The Unused Room
Haunted house — I spent 5 years in Ireland during which time I rented a variety of older houses. Given a sixth sense for creepy vibes…
Ghosts and the Paranormal
The Unused Room
I spent 5 years in Ireland during which time I rented a variety of older houses. Given a sixth sense for creepy vibes — you think I would have seen this one coming.
My husband and I rented the top floor of a two-story house just a 20-minute walk from Galway city center in our last year of postgraduate school at the National University of Ireland. The house was one of many built-in a row in line with some ancient trees further into the housing estate. It had a lush lawn looking out on the shared neighborhood green.
Upon entering the house was the shared entryway with the first-floor tenants. Unlock our inside door and you immediately walk up a flight of steps. To the right of the stairs was a tiny kitchen with a vinyl floor featuring the basic amenities, such as a stove and kitchen table to sit, next to a window looking out on the green.
Moving clockwise, a bathroom, the master bedroom with a window looking out to the backyard, and featuring its own handy wash basin sink, and then a living room both longer and bigger than the bedroom that looked out on the green.
Finally, above the entry hall and with a small window facing the green, was a tiny bedroom that fit a tiny wall mirror, an old cupboard, and a single bed. This apartment was larger than most of the places that we had lived in up until that point.
It also proved to be the strangest.
For six months, I had boxes of unpacked books and belongings stacked in the living room despite having sufficient space for storage. These same six months neither I nor my husband made use of the small room except as storage. It was almost as though the room did not exist. Even now, thinking back, the room vanishes from the periphery of memory.
One weekend a classmate of my husband visited us with her friend. We often had an array of visitors from abroad couch surfing and, most often, people would opt to sleep in the spacious living room with its big couch and floor space than to use the tiny bedroom with its single bed.
I found this strange but figured that people had a preference to stay together or perhaps they were a couple who benefited from the extra space. This particular visit was momentous as the friend of the classmate was a Magnetiser from France — a person who can sense and influence natural energy in people and spaces.
They arrived late and, when offered the extra bedroom, opted to bunk together in the living room. The next morning after breakfast, our curiosity got the best of us and we asked her what she did and how she did her job. I was also curious as to what she felt and thought about our living space.
Without disclosure, she knew that I was the type of person to have close encounters with the spirit world and that I had trained to be a natural healer (Reiki).
We chatted about how, months before, while my husband had been away at a conference, I had experienced a strange encounter.
I had woken up in my bed with the sense that there was someone in the hall who wanted to wake me up to tell me about something. This person was anxious but not frightening. It was almost like a shadow person who was too polite to wake me but felt a great conviction to do so.
I had rolled over, thinking it a dream. But then a weight (like a dog or child jumping on the bed) landed on me and I heard my mother’s voice in my ears say:
“Go and check the windows and doors.”
Not being able to breathe out of shock for a split second, I then flicked on all of the lights in the house. I spent the rest of the night on the phone with my sister who was in a daytime timezone and playing Buddhist chants.
I told her about my earlier experiences. Her advice — try to find a means to encourage a spirit to the light. That spirits seek out people to tell their stories because they still have some attachment holding them to this world that keeps them from moving on. Also, the spirits will only seek you out if you invite them — as I had done in Dartmoor.
We moved on to what exactly she did as a Magnetiser such as dowsing, finding groundwater sources, and spiritual healing, which is similar (but not the same) as the practice of Reiki.
In the process, we uncovered that she felt a distinct negative force from the small room. In fact, she would not force herself to enter the room.
My eyebrows hit my hairline. Having signed a 1-year lease to rent the property, my mind rushed as to whether or not this would have a positive or detrimental effect on our living there.
The Magnetiser suggested trying to figure out if there was a source for the negative energy. Without ever having stepped into the room, she pointed to a section of the shared wall between the rooms to identify where she felt the force at its strongest.
On the inside of the room, where she pointed to corresponded exactly to the aforementioned mirror that was fixed to the wall with screws. The mirror measured about the same as an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper. It also had paint smears around its edges which led us to suspect it was as old as and a ‘feature’ of the original house. This mirror was not particularly functional as it had a white glazed look that makes for a great haunted tale.
My husband fetched a screwdriver and took on the task of removing the mirror.
She instructed us to take the mirror outside and to break it before disposing of it. This we did and after when we inspected the smashed pieces — the glazed appearance had vanished.
We hypothesized that the houses were built on a ley line. This being Ireland, there was enough belief in superstition and a respect for natural forces to be plausible. At some point in time, a resident of the house had a negative experience or emotion that somehow tied to the mirror. The act of breaking the mirror dispersed the energy.
We grasp at straws to make sense of it all.
Within a month of the incident, my husband and I had unpacked the extra boxes and were making use of the tiny room. It was no longer invisible to our peripheral view and we no longer had visitors opt-out of using it for the night. This story is anecdotal but there is no other scientific way to quantify or qualify the experience.
What do you think?
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