THE BACHELOR PAD GHOST
Mandy was shocked when she learnt she wasn’t the only woman in the house
When I first moved in with my partner, Toad, three years ago, he mentioned that there was another woman living in the house.
‘She’s friendly – she won’t hurt you,’ he assured me. ‘Her name is Mrs Mitchell.
‘She just comes in through the back door every now and then.’
‘The back door?’ I cried.
‘But it’s so heavy I can barely budge it!
How does she manage it?’
You see, Mrs
Mitchell was a ghost – and apparently she’d been haunting the 150-year old farmhouse for many years.
Toad, 32, knew who she was because he was lifelong friends with the previous owners, and they’d told him an old woman called Mrs Mitchell had died in the house.
‘What does Mrs Mitchell do when she’s here?’ I asked, a bit shakily.
‘Mostly, she just comes in through the back door,’ he explained.
‘Mostly?’ I said. ‘What else has she done?’
‘Well, once when my brother Sal lived here we had a tea light candle burning on the kitchen bench. Suddenly it blew out and the candle slid across the counter on its own.’
Another time, Toad had a mate over who said there’s no such thing as ghosts.
‘Right then, a motorbike helmet flew off a speaker, right across the room and landed at his feet. He high-tailed it out of here and never came back!’ laughed Toad.
I was too scared to sleep after hearing that.
But over the next few months, I set about making the house a home.
Toad had always shared the place with other men, so it needed a feminine touch.
Being a beautician, I also put a ‘beauty bed’ – similar to a reclining massage table – in one of the rooms, so I could do facials and waxes in there.
One Christmas day, I went into the room and discovered a brand-new beauty bed next to the old one.
‘Merry Christmas,’ said Toad.
‘Thank you,’ I beamed. Then we left to see our families – and on our return both the beauty beds were in completely different positions!
‘They were completely flat,’ I cried. ‘And now the backs of them are up and the leg part is down so they look more like chairs!’
‘Mrs Mitchell must have been trying them out,’ laughed Todd. ‘She probably wanted a pedicure.’
I was still a bit spooked on New Year’s Eve, when our friends Siobhan and Blake came to our place.
We were sitting in the lounge room area having a drink when suddenly a big glass bowl of chips flew off the TV cabinet, and flipped in the air, scattering chips all over the place, then smashed onto the kitchen bench.
Blake was so shocked he couldn’t even speak!
Since then, we’ve had twins, Lenny and Layla, now 18 months – and Mrs
Mitchell hasn’t been back.
I like to think she’s content to take a back step, now that her house has changed from a messy bachelor pad into a happy family home.
Mandy, 28, Bega Valley, NSW
Toad and Mandy are on House Rules, Thursday at 7:30pm, Sunday at 7pm and Monday to Wednesday at 7:30pm on Seven
Suddenly it blew out and the candle slid across the counter