Readers Share Their Scariest Stories: A Frightful Melange of Actually Haunted Houses

Hello again bold and intrepid readers, thank you for joining us for another chapter in this oh so spooky anthology. Today we bring you a fright of shorter, but certainly still scary, reader stories.

From Molly in Maine:

My grandparents have lived in a really old house on the Maine coast since my mom was about 10 years old, and our family gathers there every summer. It was built in 1800 (and is in the National Register of Historic Places)!

Several people in my family (who all happen to be women) have seen the same female ghost in the guest room at the back of the house. My grandmother in her 60s (who saw the figure from the stairs below), my aunt as a new mother (who says this figure leaned over a crib and comforted my crying cousin), my mom as a high school teen (who saw the woman walking down the hall towards the room), and my older sister as a college student (who was staying in the room and says the figure opened the door, walked in, and then disappeared by the window in a flash of light).

My grandmother’s theory on who this woman is? When it was first built, the original owner of the house wanted to leave the property to his daughter in his will, but at the time women weren’t allowed to own property. Instead, he left the house to his son, with the caveat that the one bedroom would always belong to his daughter. Since then, she has stuck around.

From K in Indiana:

My husband’s and my first house was a 100-year old carpenter’s cottage in the Herron Morton neighborhood of Indianapolis. Often, when I would be in bed, and he would be somewhere else in the house, our clock radio would turn on by itself. This was before small appliances could be controlled with a remote control. Also, our tableware would often flip off of our plates, onto the floor, for no reason. We thought maybe it had something to do with the weight of the tableware, except it never happened after we moved.

From Brad in Brooklyn:

I moved to a 3-bedroom, newly-remodeled apartment overlooking the Brooklyn Botanic Garden at the start of January 2006. A few months after moving in, we discovered that the previous tenants had died in a fire in the apartment as a result of a murder-suicide. I never saw a ghost, but the thought of those events were omnipresent. As well, on New Year’s 2006-07, I had 3 friends over to celebrate the new year. When any of us look back on that night, we remember at least 6 people being there but there were only 4 of us. New Year’s just so happens to be the anniversary of the fire.

I lived in that apartment for 4 years.

From Simone in Charleston:

Last October, some friends and I visited Charleston, South Carolina. We reserved an Airbnb that was beautifully designed, comfortable, great in every respect… except for the fact that it was haunted. I know this because on our last night in the rental, as I was lying in my bed, I heard a heavy whisper say my name and suddenly felt pressure on my back. It was as if another person had gotten into the bed with me. I wasn’t on this trip with my partner, and there was no one I had invited to join me in bed. A spirit, maybe one who’d been living in the house all along, just decided they wanted to spoon. I won’t lie – it felt kind of nice. Very warm. Cozy, really. So I didn’t get up right away. But after a few minutes, I decided I should look behind me just to make sure a homeless person in need of a cuddle hadn’t snuck in. Of course, when I propped myself up on my elbow and looked back at the bed, there was nothing there. Just the memory of my affectionate southern ghost.