Recession Ghost Tales

Image Source: Greater Pittsburgh's New Home.

The blog Ghost Stories accepts submissions from readers about their experiences with paranormal phenomena. On 14 June 2012, that blog received a story from a lady, Lori Z., who owns a home cleaning business in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is sending in a three-part missive about ghostly encounters while cleaning a home in a shiny new housing development in the Pittsburgh suburbs. From her comments, these sound like McMansions, built on former farmland. She writes:

Cleaning A Haunted House..What I do For Money Part 1

My name is Lori and I own a small cleaning service in the Pittsburgh area. I have 22 customers and 2 employees C.J. And Marie.

I am writing this story about one house in particular, yes the haunted one. Before I begin I would like to tell all you non believers of the paranormal to chill out, I am not looking for ghosties they just show up. In the past if I saw something or heard a misplaced noise I would pass it off as whatever, now I am paying a little more attention.

In June of 2008 I got my first customer in a very nice neighborhood with all new houses (economy is not effecting this hood). From that customer I was able to get 2 other houses. One was a couple with 2 dogs and the other was a family with 3 little girls. All was great. When we first started cleaning these homes all three of us would go together. The house with the family is quite large 5,000 square feet so as a group we would work our way through all 3 levels.

The first odd thing that I would notice and shrug off was that when we walked into the house we would all feel like someone was home. I would call out for several moments without a response before realizing no one was at home. The other strange thing was the door that we would enter would always shut on me and sometimes it would lock, ok not so strange just enough for me to always hang on to my keys. Then the little weird stuff started, a roll of paper towels spread across the grand foyer, cleaning rags tossed down the steps. I would blame my helpers, what are they doing? This was the norm. ...

Now the fun starts. Six months into cleaning, the customer request weekly service but only the main floor and the master bath ... .

I went my first time by myself and once again the feeling that someone was home was overwhelming. I made it through the whole main floor with no problem. I went upstairs to tackle the master bath, my foot hit the top step and I heard a door slam somewhere in the house. I called out once again," Hello is someone home?" No one was home. I proceeded down the hallway lugging 2 sweepers, a bucket and a bag full of supplies, as I was walking a rubber ball rolls past me into the master bedroom, hmmm... Where did that come from? Whatever, I cleaned the bathroom (takes an hour). Whilst gathering all my stuff and I heard a crowd of voices coming from the foyer downstairs, once again, I called out "hello, whose home?" Got all the way down there with all my stuff, no one was there.

Weeks went by with some weird stuff but once again it could have been shrugged off as whatever. Then the day came when I saw him...

Continue reading here.

For Part 2 to the story, go here.
For Part 3 of the story, go here.