rdfreak | The real LJ Idol -season 4

Creepy crawly spiders, scuttling mice and rats, dead possums in the roof, cold drafts, ghosts .. sounds like a hhaunted house doesn't it? .. well, you could be right, though to me, most of the time, it was the best house in the world. my childhood house; the house our family moved into from 85 to 93 while our new house was being built in the front.
Dad had done all he could to restore the 108 year old house so it was livable, though the front part was definitely too far gone, and the back part was to be our home for the eight years or so.
It was definitely my parents worst nightmare. Mum had absolutely no space to work in the cluttered kitchen, hardly any pantry space, and everything else just had to do. But for us, (two young kids with too much imagination), this poor old "dump" was much more!
We were told that in its history, an old lady died in the front passage way. This was the part of the house that was not made livable, and what separated it from the rest of the house was "the door".
Because of the little room in the kitchen, the freezer was kept in one of the rooms off this part of the place, and when Mum would ask one of us kids to kindly go beyond "the door" and fetch something out of this freezer, it was like death. We'd open the door, slowly but surely, we'd step over the barrier (which was a doorstop to prevent drafts) and into the darkness beyond. We'd race into the room, falling over items (which were being stored throughout the place), switch on the only light in the room, stagger over to the freezer, open it, snatch up the food item, shut the freezer, turn around and ... 'oh no!' the light went out, just like that. There was a shriek of absolute horror, followed by an ear-piercing scream, and then, the tears would come. Parents would hear and come running, 'What's all the noise about?' they'd yell from the doorway.
'The ghost of the old lady', we'd sob.
'rubbish' was the reply, 'you kids are unbelievable.'
Then there were the creatures. I'd be sleeping at night, tucked up in my cosy bed in my room I'd share with my sister, and all of a sudden, there'd be a little scampering. I'd wake up with a start; I'm a light sleeper. 'what's that? Something's crawling up my bedroom wall. what is it? Is it going to fall on me?' I wasn't sure. all I could do was lay there and listen to this "thing" having a fine old time scampering all over the wall, and eventually down to the ground where it was thought to be walking around under my bed. After not being able to sleep for the rest of the night, i greeted the morning to be told that it would have been mice or rats that were inside the wall. Unfortunately, this night-time scampering got to be pretty usual as there were so many gaps in the place, that these nocturnal creatures, plus possums would love to come in out of the wind and play chasey, or something. (Of course, I probably didn't improve matters any by dropping bits of cheese down the gaps in the wall; my parents didn't know about that.)
As if the night-time scampering wasn't enough, I'd occasionally here this noise, that sounded like several grunts in a row, coming from the bookshelf which was situated opposite my bed. I'd lay still, scared stiff that "the ghost of the old lady" was moving about. My sister had never heard this, but on certain nights, for about five or six years, I was convinced that I was getting haunted by our ghost.
(I was amazed to find, several years later, that the grunts I was hearing was made by possums. how absolutely stupid I felt.)
Needless to say, I was pleased when the day came we could move into our new house; No more creatures, no more laying awake, frightened that the "ghost of the old lady" was going to take me off! ..
I had my own room now, where everything was new.
We did say goodbye to our nightmare in style though. when it came time for the old place to be bulldozed, we were allowed to hurl bricks through the windows; the glass would shatter, and the bricks would fall and make a lovely little indentation somewhere on the other side; how satisfying that was!

til next time, RdFreak

The real LJ Idol -season 4 - week 2

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