The Unhaunting

Jacob and I are really enjoying our new house. There are tons of neighbor kids. TONS! They are pretty quiet in the morning, going off to school. In fact, I've never heard one child in the morning, but its the afternoons that get crazy. They are either screaming (you know, happy little girl screams, the kind that ironically sound like someone might be dying), soliciting for school fundraisers (I am STILL waiting for my Paula Deen cookie dough), or telling us about our haunted house. Yes, haunted.

It all began when Jacob's mom and I met the neighbor kids after a long day of cleaning. Four very cute little boys, and three girls. Three loud girls. One introduced herself as Carmelita, or so I thought. Turns out her name is Carlita and only I heard Carmelita because I am white, according to Jacob, who is also white but speaks Spanish fluently. She will always be Carmelita to me. The kids all seemed really nice but then they asked us if we knew our house was haunted. WHAT? Haunted? No one told me that. Last I heard real estate agents had to disclose all the creepy things. Was this why the house was so cheap? Carmelita said that when ever they saw someone doing a tour they'd run up and tell them the house was haunted which I believe because these kids aren't shy.

The next day Jacob and I came to the house to do more cleaning and two little other girls told us they put their ears up to the door one night when it was empty and they could hear sounds, like people talking and loud thumps. One of them said she screamed and ran away and then she saw the garage door open a little. I don't really believe in haunted houses, so I tried really hard not to think about it. (At least the garage door part I really didn't buy.) Crazy kids and their imaginations.

A couple weeks later we were moved in and getting comfortable and I had forgotten all about the haunted house rumors. I was pretty excited when we had our first door bell ring. Maybe a neighbor was bringing us cookies and welcoming us to the neighborhood? Optimistic, I know. There were two little girls I hadn't seen before with a lost kitten. I told them it was cute but not mine and right as I was about to close the door one of the girls asks, "Did you know your house was haunted?" Okay, now it was starting to get to me. I had to get to the bottom of it so I said, "Really?! What happened?" The little girl told me there was a man who killed himself in our house named Franklin. Now our haunter had a name. Great. I asked her when she heard this had happened and she said that it was a long time ago before she was born. She told me she was born in 2002. The house wasn't built in 2005! HA! I told her, her friend, and her kitten off and sent them on their way. I kept telling myself that there was no way this house was haunted. There was only one family that lived here before us and they were a nice Christian family from what I could tell from their wall decor. I had to use complete logic to convince myself that this was not true.

A few days later Jacob and I saw Carmelita and I was glad when she deemed our house unhaunted. So far the only thing that's haunted is our microwave. It makes rattling noises when there's a lot of wind. Here are some pictures. I know I need to decorate our walls. I have plans, I just need to follow through. And what to do with plant shelves?! Right now we have our festive fall leaves, that look a little droopy.