The house had been divided into two separate apartments, one in the main house and one in the servant's quarters, and the two connected at the staircase. The family in question, who will be shielded under the title of Mr. & Mrs. P, moved into the main portion of the house after Mrs. P's cousin recommended that they needed the extra space (a second child had entered the family). The young girl also had a second motive: she didn't like being alone in the house at night. The landlord asked the Ps if they were religious people.

The very first night Mrs. P slept in the house she noticed a faint, but odd, "crackling" noise that seemed to emanate from the servant's quarters of the house. Deciding they were steam pipes, she put them out of her mind. However, no steam pipes have ever made noises like that - and not ones that occurred all night, every night, for four years.

Mr. P worked late nights, when he was going to be home at all, and mostly Mrs. P and her cousin were left alone in the house for the long winter nights. Mrs. P began to notice that every time she went down into the cellar under the dining room, a brief but powerful moment of absolute panic seized her. furthermore, her cousin, who was normally cheerful and perky, began to become increasingly jumpier. The winter weather that is characteristic of New England set in, and with it came the characteristic depression of the mind and soul.

Late at night one night, Mrs. P was upstairs in bed and her cousin was downstairs. Suddenly, it sounded as if a very large and heavy man was walking up the stairs. It could not be Mr. P… she had not heard the front door open. Both women rushed out into the foyer, each at the opposite end of the staircase. What they both saw was the boards on the staircase bending as each invisible footstep "stepped" on them! They did not wait to see what would happen; both Mrs. P and her cousin retreated to their chambers hastily.

Soon after, Mrs. P's cousin left her husband, taking her daughter. They had never been unhappy together, but she could not bear to stay in the house for another night. He moved away soon, too, leaving Mrs. P alone in the house at night with the noisy ghost on the stairs. She also began to hear sobbing coming from the abandoned part of the house.

Late one night while she was alone, all the cupboard doors began to open and close in rapid succession, one after another, in the dining room, downstairs while she was upstairs. Mrs. P endured this until her husband came home and found her near hysteria. They began again soon after. No matter how many times Mr. P ran downstairs to investigate, the sounds always stopped the moment he opened the dining room door.

Soon after, another elderly couple moved into the abandoned Servant's Quarters. They were Mr. and Mrs. W, a stern and unbending couple who put little stock into ghosts. That is, until Mrs. W knocked on the door to Mrs. P's apartment and whispered, in a terrified voice that somebody was trying to break in.

On another occasion, the door handle of a certain door slowly turned of it's own volition in a perfectly empty room, in plain sight of Mrs. P. On another, the highchair which seated the youngest child broke for no reason whatsoever, fracturing the child's skull.

The presence was getting worse. People in the family began to suffer from unaccountable illness and depression, and no babysitter would stay for long in the house after they got to know it's nature. Mrs. P's own mother refused to spend any time in the house after a short stay.

Eventually, Mrs. P's sister agreed to stay in the house as a baby sitter, but she, too, did not last long. The depression and illness that seemed to permeate the air of the house effected her profoundly. She began to complain of claustrophobia, and winter had long turned to summer. One night, she happened to glance out a window and see a face glaring back at her. The dog's barking did not seem to help matters. Objects began to fly off shelves and smash themselves into things and eventually a teacup flew from the girl's hand and smashed itself at the feet of Mr. P in broad daylight. Mrs. P's sister left immediately.

Next came Mrs. P's sister-in-law, who began to complain to "being watched", of flying objects, and of cupboards opening and closing as if somebody were looking for something. Nevertheless, she stuck it out. summer turned to winter.

Christmas Eve, 1966. The air in the house seemed to be saturated with a sensation of evil and foreboding. The family now kept a shotgun in the corner of the living room, and Mrs. P was watching TV when she saw a face peering in the window behind her sister-in-law. Without moving, she told her sister-in-law to get the gun. When the woman pointed it towards the window, she got a brief look at the face clearly before it vanished. The image was of a Negro or Indian man scowling with hatred. Outside, no footprints were found in the grass - even though it was frozen hard.

Another couple moved in, Mr. and Mrs. F. neither seemed to be particular sensible young people and blamed the Ps for all the strange noises and happenings. Gradually, Mrs. P began to believe that the house, or whatever force possessed it, would only bring ruin and despair to whoever lived in it.

One early April night a hazy figure, floating above the floor, materialized in the room the Ps were resting in. it glided across the room and passed the telephone. The phone rang once. Descending the staircase the figure, on reaching the bottom floor, caused the lower floor telephone to ring once. This sent both families out into the house with each other to decide what to do. All four adults agreed that the figure was outlined in blue-white light that was so intense it hurt to look at it directly. And a cold chill seemed to pass through their bodies as the form passed them. The F's moved out immediately, and the P's, finally weary of their struggle with the supernatural, followed their example soon as well.

If the house still stands, I advise anybody against staying there. Rarely is a haunted house so filled with tension and hate that it can transform the personalities of those who live there.