Would it bother you to stay in a house where you found out someone had been killed or murdered? The reason I asked this, is, do you think on some level (even if you are an agnostic) that there may be some kind of residual ghost or spirit connection that could make you feel uneasy? I don't know that I could stay in a house like that.
When I was a child my granddad would tell us grandkids ghost stories about when he was a young man growing up in the backwoods of southern Illinois. (That was a different time. Back in his day if a man called another man a liar, he very often may be killed for the insult.) A lot of those stories seemed to revolve around buildings and/or houses. Now keep in mind my granddad was born in the late 1800's so his stories had some history along with it. Some of the ghost stories he would tell were past down from his granddad! When I was in my teens, he lived with us, and I would go out and smoke a joint and then come back in the house and ask him to tell me those old stories again. He could really capture your imagination. He died in 1979, and was a very old man when he passed.
I think my most favorite story he would tell, was one of the ones that happened to him personally. Very often back in those days people would walk just about everywhere they went. It was the custom therefore for folks to invite weary travelers into their houses to spend the evening, and then be on their way the next day. Well, my granddad was traveling through the country with his best friend one day, and when evening fell, they stopped by a house and asked if they could spend the night. The owner of the house was very pleasant and agreed. When it came time to go to bed, the owner of the house said, " Whatever you do, be sure to put out the lamp (kerosene) by nine o’clock." He repeated this request a second time as my granddad and his friend went upstairs for the night.
Well, come nine o’clock, they either didn’t want to put out the lamp or forgot to (I can’t remember now which). Shortly after nine o’clock there was a knock at the bedroom window. This was cause for some concern as there were no outside stairs up to the second floor! Again the knock on the window came. Finally my granddad said, " What in the name of the Lord do you want?" Still the knock came. Finally they extinguished the lamp and the knocking stopped.
The next morning my granddad asked the owner of the house, "What was the knocking at the (bedroom) glass window all about last night?" The old man got angry and chastised them for not heeding his warning. He then told my granddad and his friend, "The room you were in last night, was my dead son’s room. He died as a child, but while he was alive, it was the rule that he turn of the lamp by nine o’clock. He was telling you it was time to go to sleep!"
I haven’t thought about that old story in over twenty years. Thanks for letting me share it.
Steve
