I have two stories to tell. I often visit your site for updates and I finally have the courage to tell you and others my stories

The first story is really my mother's and aunts story. They lived in a house in the Southeast area, I think it was in the Woodstock neighborhood. Anyways, they were both very young. My mom tells me that at night they could all hear footsteps walking up and down the hallway, outside they're bedrooms doors. My slept with her bedroom door opened at night and one night she couldn't sleep and was looking out her bedroom door and saw a skeleton's hand reaching for her sisters doorknob, ( her room was directly across from my aunt's,) and of course she let out a horrible scream and it just disappeared. I think that was the night that my grandfather jumped out of bed like most nights) and with out knowing it, he opened the closet door instead of the bedroom door and found himself in the closet. They needed a little humor, don't you think.

One day my mom and her sister were outside playing with the neighborhood kids, and my grandmother and her friends were in the kitchen visiting. My grandmother suddenly heard voices in the living room, she said they sounded like little children whispering. She went into the living room, thinking it was my mom and her sister, and asked them to stop teasing and come out, and they didn't respond, but she said that she heard children whispering and then laughing and it sounded like it was coming from out of the middle of the air. She looked all over for my mom and her sister and could not find them so she went outside and they were down the street playing!

Another time, my grandmother had visitors over and they were again in the kitchen and she could hear papers shuffling upstairs but no one else was in the house at the time, so my great grandfather went upstairs and found papers from the previous owners all over the floor - like someone had gone through them and tossed them about. The room that my mother had had a strange sweet smell in it. My grandmother thought that it was from the tree outside, but in the winter it was still there, so she investigated. It seemed to be coming from one of the drawers of my mother's dresser. My grandmother washed it out good, but it never disappeared. She didn't think that there was in harm in it, so she just decided to leave it. One night my aunt was passing by my mother's room and just happened to look in and saw my mom on her bed reaching up and was about ready to stick her fingers in the light socket, there wasn't a light bulb in it. My aunt without hesitation quickly ran over and pushed my mother down off of the bed. My aunt looked over and the light switch was on. That means my mother would have been electrocuted. Very scary to think of. My mother still cannot explain why she was doing that. Thank God my aunt had been walking by at the time.

My mom seemed to be the target most of the time for these hauntings. She was collecting movie star photographs at the time. She would wait weeks on end to receive a new one. Her favorite was Gene Kelly of course. Once she would receive these she would hang them up in her room. She had quite a few and they could be worth something now. I can't remember correctly if she came home from school one day or if she woke up and found them missing. But either case they were gone one day. And no one would have taken them as a joke. They scoured the house up and down and never did find them. I wonder what ghosts do with things they take? My aunt really never talks about it. She did say once that she could hear someone walking outside her bedroom window on the roof.

After 3 years of my grandfather having to jump up out of bed late at night, they moved out of the house. I do someday want to go there and ask the present owners if they have anything happening. My mother did go through the house awhile ago, but she didn't feel right in asking them.

My other story is this. Hope you can fit it all in.

This haunting occurred at a house in North Portland. My friends and I were at my best friend's aunt's house and we were getting ready for prom night. I was upstairs trying on two different dresses and I was by myself. But I had the strangest feeling that someone was watching me. And I couldn't shake the feeling that something just wasn't right in the house. So the next day when we were leaving I suddenly remembered my best friend telling us awhile ago that her aunt's house was haunted and at the time that she had told us I thought that she was just playing a joke on us. But I asked my other friend, when we were leaving, if this wasn't the aunt and house that our friend had been talking about and she said that it was. I just remember getting some major goose bumps. It scared me more, because I could feel that something wasn't right in that house. So I of course went back. My best friend was living there at the time, so it couldn't be avoided. I knew exactly when the ghost was present, because my friend would often tell me that sometimes it just wasn't there. But I knew when it was because as soon as I would walk through the front door, I could smell this old musty smell, kind of like a damp basement and the house would be cold.

At night you could feel a presence standing by you as you tried to sleep. I will never forget that feeling. My friend and I would share the bed, and I was always too afraid to ask her if she was still awake and could she feel that, but I was too afraid to speak out thinking that it would do something to me. And I cannot explain how I knew it, but sometimes it would be by my side or at the head of me. The feeling was so strong. Then sometimes at night you could hear it running up and down the stairs. Up and down, up and down. It was so strange. My friend said that once she was in her room and this was during the day, she heard what she thought was her aunt coming up the stairs, and she saw a reflection go past her room towards her aunt and uncle's room and thought it was her aunt and asked her a question and when she didn't reply she got curious as to why, thought maybe she didn't hear her and went to they're room and there was no one there! Another time we were all up late one night. My friend had moved downstairs to the basement. We were all talking and suddenly the light went out! I was so scared. My friends boyfriend got mad and told it to stop it and to turn the light back on, and my friend got mad at him for saying that that the ghost might get mad at them. He went and turned the light back on and nothing happened after that. Thank God. 

One time her uncle was on the toilet and an apparition just appeared out of no where right in front of him and he jumped up off of the seat and ran out of the bathroom. That story I don't know about. I don't really think that the ghost was harmful. Doesn't seem like it was. As far as I know they still live there. I don't know why people stay in haunted places for so long. I feel like now that I had that experience, I now get a sense about places. Like if they are haunted or not. I guess once you have been exposed you are more open to it. I have had other experiences as well. I had an appendicitis when I was about 18 and I once I got home from the hospital I had to sleep on the couch because my bedroom was upstairs and I wasn't allowed to go up and down stairs for awhile. Anyways one night I was sleeping and I woke up and saw a man sitting in a chair across from me, staring at me, I screamed and he disappeared. My brother came running down the stairs and I told he and my mother what I saw and my brother grabbed a knife from the kitchen for protection and looked everywhere and of course found nothing. This happened again the next night, he was in the same spot.   I screamed and down came my brother. Nothing again. It happened again another night, and same thing with my brother. The last time it happened I remember waking up and seeing him not sitting directly in the chair, but like a mime, he was sitting in mid-air beside the couch watching me. This time I said "Oh, it's just you," and went back to sleep. My mom said that that night she had prayed to God for him to go away, she didn't think that he was bad, she thinks that it was my great grandfather watching over me like he did when I slept in my crib as a baby, but she knew that it was scaring me so she prayed for him to go away and I didn't have him visit me again. Well that's it.

Thanks, Elise.