I have always said “You couldn’t make this sh*t up” when it comes to talking about my life. Everything always seems like something from a movie or Discovery channel documentary.
It didn’t take long to discover that there was something different about the cabin when we purchased it four years ago.
Before we could even move in, we had about two months of renovations to complete before it was even livable. In fact, the entire house was pretty much gutted. Renovations are still on going today, but in the beginning it was pretty chaotic. We had an entire team of painters, contractors, flooring layers and electricians in here during the day and night. It was a 24 hour operation. Walls were removed and replaced. Electrics were fixed and redone. The house was repainted and carpeted inside (I took on the task of repainting the outside later that summer- another story of battling wasps and other wildlife!). So you can only imagine it wasn’t just dust and spider webs that were stirred up.
The cabin was 20 years old when we closed on it. Built by the previous owner and not really maintained or updated since completed. So to cut a long story short, there was a lot more work to do than we first envisioned! HGTV makes it look very easy! Where was Chip and Joanna when you needed them?!?!
In the beginning things seemed fairly quiet. Our friends helped us tear the place up during the demo weekend! Pieces of panel board and old tiles were everywhere. We took out an entire 20 ft dumpster in one weekend. After the place was emptied and the real renovations began, we started to hear stories from the contractors. Tales of shadows walking across the master bedroom, caught in the corner of our project manager – Joe’s eye. Weird growling noises in the painter’s ears and foot steps across the floorboards when no one else was working in the house. Our project manager’s son ran out of the property at 6am as he heard someone walking upstairs when he was the only one here. But the best story came from our friend Ryan who was doing the rewiring and replacements. Ryan liked to work at night when the other contractors weren’t here. He would put on his country music and just get cracking on running the wires and switches. One night he cut his work night short. After his radio kept being turned off he began to get an eerie feeling and called his girlfriend to come for moral support. During the phone call, the call kept dropping despite having full signal. After he started to hear footsteps upstairs, he decided to bail until his girlfriend could come keep him company. The weird foot steps and electrical interruptions kept occurring.
And then we met “Emily”…
With our move in date just days away, there was so much still left to be completed before we could move in. We knew that the big renovations still needed to be done over time but finishing baseboards, trims etc needed to be completed by the contractors before we gave them final payment. One evening I started to take photos of the house to email to our project manager so that we could make a list of the things that needed to be finished before we moved in. I started snapping shots of unfinished base boards, flooring, paint touch ups and window trims. We didn’t have any stairs at the time, so I stood on the only step safe to stand on and snapped a photo of the window in the kitchen area. It was missing a piece of trim. Unfortunately the contractors decided to throw up dry wall on a wall that didn’t require it and didn’t replace the window trim that was damaged. When I took the photo we did not have electricity running in the house.
That evening I put together an email with all the photos to send to Joe. After sending it I went into my sent items to just double check I didn’t miss anything. I opened up the email and turned up my brightness. All of a sudden my tongue fell into my small intestine and a cold chill passed over my body. It was at that moment, I realized I had just purchased a house with a (un)live in tenant.
When you see it, feel free to shudder.
I did. There Emily stood in all her white dress Victorian glory.
About 30 minutes after sending the email Joe called me and I remember the opening line to the phone call very vividly. “You are ****ing messing with me!?”… Oh I wish Joe, Oh I wish I was!
Now there are plenty of stories I can tell you about Emily. Like the time she stood over our friend Kelly in bed and screamed at her when she stayed the weekend. The time she exploded a pendant light during a party. Or the time I was home alone taking a video of the cabin to send to my parents back home, only to catch a glimpse of a figure walking across the back window. It will take you a few times to see it, but when you do, you cannot un-see it.
I will definitely be sharing many more stories about Emily over the coming months. I found out some history about the land and why Emily (and friends – YES FRIENDS) may be here!
In fact there have been 3 or 4 spirit friends at the property.
“Emily”
“The bearded moonshiner”
“The unhappy native”
and “The growler”.
“The Growler” will warrant several blogs of his own. I cannot help but feel he has some connection to something scary and insane that happened to my best friend and I when we were 14, while sitting on top of the garden shed. You see how scary and interesting this all just got?
So, I guess I can put the question to you. What do you want to hear about first? More tales of Emily, “The growler” or my close encounter with what I believe was the “Owl man”? Yes…. no joke. The Owl man. Anyway, comment and let me know!
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