TAUNTED BY PHANTOM that made us ill
I had big dreams for our new home, but the message was clear – get out and stay out!
The windows had never been opened, the floors had never been walked on and the garden had never had a single thing planted in it.
It was July 2020 and my two sons, James*, 19, and Chris*, 20, and I had just moved into a swish new-build semi in the New Forest, Hampshire. It smelt of fresh paint. None of the doors creaked. No floorboards squeaked. Everything was brand, spanking new. ‘I love it!’ I squealed. The removal men heaved the boxes in and I began unpacking. I had been so excited about moving in. This would be a new beginning.
Except the more time I spent there, the stranger I felt.
The walls seemed to close in on me. The happy, joyful excitement I’d felt earlier was vanishing.
I’m just nervous… it’ll pass, I told myself, heaving another box upstairs.
But within a day or two, I began feeling stranger.
I left some boxes unpacked and suddenly lost all urge to sort them. A voice in my head told me, No point… you won’t stay long.
Funny, I thought.
We only had one set of neighbours to one side of us as other people gradually moved in to the 300-home estate. Was that why it felt so eerie?
Things got no better. If the boys went out, I’d feel a strange creeping sensation as if someone else was in the house.
If I tried to make calls downstairs, my phone would never work. There was never any reception, so I’d always have to go upstairs to try and get one. I’d wait up there, trying to send a text to someone then I’d hear something.
Pitter patter… creak, creak.
Someone was downstairs.
The first time it happened I rushed down, expecting to see one of my sons but no one was there. Yet whenever I went back upstairs, I’d hear the noises again.
My heart would hammer and I’d stay in my room, too terrified to move.
It happened again and again. None of it made sense. This was a new build. Nothing should creak. Yet, whenever I was alone, I’d hear someone moving about.
‘I feel like there’s someone – or something – here,’
I told the boys one night.
‘We feel it’s a bit weird too,’ they admitted.
Worse still, there was a dark, malevolent feeling about the house as if whatever it was wanted us gone. The atmosphere was dark, oppressive and unfriendly.
Over the next few days more things happened. A fridgefreezer I’d had for 11 years began making strange cracking noises whenever I was alone. If I was in one room, I’d feel as if someone else was in the other.
Whatever it was wanted us gone
Then one night, six weeks after moving in, me and the boys were having tea when we all sensed the lounge door opening and turned, terrified.
‘There’s someone there,’ Chris said. ‘Out in the hall.’
Finally, the boys got up and checked the house, but it was empty.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Yet, it was still really spooky.
What had it been?
We tried to forget about what happened but as time went on we all began to get sick, too. First it started with headaches, then nausea. I’d always been a happy, energetic person but soon I was lethargic and lying in bed all the time.
We began bickering over nothing as well. It felt like there was a dark, evil cloud above us.
Then one day I was in the living room when I saw a dark mass walk by outside the window near the end of the drive. I turned, heart hammering but it had vanished.
It’s probably just my imagination, I told myself – until I saw it again a few days later.
This time, I was taking the bins out when I noticed something dark scuttling near my car. At first I thought it was a cat – until I felt a sense of pure dread and dark evil. Then it vanished. I ran inside and bolted the door, my breathing hoarse and my heart thudding.
Whatever it had been wasn’t of this Earth.
Scared, I began researching the history of the area. The estate had been built on a field I’d played on as a child so there’d been no graveyard or old house there.
Instead, I researched murders and killings, but nothing came up.
Then I bought a book called Heal Your Home, which talked about how a house can have negative energy. As I read, every word clicked, but I couldn’t understand where the negativity had come from. So I contacted the author, Adrian Incledon-Webber, to ask.
‘It could be an entity made from lots of people’s bad thoughts,’ he said. ‘A kind of collective malevolence.’
I knew the estate had come up against a lot of negativity from locals who didn’t want it built. It was a rural area and suddenly lots of new estates were popping up.
Had all that negativity and bad feeling manifested in this entity that hated us and wanted us gone?
Or was it the local land – the trees and spirits of nature venting their fury at us? It was the New Forest, where ancient trees were being cut down for these estates.
Either way, I knew there was only one answer – I had to leave.
By now I hated being at home so much I spent my days off driving to Sainsbury’s car park and sitting there for hours on end in the car watching people pushing their trollies about.
With the country in lockdown there was nowhere else to go, but it was worth it because all my headaches, nausea and bad feelings would vanish.
Then the moment I’d get home, all the negativity, gloom and headaches would return. It was no way to live. I’d simply had enough.
Finally after eight months, we moved out, vowing never to live in a new-build again.
Instead, we found a house built in the 1800s. It had character, creaked in all the right places and felt ‘right.’
The moment I set my bags down I knew I’d be happy.
‘This is home,’ I said.
‘A happy home that wants us.’ And I was right.
The headaches and bickering vanished and we all felt positive and happy again.
I always thought ghosts had to be spirits or attached to a place where something terrible had happened. Turns out negative thoughts can manifest into something just as terrifying – perhaps even more so.
I felt a sense of pure dread and evil