My wife and I were moving into a carriage house in a town called Tuxedo NY. It was beautiful. Moving day, she wasn’t feeling great. Nauseous and her skin was hyper sensitive.
I drove the truck, and she took the car. That morning, we found out she was pregnant. So I told her no heavy lifting I’ll handle it. I loaded in all the boxes and built the bed at least.
The next day she developed an extremely sensitive nose as was sicker than I’d ever seen her. She could “smell me” and our 10 week old puppy. I took her to her doctor and confirmed her pregnancy. By the end of that day, the pup developed an insane flea infestation. Dozens of them. He was miserable. He had never had them before. I got flea bath, cleaned him up, and started arranging furniture. Night fell, and she was so sick and could smell “us”, I slept downstairs with the puppy on the couch.
We had no cable or internet yet, so I was watching a dvd and dozed off. I had the worst nightmares of my life and got woken up by my dog growling at a small open door under the stairs. This was all the way across the room, but on the same wall as the couch. The kind of growl that’s teeth bared, ears back and fur on end. I got up and by the time I got to where he was I had lost sight of him for a second. I walked over and he was gone, and the growling was coming from inside the small door.
Now here is the thing, the landlord put in a brand new super thick carpet in the living room. It was “above” the level of the bottom of the door, you had to really pry that door open over the carpet, but there were no drag marks on the carpet from the door opening. It was like that door from the 6th sense. Part of the wall and went to the crawl space under the house. The growling was coming from inside the door now. I pulled out my flashlight, and he was not in there. Then the growling stopped.
The puppy came walking into the room from the other side, sleepy eyed, from the kitchen.
He saw me, ran over then instantly started doing the same growl I saw him do just 15 seconds earlier directly at the open door. I kicked the door shut, and using my leather man jammed the small lock permanently.
1 second later my wife started screaming from upstairs. I grabbed the puppy and ran up, and she was having a night terror that she was being smothered by something. My dog freaked out in my arms, and started growling and barking in all directions.
I told my wife we were leaving. We got in the car, I drove to her mothers. She miscarried the next day, I called the landlord and told them that we are leaving. I gave them the deposit and 1st months, and said I’m not coming back. I didn’t say why. But she sighed, and said “ok. That house can be tough sometimes, I understand”
We hired movers to grab our stuff out.
That town, Tuxedo was in the 1870’s a collection of several estates for the Uber wealthy from NYC. The “town part” we lived in was where the help lived, so it was a bunch of small cottages and carriage houses.
That whole town was built on the exploitation and misery of millions of people, amassed into untold wealth.
I don’t believe in ghosts. I can’t explain what happened there. But I have goose bumps writing this, and my heart races every time I think about it. It was a living horror film.