Criminal - How to Sell a Haunted House

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

In 1989, Helen Ackley decided to sell her old Victorian house in Nyack, New York. It didn’t go as planned. The house became the center of a case that’s referred to as “The Ghostbusters ruling.�� This episode was originally released in 2020. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. Criminal is going back on tour in February! We’ll be telling brand new stories, live on stage. You can even get meet and greet tickets to come and say hi before the show. Tickets are on sale now at thisiscriminal.com/live. We can’t wait to see you there! Sign up for Criminal Plus to get behind-the-scenes bonus episodes of Criminal, ad-free listening of all of our shows, members-only merch, and more. Learn more and sign up here. Listen back through our archives at youtube.com/criminalpodcast. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop. Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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For full prescribing information, including boxed warning, visit BotoxCosmetic.com or call 877-351-0300. Remember to ask for Botox Cosmetic by name. To see for yourself and learn more, visit BotoxCosmetic.com. That's BotoxCosmetic.com. Very soon, I get to do my favorite thing. Go on tour and meet so many of you. That's BotoxCosmetic.com. year, this is your last chance. You'll get to hear seven brand new stories, most of which will probably make you laugh. I'll even try to come and say hi at the merch table. Get your tickets while they last at thisiscriminal.com slash live. I was sleeping in the bedroom. My wife was next to me. It was dark, and I heard creaking coming up the steps but it's an old house so I didn't really

think anything of it but then it sounded like the door was opening but I was facing towards the window so I didn't didn't really turn over to see what's going on and then suddenly felt like something sat on the bed right next to me and the bed actually felt like it pushed down, and it felt like someone was leaning against me. Out of the corner of my eyes, through the window, I could see a silhouette of a female figure, but the person really wasn't there, but it felt like it was there. Then the person, or the ghost, I guess, got up,

and I could hear the door again creaking, and the stairs creaking, I guess, got up and I could hear the door again creaking and the stairs creaking, going down. And then I freaked out and woke up my wife and basically I could hardly talk and say, I think I saw a ghost. And what did your wife say? Well, she asked me, well, was it male or female? I said, female. And she says, oh, yeah, she's been around before. So your wife didn't just say you're having a bad dream.

She said, oh, yeah, I know her. I've seen her. Yep. She's one of the regulars. Yes, she's one of the regulars. Yes. This is Mark Cavanaugh. His wife, Cynthia Cavanaugh, grew up in a house at one Lovetta place in Nyack, New York. Her mother and father, Helen and George Ackley, bought the house in the late 60s. Here's Cynthia.

Well, when we moved in, it had been vacant for seven years. Absolutely nobody was supposed to live in there. My mom was outside doing something, and two of the neighborhood kids came shortcut from school across the property and she waved at them and said, hi, you live around here? And they go, oh yeah, over there. And she goes, oh, that's nice. I need to introduce myself to your folks. And the older of the girls said, you know, lady, you bought a haunted house, don't you? And she said, no, I didn't. No, I bought a haunted house. And her younger brother said, oh, yes, we see them in the windows all the time. The ghosts. The ghosts. The house was right on the Hudson River, a huge old Victorian, three stories, almost 5,000 square feet.

It was in bad shape and needed a lot of repairs. But Cynthia's mother said that as soon as she stepped into the front hall, she knew she was home. My mother, at one point in time when she was doing some painting work in the downstairs living room area, she was in the house by herself. My brothers and my sister and I were at school. My dad was at work, and she was up on a stepladder painting the second room this particular color. And you sometimes got the feeling that somebody was watching you. Well she did and she turned around real quick and there was nothing there. So she went back to painting and when the

feeling came over her again she made a concerted effort to turn very slowly and make sure she didn't blink and kept her eyes open. And as she turned, she saw this gentleman sitting about six or eight inches off the floor with his legs crossed. And she described his clothes quite, he was in quite unique clothing, more along the lines of colonial times. And she just made a point, like I said, not to blink, not to close her eyes. And she looked at him and said, I hope you like the color. And he nodded once and then disappeared. Cynthia's mother, Helen, wrote that he was solid looking, with apple cheeks. She wrote, no, I looking, with apple cheeks. She wrote,

No, I wasn't drinking that day. No, the paint fumes hadn't got to me. No, I don't know why I saw him then and have never seen him since. But I do know that he seemed happy to be there. Cynthia remembers that her mother wasn't afraid and didn't want her four kids to be either. She wrote, I never got anything but good vibes. We started the school year about a month into regular classes, all four of us. My brother was in junior high, I was in high school.

I was a freshman in high school. And then my younger brother and sister were in elementary school. And about the third week, the bed would start shaking about 10 or 15 minutes before I needed to get up. Like, you know, maybe you should eat breakfast before you go. But then come December, when Christmas break rolled around, my mom goes, well, why are you up so early? And I said, because my bed won't stop shaking and there's no reason to stay in bed if it keeps shaking every two or three minutes. And she goes, what do you mean your bed's shaking? I go, my bed keeps shaking. So she goes, oh, okay. This is what your dad had laid out for us to do today. Let's get working. and we didn't talk

anything about rest of the day about it until it was time for us to go to bed that night and my mom said Cindy when you go to bed tonight tell the ghosts it's a school holiday you don't have to get up so early let's see what happens in the morning. And my brother who was standing there with me said, oh, I'll try it too. And we both kind of looked at each other like, you got the same thing going on? And sure enough, I went to bed that night, got ready, got in bed just before I turned on the light going, just so you know, I don't have to go to school in the morning. It's Christmas holiday. And I got to sleep in about an hour, hour and a half.

Tell me about some of the other things that you and your family experienced. Well, I was staying up late like most high schoolers do. And everybody else had gone to bed. And as I'm getting ready to go into my bedroom, I look into my room, and there's a woman in a white dress sitting on the bed looking towards where my mirror for my dresser was, and she was brushing her hair. She had long blonde hair, kind of wavy, very slender looking and you know she she looked very solid

at the time and when she turned to look at me she had a very pleasant face um and didn't seem at all upset that I had caught her sitting there on my bed brushing her hair and she looked at me and I said excuse me and went said, excuse me, and went back into the TV room for another 10 or 15 minutes before I could go back in to go to bed. Did you think that she could see you? Was it clear that she was a respondent? Yes, because when I stood there in the doorway and said, excuse me,

she kind of nodded her head a little bit, then turned back to the mirror and I left. So was the sense kind of that you were saying, excuse me, she kind of nodded her head a little bit, then turned back to the mirror, and I left. So was the sense kind of that you were saying, excuse me, you're in my room, and she was saying, well, actually, this is my room. I'll be done when I'm done. Basically, yes. Would you all talk about this at breakfast in the morning? Was the whole family in on this, that things were happening? And would you all sit around and tell, oh, well, I saw that lady last night or I saw that guy?

Would you talk about it? Sometimes. Sometimes we did. And my dad was always very interested when people would come over to visit out-of-towners and family that would stay for two or three days, at breakfast time, he'd go, well, did anything interesting happen last night? And sometimes there were stories. Some of them were like, oh, yeah, I was going to go to bed, and I heard talking down in the TV room, so I went down to see if the kids were still up, and there was nobody there. Or one of my other cousins, grown cousins, she was saying that

one night she went to bed, and she said, I closed my eyes, pulled the covers up, said, good night. And the next thing I know, somebody's sitting on my feet. So I just kept my eyes closed and said, good night. Cynthia's mother started collecting the stories they told at the breakfast table. Cynthia said her mother would write down little notes. When her mother heard that Reader's Digest was looking for unusual human interest stories, Helen Ackley decided to submit.

Her essay was published in May of 1977 with the headline, Our Haunted House on the Hudson. Helen Ackley wrote, There are always little incidents to mull over in a house like ours. She wrote about footsteps, doors opening for no reason, Helen Ackley wrote, There are always little incidents to mull over in a house like ours. She wrote about footsteps, doors opening for no reason, and the sudden disappearance of a ham sandwich.

She wrote, We've come to savor these happenings. Now we wonder if the time comes for us to move again. Is there any way we can take our other worldly friends with us? More than a decade later, Helen Ackley did decide to move and to sell one LaVetta place. It didn't go as planned. The house became the center of a case that's still widely taught in law schools today.

It's referred to as the Ghostbusters ruling. The judicial opinion read, as a matter of law, the house is haunted. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. We'll be right back. with stories about people fighting for justice in their communities. In the latest episode, host Ashley C. Ford talks to Sharon Levine, who's fighting to protect her hometown, St. James, Louisiana, from petrochemical pollution. I would smell that smell in the morning, but not knowing where it was coming from. Right. And all of a sudden, I said, I wonder if the whole world's smelling.

Not knowing it was just St. James Parish. It would smell so bad. For more than 80 years, the petrochemical industry has operated in the region. And now, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, the cancer rate is more than seven times the national average. When Sharon Levine heard about a new multi-billion dollar deal to build another plant near her home, she rallied her neighbors to fight it. I've been speaking ever since. I've been talking. You can't shut me up now.

Subscribed into The Mix, a Ben & Jerry's podcast. Subtle results. Still you, but with fewer lines. Botox Cosmetic, adipotulinum toxin A, is a prescription medicine used to temporarily make moderate to severe frown lines, crow's feet, and forehead lines look better in adults. Effects of Botox Cosmetic may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness may be a sign of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Don't receive Botox Cosmetic if you have a skin infection. Side effects may include allergic reactions, injection site pain, headache,

eyebrow and eyelid drooping, and eyelid swelling. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Tell your doctor about medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis, or Lambert-Eden syndrome in medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. For full safety information, visit BotoxCosmetic.com or call 877-351-0300. See for yourself at BotoxCosmetic.com. By the late 80s, Cynthia and her siblings had grown up and were starting their own lives.

Cynthia's father had died, and her mother, Helen, was worried about keeping up such a big house by herself. The property taxes were getting too high, and she was ready to move somewhere warm. So she put one Levetta place on the market. My name is Richard Ellis. I'm the broker-owner of Ellis Sotheby's International Realty.

I've been a real estate broker for 35 years. And I was the listing agent for one Lovetta place in Nyack. And what did you know about the house? So we knew that the owner, Mrs. Ackley, was a lovely woman, very eccentric, a real kind of colorful character. And she would talk to us about her ghosts all the time. So it was no shock when this all came up. Do you often have clients talking to you about ghosts in their homes. No, but periodically I have clients who are buyers who might ask if there's a ghost. And I would say after all these years of experience, maybe that's three to five percent of the buying public might ask about that. Cynthia says a young couple from New York City started looking at the

house. Patrice and Jeff Stambovsky were expecting their first child and wanted to move to the suburbs to start their family. They viewed it more than two or three times, I believe, kept coming back and coming back. So I was very, very pleased when she said, yeah, we've got a deal going. And you thought it was all set and everything was going to work out? Yes. Yes. This was considered luxury real estate, even though it was selling for, I think, under $800,000. And we were so thrilled when the buyer came along. We were like, you know, let's get the contract.

Did you tell them about the ghosts that the owner spoke of? So there was another agent in my real estate office that was working with the Stamboskis, and she did not disclose anything. We all laughed about the ghosts in the office that Mrs. Ackley thought she had a ghost. So no, it was not disclosed to them. The Stambovskys made an offer, $650,000. They put down $32,500. It was 1989. This is Lior Strahilevitz, law professor at the University of Chicago. A few days after the Stambovskys are calling around to different contractors to try to get work done on the house, once they close. And one of the people they talk to says, wait, which house did you buy again? And they provide the address and the contractor says, oh, you bought the haunted house.

Well, this was the first that the Stambovskys had heard about the house being haunted or having a reputation in the community of being haunted. And they decided that they didn't want to go forward with the deal because had they known about this, they wouldn't have bought the house. So they tried to pull out of it. refused to do so. So the Stambovskys felt like they had no choice but to go to court. Jeff Stambovsky sued Helen Ackley, arguing that all of Helen Ackley's ghost stories, which he said he had not known about before signing the contract,

threatened the house's property value. The court dismissed the complaint, noting that Helen Ackley did not have a duty to tell the Stambovskys about any ghosts. New York had long applied the rule of caveat emptor. Caveat emptor is a Latin phrase that means let the buyer beware. And usually that means if you're trying to buy something and there were questions that you didn't ask that maybe you should have asked, well, that's on you, the buyer, not on the seller. The seller is under no obligation to disclose anything about the real estate. The seller can't actively conceal problems with the real estate,

but so long as the seller isn't making affirmative misstatements, then if there's any problems that are subsequently discovered with the property, that's on the buyer, that's not on the seller. Jeff Stambofsky appealed the decision. The New York Supreme Court, the appellate court, decides that notwithstanding that rule of caveat emptor, that Stambovsky should be let out of the contract, should be able to rescind. The appellate court found that it was only fair for the doctrine of caveat emptor to be set aside in this case. In most buyer beware cases, the defect is physical,

like a leaking roof, and a diligent buyer could be expected to discover it during inspection. But this case was different. You can't inspect a house for ghosts. And it was 1989, so you couldn't Google the house and find Helen Ackley's article in Reader's Digest or see that the home was included in a ghost tour of Nyack. As one judge wrote, a very practical problem arises with respect to the discovery of a paranormal phenomenon. He went on to write, quote, Who You Gonna Call? as a title song to the movie Ghostbusters Asks. You know, it's fairly common for there to be a leaky roof

maybe that the seller knew about and that the buyer's inspection didn't recover. It's fairly common for there to be termites infesting a property that the buyer only discovers after moving in. And then you get into a big dispute of did the sellers know about this before they sold or were the sellers unaware? That's kind of your garden variety real estate litigation. The ghost case, there's only one ghost case. The judge wrote that by talking and writing about the ghosts in her home, Helen Ackley, quote, fostered the home's reputation in the community. He described Helen Ackley's, quote, promotional efforts.

You know, the court says, as a matter of law, the house is haunted. Well, that's silly. As a matter of law, there's no such thing as ghosts. But what the court means when it says, as a matter of law, the house is haunted is, hey, you know, actually, you're the ones who created this problem with your house. And you told the whole world about it. Everyone except for the Sambovskys, for whom that would have been, you know, highly relevant information. So when the court says, youys, for whom that would have been highly relevant information. So when the court says, you know, as a matter of law, the house is haunted, they don't really mean that literally. But they do mean, you know, that you owe a duty to a buyer

that is at least as strong as the duty you've taken upon yourself to inform and entertain the general public. The judge also made one additional point. If Helen Ackley believed there were ghosts in the house, then she was trying to sell a house that was occupied. We'll be right back. Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention,

and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. Hey, it's Scott Galloway, and on our podcast, Pivot, we are bringing you a special series about the basics of artificial intelligence. We're answering all your questions.

What should you use it for? What tools are right for you? And what privacy issues should you ultimately watch out for? And to help us out, we are joined by Kylie Robeson, the senior AI reporter for The Verge, to give you a primer on how to integrate AI into your life. So, tune into AI Basics, How and When to Use AI, a special series from Pivot sponsored by AWS, wherever you get your podcasts. Jeff Stambofsky and Helen Ackley settled out of court. The Stambofskys got half of their money back and were let out of the contract. We reached out to them and spoke with Patrice Stambofsky. She said that at the time, she was worried about what it would be like for her child

to grow up in a house that everyone thought was haunted. She said, I didn't want to be in the house where there were other kids that said, oh, you live in the haunted house. Law professor Leo Strahilevitz has taught this case for years and was once able to speak with Jeff Stambofsky. Jeff Stambofsky says he does not believe in ghosts, but he then went on to say, I have a master's in business administration from the University of Chicago. And so while I don't believe in ghosts, I do believe that other people believe in ghosts. So he was thinking about, well, I'm buying this really expensive asset.

And if it turns out that the asset I'm getting is worth less than what I thought I was buying because of the superstitions of others, then that's not an asset I really want. Something is worth whatever someone else is willing to pay for it. And he doesn't believe in ghosts, but he does believe in markets. And where fear of ghosts or superstitions are influencing what people are willing to pay for things in markets, then he kind of does believe in ghosts in a roundabout sort of way. The standard real estate adage is location, location, location. But in my profession, the better motto is perception, perception, perception. Even though the property physically is fine, people are feeling souls. We have perceptions. And if the perception is negative,

whether it be paranormal activity or crime scene stigma or what have you, that very much translates into the market's response to that property. So it's kind of mind, body, and soul. And yes, there are physical elements of real estate, but there are also emotional elements, and they very much have an effect on the value. Randall Bell is a specialist in real estate damage economics. He consulted on the property where 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult died by suicide in 1997. He also consulted on Nicole Brown Simpson's condo and one of the sites of the Manson family murders. Part of his work is evaluating how the psychological stigma attached to these properties affects their value. The Stamboski case is famous because it really laid the groundwork that this issue of stigma or risk is legitimate,

at least in the worldview of the courts. And this case is still cited in law school textbooks. Stamboski and Reed v. King, which is a similar case in California, are cited almost daily in this type of work. They're very foundational in terms of legitimizing or validating that this is a very real issue. Tell me about Reed v. King. Reed v. King was a case in Northern California where, very sadly, an ex-husband came along and murdered his ex-wife and the children in a small house in a rural area near Reno, Nevada. And the seller sold the house and failed to disclose that matter to the new buyer. The buyer found out. And in fact, the

seller had asked the neighbors to keep it quiet. The neighbors didn't feel that that was right. And when the buyer found out, they were, understandably, they were very upset and they filed a lawsuit successfully. As a result of Reed v. King, the disclosure laws in California have become strict. If a death occurred in a house in California within three years, the seller has to disclose it. But disclosure laws vary state by state. Randall Bell says about 50% of states are still buyer beware. In many cases, you have to explicitly ask, has someone died here?

In one case he worked on, a woman named Janet Milliken sold her house in California after her husband died there, and she had to disclose that. She then moved her family to Pennsylvania and bought a house. She later learned that two violent deaths had recently occurred in the house. She and her children reported strange and unsettling experiences. Noises, footsteps, a feeling that someone else was there. Janet Milliken learned that the cellar had intentionally kept her from finding out about the violent deaths. She sued, but the court sided with the cellar.

She appealed, and the court sided with the cellar again. The judicial opinion read, If psychological defects must be disclosed, then we are not far from requiring sellers to reveal that a next-door neighbor is loud and obnoxious, or on some days you can smell a nearby sewage plant. Janet Milliken appealed again, and the court sided with the seller again.

This time, the judicial opinion made the point that some graphic events, having matured into historical curiosities, may even increase the value of the property. The realtor for one Leveta place, Richard Ellis, also brought this up. My point of view is that the publicity about the ghost is kind of a positive thing. And if I were listing the property now, I'd probably make some note of that

because I think most people don't believe in ghosts and it might even attract some people to the property. There's some evidence that once the Ackley home got this notoriety, that that became a selling point. Law professor Lior Strahilevitz. So I think, you know, sort of Kresge, the paranormal celebrity of New York, you know, made noise about trying to buy the home or have seances in the home. And one of the things that Jeff Stambovsky told me is his understanding was that after the appellate court handed down its decision, all of a sudden there were a lot of people who wanted to buy the house, but only if it was haunted. Well, maybe all of a sudden,

maybe it does materially affect the value of the home, but maybe it raises it materially rather than lowering it materially, as the Stambovskis have said. One Lovetta place has changed hands several times. None of its residents have reported seeing any ghosts. The house is currently for sale. The list price is $1.9 million.

After she sold One Levetta Place, Helen Ackley moved to Florida, where she lived until she passed away in 2003. Her memorial service was back in Nyack, and the reception was held just across the street from one Lovetta place. During the reception, one of the guests took a picture

of the old house. Cynthia, Helen's daughter, says that when you look closely at the picture, you can see people standing at the windows, looking out at Helen Ackley's reception. You know, your mother lived in that house for a long time.

I wonder, did she ever think about the fact that maybe when she died, she'd just go right back to the house like all those other people? I think so. I think she was hoping she did. Of course, she always wanted to come back as an overfed, fluffy house cat, so I don't know about that. She said, if reincarnation is real, that's what I want to come back as. Well, maybe she's sitting there with that blonde woman who you used to see.

Yeah, exactly. It doesn't sound like a bad place to spend your eternity. It sounds like a pretty house by the Hudson. Oh, it is. It's a very pretty house and it's got a lot more when my husband was traveling a lot after my kids moved out of that our house here it's like i i sometimes wish this house had more occupants in it but um that's one reason my mother said that she could always, she never, after my father died, she was in the house for a good 12 years after he passed away. And she said she never felt alone or lonely in the house. She always felt like there was something very comforting in somebody there. We first released this episode in 2020.

In 2021, one Leveta place sold for $1,795,000. Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sajico, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, Sam Kim, and Megan Kinane. Our technical director is Rob Byers. Engineering by Russ Henry.

Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. If you like the show, tell a friend or leave us a review. It means a lot. We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show and Instagram at Criminal underscore Podcast. We're also on YouTube at YouTube.com slash

Criminal Podcast. Criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC. We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

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