From Jeff :

I grew up in a house in a small town in western Ohio. The house had been a two story when my folks bought it and my dad later turned it into a one story ranch style. The previous owner had been a little old lady everyone called Aunt Minnie who had died at age 103. My maternal grandparents had been her next door neighbors.

Aunt Minnie had always loved to hear the carolers at Christmas time. Two Christmases in a row my mom was sitting in the living room when the carolers came to the front door. Both times she heard someone open a door upstairs, walk down the stairs, walk across the living room in front of her and up to the front door. Someone she couldn't see.

When I was fifteen my moms' boyfriend Harold died. Harold lived with us for several years and was not in good health. A deteriated vertebrae in his back caused him to drag one foot when he walked and he used a cane to get around.

For years after his death I would sometimes hear someone walking down the hall in a familiar pattern . First the footfall, then the thump of the cane, then the other foot sliding up to meet the first one. At times when I would hear this, things would disappear, only to reappear later right where I knew I had put them and doors would open and close by themselves.

Harold was a trickster in life and, apparently, in death also. When I was in my twenties my mom and sister were supposed to be coming down from Michigan for a visit. I had been out hunting and stopped at my older brother's to call home and see if they were there yet. Someone picked up the phone on the other end and I said, "Mom, is that you"?

The only reply was the sound of the handset hitting the floor. I arrived home to find that Mom and Sis had just arrived and had not been in the house yet. I loaded my gun and entered the house, expecting to find an intruder. The house was secure and I could find no one. But the phone was off the hook and the handset was on the floor.

In 1980 I moved and have had no contact with any of the new residents, but I wonder if our invisible house partners are still there?