into a small, hidden room about 4' x 10'.
I was quick to offer to crawl in and inspect the room. Fearless with both my parent's at hand, I jumped in. The floor was a grayish, brown wood and the walls were unfinished wood beams without drywall. The air was as expected for the type of space --stale, dry and slightly warm. My mom threw a beam of light onto the floor with her flashlight, navigating to the center of the room. We all three stood, looking down and a small, deliberately placed, folded white men's t-shirt. Resting atop of it was a silver chain and cross. I picked these two items up and handed them to my parent's and noticed under the shirt was a plain brown paper bag, folded flat. I think I was just as puzzled about this finding then as I am today. I have various hypothesis as to why these items might have been placed here and why the room was seemingly sealed up, however, that's all they really are, just theories.
Targeted...
After all that I went through in that house, it's pretty clear to me that a lot of negative activity took place as well as multiple deaths. The best theory about that room is that it was used as a place to hide people, possibly slaves. I'm not sure what all took place in that area of Castro Valley in the late 1800's but that's about when the house was built. I believe someone died in the house that had a significant enough connection to that room where they decided to place these items and seal it off from the rest of the house. In the other upstairs bedroom there was a sliding lock on the outside of the closet door. Outside locking huge walk-in closet. I would like to know what or who was being kept IN this closet and when? I have had endless numbers of nightmares about that closet, which was later mine (my bedroom) for most of my stay in that house. In fact I believe I dreamt about it within the last few months --11 years after moving out.
These two closets were nearly identical in size. My parent's also had another full walk-in closet in their bedroom but they decided to cut a door and create an "art room" for all my mom's art supplies. I felt pretty indifferent about this until it was built. The room was beyond creepy; it felt heavy and thick with negative energy. You could turn on the light but it still felt dark. I avoided going near it at nearly all costs.
One day however I had some friends over and we wanted to start an art project. The supplies were in this room and although I didn't like it I had gone in the room alone before. I was the only one upstairs as I pushed the white shutter doors open. I pulled the string hanging from the ceiling to turn on the light. As I stood there looking for the supplies, I could feel the stillness surround me. Without warning I heard... or felt, or both, the deep, low, long sigh in my ear. I froze in fear, the blood ran from my body. The excelled air slowly sucked back in, completing a full, heavy breath. Upon a second exhale I ran, hard. I ran down the hall, down the stairs, through the dining room, kitchen, sun room and out the front door. I saw my mom and my best friends mom outside talking. I couldn't breath and busted out in tears and hysterical sobbing. All I could say between breaths was "A man! There's a man!" They looked at each other and began questioning. "Who? In the house?!" Not really sure what to think the two of them went to the kitchen and grabbed a large steak knife and searched the house yelling for whoever it was to come out. I remained outside as they came back out. Once I caught my breath I bellowed out "I'm never going into that house again! Never. Never Never."
WAS THIS A TRUE GHOST STORY? A Couple Theories...
Well, seeing as how I was still in elementary school and I needed a place to sleep at night, I did go back in... unfortunately. And indeed I did find this house to be somewhat traumatizing at times with all the activity and terrible vibes lingering around. I also believe that I was the one who got the worst of it. Apparently women are more inclined to connect to the paranormal than men and teens are the most susceptible. So spending my young life in this house felt like there was always something weird going on. It probably didn't help that I was studying Wicca and playing around with spells and the Ouija board too. Actually, I say that lightly but I happen to know now that I had stirred up some unwanted visitors and landed in a little more action than I was wanting.
A lot of strange things happened to other people in the house as well, not just me. Mostly it was with my mom, some with my brothers and rarely did my dad notice anything. In fact, my dad was pretty puzzled by all this since he rarely experienced anything strange in the house at all (at first). Of course I couldn't understand how he could be so oblivious. So you can imagine how fun it was for me once he did start hearing things.
This might be more my own theory but I think most men are just on a different vibrational wave-length than most women. I think there is a specific zone that women, particularly emotional, teenage women are on that allows them to connect easier to the spirit world. I think they're all around us just living and doing their thing but most of us are in another zone and just don't pick up on their activities. That said, I also believe that certain spirits make a stronger attempt to be heard or seen and will choose particular people to reach out too as well. I felt like a chosen one and I didn't like it very much.
The Ghost On Miller Street
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By Becki, copyright Becki 2009 @ World Mysteries And True Ghost Tales
NB: Pic above is not actual Stanton House.