STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Does anyone have any fun plans or good ghost stories to share?

I can start things out with a ghost story...

When we bought our condo it was being liquidated as part of an estate. The original owner was Mr. Greenstone, of Greenstone Jewelers (no, I have not found the stash of diamonds - yet!) Mr. Greenstone lived in our condo since 1972, and we are unclear as to whether he died at the hospital or in the condo, but there was a medical alert button installed by the bed which we've since removed.  Anyway, within the first few months of living in the condo, we experienced a few odd occurrences.

In the middle of the night I was awoken by what I thought was my husband shaking his leg in bed while he was sleeping (who knows, maybe he was dreaming of chasing a rabbit?) I looked over at him and planned on stopping him from shaking his leg because the whole bed was shaking (that's what woke me up) and he was laying there as still as can be. The bed was shaking and everything else in the room was not. Since I was groggy, to the best of my recollection, I woke my husband up, at which time the shaking stopped.  We later discussed the possibility of an earthquake (not common, but mild ones do occur), and shrugged it off. 

In a subsequent night, I woke up and saw a figure in the room with a brimmed hat. I looked at it for a while but then closed my eyes to go back to sleep. Seriously, what do you do? I knew if I woke up my husband, it would go away and he would think I'm nuts, so I closed my eyes in the hope that it would go away on its own.

I told my husband about this the following day, and he confessed that he had been awoken by the bed shaking on another night. We had also been occasionally smelling what smelled like a dead mouse in the basement, but the smell would go away, and we could never find anything (I later learned that this smell can accompany spirits.) We also had the experience with the chair (I posted about this in decorating a while back), and a mysterious electrical outage in a bathroom we were redoing that no electrician could figure out (it started working again as mysteriously as it shut off.)

Nothing else of note happened in the condo after the first year, and we've lived here for nine years. A couple of years ago, I obtained some jewelry appraisals from Greenstone Jewelers which is now run by Mr. Greenstone's nephew.  I told him we lived in Mr. Greenstone's old condo, and asked if he ever wore brimmed hats, and I was told that he wore one everyday. I then told him about our "experiences" -- he was amused and told me he looked forward to telling his son about the stories.

I admit, I believe in "ghosts" because of my experiences. Who is to say they do or don't exist? I guess when we find out, we won't be able to tell others if it's true...