A moment that changed me: I was told my home was haunted – and it made me a tidier, happier person
I thought it must be my upstairs neighbours, perhaps working a night shift, but after I introduced myself to them to ask about the noise, they assured me they wouldn't be awake at that hour. I asked the man who looks after our 70s-built apartment block if there were problems with the pipes. He said no. At one point, I started putting my dresser in front of the door, because I was so scared. I couldn't shake the idea that somebody was getting into my apartment, even though there was no evidence of it. I didn't tell anyone for ages – because if I had, I would have had to recognise how crazy I sounded.
Finally, I mentioned it to a close friend. I thought she would laugh at me, but she became very serious – it was, she said, a ghost. Worse – it was probably a demon. 'Two knocks is a ghost, three knocks is a demon,' she told me, adding that I shouldn't speak to it or acknowledge its presence because 'it will just get bolder'. I didn't believe in any of it, so I confided in another friend, hoping for a different reaction. She decided to buy me a session with a ghost hunter who claimed to 'clear' such presences.
I thought the ghost hunter would come to my apartment, or at least arrange a phone or video call, but she just sent me an email saying she'd done whatever she needed to do, remotely. She had encouraged some spirits to leave, she said, but there were others – five, she thought – who wouldn't go until they'd held what she called a 'court of atonement'. They would be on trial in my home.
The ghostbuster said the trial was being held in my living room. When I moved into the apartment in 2019, my interior designer friend styled this room for me. I wanted a space I felt really great about, and it was beautiful, but I ended up feeling that it was too nice for me to spend time in. Other than the few times I had people over, I barely stepped into my living room, so it didn't surprise me when she said the trial was happening in there, because it never really felt like mine.
I have always been an extreme people pleaser, and although I still didn't genuinely believe five ghosts would be holding a trial in my apartment, I started to feel uncomfortable about them being there and judging me. They were, I assumed, old or from a different era, and it felt almost disrespectful to keep living as I was. So I started keeping my apartment cleaner and tidier, and stopped leaving drink cans around. I'd had a painful relationship breakup not long before, and had been having lots of hook-ups, but that stopped once I was aware of the ghost trial – or I stopped hosting them, at least. I stopped ordering fast food in the middle of the night and started eating better. I took up meditation, making my bed, and not hitting the snooze button. I wasn't dressing for the formality of a courtroom, but I did start to take more care of my appearance. I didn't believe that the ghosts were real – but if they were, I didn't want to live badly in front of them.
Soon, I noticed I was happier and more confident. The feelings of anxiety and guilt that I'd carried around all my life were becoming easier to manage. It was a ridiculous situation, but dealing with a ghost trial somehow made me feel as if I could deal with anything. I had grown up in a religious family, and embraced science and reason as an adult, but the experience made me more open-minded about things that couldn't be explained.
I don't know if the trial reached a verdict – it might still be happening – but, last spring, it finally felt as if the spirits left for good. The changes I made to my life, however, have largely remained, and I feel more content than ever. Buying the apartment had felt like an achievement – I had been saving for it for more than a decade – but also like something I didn't really deserve. I'm a catastrophiser and it always seemed as if everything could just be taken away at any moment. Now, I feel weirdly bonded to my home, like we went through this together. Slowly, I've become more optimistic; I've realised it's not a sin to enjoy something. And, thankfully, the knocking has stopped.
Bryan Safi: Are You Mad At Me?? is at Underbelly, Bristo Square: Friesian, Edinburgh, 30 July-25 August
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News
an hour ago
- Sky News
Thousands of hot dogs spill across busy highway
A truckload of hot dogs has spilled across a busy road in Pennsylvania. A mechanical problem meant the truck scraped along a concrete divider - ripping the trailer open and scattering the sausages across the highway. It was the wurst Fry-day commute that motorists in Shrewsbury had to contend with for years. Crews mustard up the courage to begin a morning rush hour clean-up - and didn't mince their words. "Once those leave the truck and hit the road, that's all garbage, and it's still pretty warm," Shrewsbury Fire Company Chief Brad Dauberman said. "I can tell you personally, hot dogs are very slippery," he added. "I did not know that." A front-end loader was used to scoop up the wieners and drop them into a dump truck.
The Guardian
5 hours ago
- The Guardian
Night goggles may have hampered army pilots before DC plane crash, experts say
The pilots of a US army helicopter that collided with a passenger jet over Washington DC in January would have had difficulty spotting the plane while wearing night-vision goggles, experts told the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on Friday. The army goggles would have made it hard to see the plane's colored lights, which might have helped the Black Hawk determine the plane's direction. The goggles also limited the pilots' peripheral vision as they flew near Ronald Reagan Washington national airport that evening. The challenges posed by night-vision goggles were discussed at the NTSB's third and final day of public testimony over the fatal midair crash, which left all 67 people onboard both aircraft dead. Experts said another challenge that evening was distinguishing the plane from lights on the ground while the two aircraft were on a collision course. Also, the helicopter pilots may not have known where to look for a plane that was landing on a secondary runway that most planes did not use. 'Knowing where to look. That's key,' said Stephen Casner, an expert in human factors who used to work at Nasa. Two previous days of testimony underscored a number of factors that probably contributed to the collision, leading the NTSB chair, Jennifer Homendy, to urge the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to 'do better' as she pointed to warnings the agency ignored years earlier. Some of the major issues that have emerged so far include the Black Hawk helicopter flying above prescribed levels near Ronald Reagan airport as well as the warnings to FAA officials for years about the hazards related to the heavy chopper traffic there. It is too early for the board to identify what exactly caused the crash. A final report from the board will not come until next year. But it became clear this week how small a margin of error there was for helicopters flying the route the Black Hawk took the night of the nation's deadliest plane crash since November 2001. The January collision was the first in a string of crashes and near misses this year that have alarmed officials and the traveling public, despite statistics that still show flying remains the safest form of transportation. The board focused on air traffic control and heard on Thursday that it was common for pilots to ask to use visual separation or relying on their eyesight just as the army Black Hawk's pilots, who were wearing night-vision goggles, agreed to do the night of the crash. FAA officials also said controllers relied heavily on pilots using visual separation as a way to manage the complex airspace with so many helicopters flying around Washington DC.
Daily Mail
8 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Seniors forced to ride wheelchairs on busy streets in Oakland
A trio of terrified disabled seniors say the sidewalks in their Oakland neighborhood are so squalid that they're being forced to dice with death and ride their wheelchairs on the main road. Cathy Harris, Shaaron Green-Peace and Rose Luster-Brooks all use motorized wheelchairs and live at a senior living facility off International Boulevard at 105th Avenue. They all told KTVU that the sheer amount of garbage is making it impossible for them to get around safely in their own community. 'We have to ride in the street as if we're cars. It's unsafe,' Luster-Brooks said. And they claim it's not all down to the homeless people in the area. They say that since the trash heap has grown so much, even regular passers by have been casually contributing to it. 'People are dumping, I mean everything in the world you can find right here on this corner,' Luster-Brooks said. The women have said that the garbage has even stopped them from being able to use a bus with East Bay Paratransit, a transportation method funded by the city that specifically serves disabled residents. 'They no longer can pick us up there. A couple of them have tried and we're like, "how are you going to let us out in this trash?"' Luster-Brooks said. The bus driver now picks them up at the next corner of the intersection, which the women said is riddled with oncoming traffic and isn't as safe. City spokesperson Sean Maher confirmed to KTVU that the location has received repeated requests from constituents for clean-ups and that Oakland's Encampment Management Team is aware of the site. Houston, who represents deep East Oakland in the city council, said the encampment has been removed twice but keeps returning. 'It's on the radar and we're going to come out, and these seniors should be protected,' Houston said in front of the pile of trash. One thing that could be hamstringing cleanup crews is that they're generally not allowed to remove people's personal property from encampments under city policy, Maher said. According to a regulation passed in 2020 by the city council, employees tasked with 'deep cleaning' encampments must 'make reasonable efforts to mitigate any individual or group property loss.' They're allowed to clean up 'debris, trash, waste, illegal dumping, hazmat' and other items, but any personal property they come across that doesn't appear abandoned needs to be stored. 'The City will make reasonable efforts to store up to one (1) square yard of such property per individual,' the regulation states. Oakland had the eighth largest homeless population of all major cities in the US last year, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The number of homeless people in Oakland has jumped nearly 18 percent since 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the problem in most US cities.
