“Do you ever see anything unusual in your house?”
Ah, that question.
We had a new neighbor renting the house next to ours and I had stepped over to welcome him to the neighborhood. That was one of the first things he asked. He went on to explain why he asked, although I already knew the answer.
“When I’m in the living room, I can see the reflection in the dark TV screen of a tall thin man coming down the stairs and crossing the room. It happens over and over. When I put up my Christmas tree, it really frustrated him. It’s in his path and he walks up to it and stands and stares, then turns and goes back up the stairs. Then he comes back down the stairs and stops at the tree and stares again. He does that over and over.”
I told him that previous occupants of the house had seen the same tall thin figure. He seemed to travel between their house and ours. I had caught him lurking in our garage . A pall of sadness surrounded him.
Other neighbors a couple of houses from us also had experiences with spirits and unexplainable events. That area of Austin seemed to be a paranormal hotspot.
The renter next door eventually moved on and the owner of the house moved back in. He was a software programmer and his focus was on code writing and testing methodology, so I don’t think he was ever aware of his spiritual housemate. He never mentioned experiencing anything unexplainable in his house.
When we prepped our house for sale, we performed a cleansing just to make sure the new owner did not inherit the morose spirit or anything else. The house felt light and bright when we emptied it and moved. I don’t know who the sad spirit was or why he was so tied to that area, but he is still memorable in the overpowering strength of his negativity.