I've never written about this before but it's all really bugging me now.

3 years ago I started University which meant moving house and town (from Northampton to Salford, Greater Manchester). Almost as soon as we moved in odd things started happening. I was studying Graphic Design which, obviously, involved me being very creative and open minded.

I've never experienced things that can't be explained until moving here. I've always been open-minded when it came to things like this but had never had any first hand experiences. People said to me maybe I was imagining things but I know that's SO not true. I was wide awake when many of these things happened. They were VERY real. I wasn't ill or anything when I heard and felt the things I'm about to write about and many other people, visitors and housemates, heard things too. Yet, still, when I mention them I am usually laughed at or given odd looks.

The main thing that would happen would be that I'd wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of someone walking up and down the stairs and outside my bedroom. The stairs here go up through the middle of our house so there could be no confusion with people walking the stairs next door. The stairs are sandwiched between my bedroom and the back bedroom. Each time the noises would carry on as I listened and I would be wide awake, listening, convinced someone had broken in. I could never go back to sleep with the possibility that someone was trying to burgle the house so I would equip myself with a knife and a pillow (to protect myself if they had a knife!) Each time there would be no one there.

I experienced this many times and so did my 2 housemates but to a lesser extent. There was a period of about 2 weeks where this would be a nightly occurence.

Now, the most compelling example of hearing someone walking the stairs was this. 3 of us live here and this one night 2 of us, me being one of them, wasn't here. This left one person in the house. He went out on this night and bumped into a mate who ended up coming back to our house and sleeping on my housemates floor. This person was completely unaware of anything that had gone on before in the house. At about 7am he woke my housemate to tell him that one of us had come back and he could hear someone walking around outside his door and up and down the stairs, We weren't. There was  no one else in the house. His mate had spent ONE night here and had heard what we all had been hearing! My housemate then said something along the lines of "Oh we hear it all the time, there's never anyone there, we think it could be a ghost!". His mate left pretty quickly and he's never been back.

These occurences carried on and climaxed when this happened to me one night. I had heard the usual walking around outside, I was wide awake and I needed the loo before I could even try going back to sleep. I had to go and check to see if anyone was there in order to get to the bathroom without being attacked! (Despite there never being anyone there it always sounded SO real that I would think "Oh this time someone HAS broken in!") I checked, no one there, went bathroom and then settled down to try and get back to sleep. I'd been lying there for about 5 minutes when all of a sudden I could hear what sounded like 3 little girls "la-la-la-ing" a tune. There were no words, just la's. They repeated this little tune for 3 lines. After this I could hear 3 separate taps. It was like each of the little girls had a key and were repeatedly tapping on a wall. Now, the scariest thing about this wasn't the fact that I was hearing little girls singing in my room. No. The scariest thing about this was that where my ears were telling me these sounds were coming from, there was nothing there for the sound to emanate from. I was looking from where the sound was coming from yet all that was there was air. It was in the middle of my room. 

People have said to me "Maybe they were outside". 3 little girls singing in the street at 3-4 am? I doubt that. Besides I know what noises from outside sound like. These weren't from outside. My ears would make it obvious if these noises where from outside. I have my radio on as I type this and if I shut my eyes it is OBVIOUS whereabouts in the room the sound is coming from. Try shutting your eyes and have someone clap in the room. It's easy to pin-point where abouts they are.

It was freaky as hell and I was literally frozen in terror throughout this occurence. For the duration I couldn't move and I don't even remember breathing. I WAS wide awake and for 15 minutes after I layed there trying to make some sense of what had just happened. I couldn't.

Other things to have happened include:

A friend was staying and woke up to feel someones hand over his mouth and whispering in his ear. No one there. This was just after we moved in and was one of the first things to happen. Luckily this has only happened once!

A friend had come over for the weekend and after arriving had a nap in my room after his long train journey. I was at the top of the stairs with a book in my hand called 'Life After Death'. My friend had had his nap and came out the door and asked me what the book was. I showed him and he said "So has that got anything to do with the baby I heard crying in your room?" I said "What?" and he explained he had heard a baby crying in my room and it hadn't sounded like it was coming from next door or anywhere else other than in my room. Again, he had no knowledge of anything that had gone on before here.

I was laying on the sofa in the front room alone in the house and felt a very distinct tap on the top of my head. I lay there for a while and could feel my displaced hair moving back and could still feel where I had been tapped for about 5 minutes after.

This is quite odd but has been heard by lots of people. In the night or early morning you can hear someone typing on my computer keyboard. Many times I've assumed someone has got up early and is bored and has gone onto the net for something to do. No one ever has. It's very prolonged and clear and just sounds like someone is using the computer. It's not even ON!!

The last thing we experienced was a revolting smell at the top of the stairs. It smelt awful, like when a bag of potatoes go off and they start to liquify in the bag. A horrible rotting smell. This smell moved. It was always somewhere at the top of the stairs but if you moved a step to the right or left of the smell you wouldn't be able to smell it. Sometimes it would be near the bathroom, sometimes just inside someones  bedroom doorway. It was SO strong as to make you feel ill. We looked everywhere for a source but to no avail. We sniffed the carpets. We shampooed the carpets. Nothing. It still came back. We looked in the attic to see if a bird or something had got in and had died. Nothing. The smell would come and go at random. It would disappear in seconds then a few days later would be back. Again, step either side and it would be undetectable.

Then it all stopped when I got ill. After my course at Univeristy finished I really suddenly started to experience devastating panic attacks. 24 hours a day! These developed in the space of about 2 days, from being completely normal to me being a complete nervous wreck. I had to admit myself to Accident & Emergency at one point to find out what was happening to me and it turned in to severe depression. It was at this point almost everything that had been happening stopped. Could this be linked? When I got ill I was almost a vegetable for at least 6 months. I couldn't do anything and was in a constant state of dread. Could it be maybe that my mind closed up thus not allowing whatever was in house to use my energy to manifest in it's various ways? It's always puzzled me as to why the odd things stopped when I got ill. Can spirits be active for a period then go into 'hibernation'? I'm not saying any spirits caused my illness but am just wondering if the fact that I was ill stopped them from making themselves known.

All has been pretty quiet for the past year or so.

Anyone make any sense of any of this?

Cool story, was the building an old building?

Did your belief system change at the point you started getting depressed?

I wonder if you could no longer percieve these things due to an altered state of physical awareness which was constructed by your belief system.

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Just to clarify what I think is the situation: it would have to extend beyond his perception to the actual manifestation, since apparently no one else perceived the spooks after he got sick.  He would have been the doorway rather than just another witness.

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Quite right, it would be good to know for sure.  I suppose one should also consider whether Mark was somehow causing or helping to cause these phenomenon, since the events correlate around his arrival and sickness.  And he was reading at least two books on supernatural stuff at the time.

Cheers for the replies.

I was the only one ill at the time. Everyone else was fine but they stopped hearing things too.

There was still 2 other people living here during my illness.

The building's pretty new, last 25 years or so. We tried to find out what was here before but drew a blank. All we know is that the lady next door's mother lived here for a bit but she's dead now. I don't know if she died in the house or elsewhere.

Before I got ill I was fascinated by it all and would happily and proudly tell people we lived in what we thought was a haunted house. Getting ill I more or less just shut down, all I did was eat and watch TV but I couldn't handle anything emotional as sad things would deeply upset me. I couldn't even watch horror films, I love them usually but I watched 'The Passion of Christ' and 'Battle Royale' during this period and found it unbearable. I had to keep covering my eyes and felt physically sick during parts.

It was about this time that all the stuff about Ken Bigley being kidnapped and killed was on TV and I had to leave the room or turn the TV off when it was on. I just couldn't bear it.

What do you mean about my 'belief system' changing when I got ill? I'm not sure what that means.

I believed that we went somewhere else after we died. I have always had the belief that we are here on Earth and in our bodies as a sort of test, to see how we develop and interact with other people, to do good and to influence other people to behave in a way that is for the benefit of others. That's how I live my life and it's what I still believe.

I don't think of God on the way he is in the bible.  I believe in a sort of mass energy. That could be God I suppose.

Change triggered my depression. My Uni course was done, other things happened too. I lost my way and didn't know where to go next.

I still believed in ghosts when I was ill. At one point, I thought I had been possessed by an evil spirit and thought that was what had caused my head to do what it was doing. I nearly went to see a vicar.

Looking back now though I don't think I was possessed  or anything. I just didn't have a clue what my head was doing to me and why.

Nothing during my illness made me change my mind about ghosts.

If you continue to hear noise etc., perhaps you can do a retrievel. It doesn't matter if you can hear or see the ghost (if it's a ghost). The important thing is that it can hear you, and that you're sincere.

Speak from your heart. Tell it things such as, if you want to find real happiness, perhaps you should cross over. Tell it to look for the light, or for a spirit guide, or a passed on relative or friend.

These might seem like natural things for a departed spirit to look for or think of, but sometimes they get confused and need somebody to help them out.  After they get such help, and their attention is brought to the possibility of seeing the light, or a spirit guide, they'll do so.

Send it some love. Imagine love coming out of your heart chakra. Perhaps you'll feel it.

If you want some help while you do the above, pray to God and ask him to send you some help.

This is an opportunity for you to do something wonderful.  Relish it.

I have noticed that some who do retrieval and use electronic devices often have a higher rate of nonexpression than others.  Do you find this so?