Ghosts Don’t Sell Houses
Several years ago, a colleague who is now retired co-listed a home in Nashville that was haunted. It was not “supposedly” haunted … it had ghosts, plain and simple. The home seller was a Civil War buff who had gone to a reenactment with a group of friends. The reenactment was near an old plantation house and cemetery that were haunted. There were tales both of laughter from children and images of adults that would appear in windows. The cemetery was full of ghosts wearing mostly confederate uniforms.
After the reenactment, the group of friends sat on the back of a pick up truck drinking… watching for the ghosts to come out as the skies grew dark. They waited a couple of hours and decided to call it a night before their wives came looking for them. But as the brave seller was about to get in his cab, he shouted a challenge to the spirits, “If anyone wants to come home with me, hop in the back of the truck!” The friends just cackled with laughter and punched him in the arm jovially. It was a fun night and the memory of it wouldn’t fade quickly.
As it turns out, it didn’t fade at all because within two nights of his return home, mysterious things began happening at his house. Toys that belonged to his grandchildren would be found on the floor of the playroom in the morning - toys that had been on a shelf the night before. The seller ran a business out of his house and often times when he was on the phone with a client, he’d hear a child giggling. Once he heard a toddler crying and he ended his call to see what was going on. He never did find anyone.
The young spirits weren’t too bad, but an older soul would sit in the rocking chair for two hours every night. At precisely 8:20 p.m., the rocking motion would begin. At 10:20 p.m. - after the local weather went off - the seller would say, “It’s time to go to bed.” and the chair would stop.
The house went on the market for six months and it was advertised as being haunted. But no one was interested in buying a house with ghosts. Why? According to Curbed Hamptons,
It seems the paranormal don’t sell houses all that well, particularly in a luxury market, so on the surface, the Hamptons is utterly devoid of spirits. A 1991 court ruling in Upstate New York scared many storytellers, when a $650,000 house sale fell through after the seller didn’t reveal the hauntedness of her house. A $32,500 deposit had to be returned after it was proven that the seller had relayed ghost stories to the local newspaper and Reader’s Digest, but not to the freaked out buyer.
So next time you think about inviting a ghost home with you, be careful. You might not be able to find a buyer until after the ghostbusters come in to rid your house of unwanted, invisible, cold guests.
Photo by my former colleague of the house that really WAS haunted.
