Lighthouse Horror Podcast - 11 Rules For Idiots Who Bought A Haunted House | Scary Stories
Episode Date: August 21, 2023Follow them or else... Merch is now live at lighthousehorror.com Story from zachariusfrost Make sure to check out more of their work at u/zachariusfrost Origi...nal Post: 11 Rules for Dipshits who Bought a Haunted House : r/nosleep Original YouTube link: 11 Rules For Idiots Who Bought A Haunted House For more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel: Lighthouse Horror | YouTube Patreon: Lighthouse Horror | Patreon Sound Effects: Freesound Zapsplat Music: Lucas King - YouTube Myuu - YouTube Incompetech Thank you for listening to this scary story! If you enjoyed this new creepypasta story, please check out some of my other horror stories. We'll be uploading new scary stories, new true stories, and new creepypasta stories every day!
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Well, you really screwed up this time, didn't you?
You found a gnarly deal on a beautiful home that almost seemed too good to be true, and you
jumped at it, and now that you're all moved in, you've started to notice some anomalies.
You know the type.
The spooky-dukey anomalies of the supernatural persuasion.
Bumps in the night, doors opening and closing by themselves, auditory hallucinations
of voices and whispers.
more common than you may think, but not everyone realizes the danger. These signs could be proof
that some forsaken lost souls inhabit your property. Maybe the previous grandmother self-immolated
in the attic. Maybe dear old dad went suddenly insane and repainted the house with the blood
of his children. Or mom tried seducing demons in the basement. If this sounds even vaguely familiar to you,
and you were looking to the good old internet for help. Then you've come to the right place.
You see, I have this friend, well, had this friend named Nathan. A couple months back, Nathan found
a house for sale in southern Georgia. It was nestled along a remote stretch of woods just outside
of Waycross. It was a historical area, an old colonial-style home just under 5,000 square feet,
Six-bed, six-bats, with white picket fences and a dozen acres. The quintessential American
Dream House by all accounts. The price was unbelievably low. But after Nathan contacted the real
estate agent, he found that the price he'd seen listed was indeed the price that was being
asked. For most people, I imagine this would have raised some pretty big red flags.
But Nathan was an idiot, the confident type of idiot, that believed,
believed machismo is substantial for conquering all of life's obstacles.
I know it's not kind to speak ill of the dead like that. Spoiler alert, but I'm just trying
to give an accurate portrayal of the kind of person Nathan was. You know, the alpha male
who hits on your girlfriend and lives at the gym. For people like Nathan, Friend is really
just another word for ego reinforcer. He was cocky and often let pride get the better of him.
His wife, Janelle, was actually my ex-girlfriend from a while back.
They had two kids, Natalie and Mason, who were both spoiled brats.
Again, I'm just trying to give an honest perspective of them in hopes that we all may learn
something from what happened.
You see, what happened to Nathan, which I'll get into later, was something which I believe
could have been easily avoided if he'd only followed a few simple instructions.
After the funeral, I got to pondering on the matter and realize that what we really all need
is a set of rules to follow if you believe your house is haunted.
Let's begin.
Rule number one.
When looking to purchase or rent a house, always ask for the history.
Odds are, if a house is being offered at way below market value, then there's a very good
reason for it being that way.
Nathan didn't do this and thought that the undermarked.
price was simply the universe handing him something he didn't really earn as it often seemed
to do. Nathan jumped at the offer, and within a few weeks he and his family were approved
to begin moving in. I volunteered to help them move in, and I'll be honest. The house was
absolutely gorgeous. Things were great for them at first, but Nathan soon started noticing
some odd occurrences. It started with this knocking sound that seemed to reverberate all over the
house at odd hours. He said he could never seem to pinpoint where it was coming from, and it
never seemed to originate from the same place twice. Eventually, he just chalked it up to the house
settling. But that was just the beginning. Rule number two. Trust your gut. Your home is the last
place you should feel uncomfortable. If you get that inkling of discomfort in the back of your mind
that never seems to fully dissipate. Pay attention to it. It's probably your subconscious,
trying to warn you. Nathan tried ignoring these sounds, told his wife that it was just normal or the
wind, and comforted his children when they felt scared. He had two dogs, Rusty and Sailor. Both of them
black labs, and both seemed to become very anxious after moving in. Nathan did his best to get medication
to help the dogs relax, but it didn't seem to help much. That brings us to rule number three.
Along with your gut, you should also trust your pets. Animals have instincts far greater than humans.
It's been sad that man is the only creature who will sense danger and still wander into it.
Animals have a sense for the supernatural, dogs and cats in particular. If you find them growling at what
What appears to be nothing, or constantly staring into specific areas of your house, then pay
attention to that.
Odds are, they can see something you can't.
Nathan told me that Rusty, the older of the two dogs, would pace the hall each night for hours.
He said it was like he was standing guard over something.
On more than one occasion, Rusty suddenly blurted into a ferocious bout of barking
and snarling.
would come out into the hall, but never found anything. He grew concerned for Rusty and took
him to the vent, but the vet confirmed he was in good health. Meanwhile, Saylor, the younger
dog, slept at the side of Mason's bed each and every night. The poor boy soon developed
crippling nightmares that would torment him relentlessly, and Saylor seemed to sense it.
Each time Mason would wake up screaming, Sailor would be there, to try and comfort him.
And that segs perfectly into our next rule.
Rule number four, beware the nightmares.
Young children are similar to animals in the way that they seem more perceptive to things
that adults are not.
This one can be difficult because there are many root causes of nightmares with things
like anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses.
The telltale sign is whether your child suddenly develops them, soon as a
after entering the home. Poor Mason had absolutely horrific dreams, and night after night,
he would be tormented by them. He often spoke of the blurry man that came to him while he
slept and whispered terrible things. He even said that sometimes he would see the blurry
man while he was awake, but never more than a quick glimpse, and always in the shadows
or outside in the woods. Nathan and his wife worried that perhaps Mason was schizophrenic,
but multiple doctors confirmed that this was not the case. They tried giving Mason's sleeping
pills, various supplements, and burned incense to help him sleep more peacefully. It worked
for a while, until Natalie started having them too. Rule 5. Try to determine what kind of spirit
you're dealing with. If you see flashes of a small child running through the halls at night,
or orbs spiraling in the air, then odds are your ethereal neighbor is rather benign. Some
people even discover they rather enjoy life with a spectral roommate and find their antics
to be rather interesting. Most believe that spirits who pass away before completing what
their soul desired will become stuck in a sort of purgatory. Many are
scared, confused, and angry, but some, primarily young children, seem to be almost jubilant at times.
Most of these are unnerving, but altogether harmless.
But then there's the other spirits.
Rule number six.
If you or any member of your family develop inexplicable bruises, cuts, or lesions, then
do not take them lightly.
This should be a massive red flag and is a very big.
bad sign. If you feel as though you are being attacked as you sleep and wake up with unexplained
scratches or wounds, then just get the hell out of the house. Honestly. A malevolent spirit,
capable of inflicting physical wounds, is not something to be trifled with. Odds are it's a
demon, and honestly, that is the best case scenario. There are other non-Abrahamic-related
entities that could be responsible as well. They are very rare, but if encountered, well, I'm afraid
even my handy set of rules won't be enough to stop them. Natalie and Mason suffered multiple scratch
marks, wounds, and even a few bruises that almost looked like bite marks. Nathan's wife, Janelle,
was also subjected to these attacks. The children's teachers at school began to notice and became
quite worried for their safety. Obviously, their first thought was not paranormal, but rather that the
children were being abused at home. Only, when social services threatened to remove the children
from his custody, did Nathan finally agree to move them out of the house? Janelle and the kids
moved in with her mother a couple hours away, and Nathan was left all alone with the dogs.
Rule number seven. Let people know what's going on. Yes, I know. I know.
I know the thought of admitting to a close friend that you believe your house is haunted,
maybe a daunting one, but it's usually better than the alternatives.
The modern world rarely takes these claims seriously.
We put ghost in movies and video games, but when someone actually claims to see one, we
aren't so quick to believe them.
Technology and science have led us to believe we are safe.
That is our folly, but it's also a topic for a different day.
This is yet another rule that Nathan did not abide.
The worse that things got for him and his family, the more secluded he became.
On numerous occasions, he phoned the police, saying that he believed someone had broken
in, but they never found evidence of it.
Eventually they even put him on a blacklist and warned that any further contact would result
in legal trouble.
Rather than tell his parents or brother or any of his friends what was going on, he retreated.
He retreated into himself.
He became fidgety and paranoid at times refusing to return phone calls and text from his loved
ones.
He just broke contact, and things only got worse.
Rule number eight and nine sort of belong in the same category, although one is a little
more extreme than the other.
Rule number eight, if you suspect something is up, it doesn't hurt to perform a cleansing.
Like I said earlier, the modern world has little time to entertain the notion of ghosts and the
supernatural, but that shouldn't ward you off.
If you're unsure about whether your home is being haunted or not, then a routine cleansing
can do wonders for you.
I'm willing to bet there are mediums and priests in your town that can get the job done.
Even if you can't find anyone local, you can always just go online and find instructions
for yourself. It's not as effective that way, but it's better than nothing. Rule number nine,
if you're really feeling as though you're in danger, get someone to perform an exorcism. It's the step
that no one wants to take, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Priest and spiritual
leaders are your go-to for these kinds of things. Even if you yourself are not religious,
these people honestly do know how to help. There's some of the people. There's some of the people who
evidence that Nathan was attempting to do this, but it's unknown why exactly it didn't work out.
Maybe he second-guessed himself, and thought he could handle it, or maybe his ego took control
once again. Nathan had been collecting evidence for a while, and had amassed quite a stash of clues.
He had audio recordings, which relayed banging on the walls and footsteps in the attic. He took
multiple videos, but none of them really showed anything except for the last one. But by that
point, it was too late. In his journal, he also wrote that he experienced items in the house
levitating on several occasions, but sadly he had no recorded proof of this. Rule number 10.
The big one. Whatever you do, don't try to antagonize the spirit. This should really go without
saying, but angrily challenging the spirit or daring it to manifest is a really bad idea.
But as you may have guessed, Nathan and his unlimited stream of testosterone decided to do just
that.
He got really drunk one night and began ruminating on all that had been happening.
Nathan was always a skeptic, but even he couldn't ignore the psychological impact on his
family, whether it was imagined or not.
He realized his relationship with his children and wife were being heavily strained, and his new house had become a place of hostility.
This made Nathan very angry.
So Nathan stood up and shouted at his empty house for the spirit to come forth and face him.
He was met only with silence, and so he shouted again.
Never once did the spirit answer his call.
After a few more verbose challenges, he broke into a bout of laughter, probably believing
himself to look ridiculous.
Apparently not everyone who was watching felt the same.
Nathan managed to stumble into bed not long after and was out cold within a couple minutes.
Nathan had kept a security camera in his room in hopes of capturing proof.
And that night, he found something.
At around 2.13 a.m., Nathan is seen, beginning to stir in his sleep in the security video.
He grunts and speaks briefly, but the words were unintelligible. Suddenly, his eyes sprung wide
open in the bed and began glancing around the room. Nathan appeared to be struggling,
but his body didn't move. It's believed he was suffering an episode of sleep paralysis,
which left him temporarily paralyzed. His
His eyes continued to dart rapidly around the room, and then something happened that no one
who saw the video could explain.
The bedroom door slowly rolled open, but the darkness of the hallway was all-consuming.
Nathan's chest began frantically pumping up and down, and his eyes stretched wide open.
Something was then seen moving in the hall.
It could have been chalked up to a trick of the line.
light at first, but then a hand was seen reaching through. It was gnarled and spinly. The figure slowly
sauntered through the doorway. Its tall, dark silhouette, nearly grazing the top of the doorframe.
It had no definite features appeared only as a hooded, humanoid individual. No eyes or face,
just a shadow from Nathan's deepest nightmares. Poor Nathan,
was heard mumbling and whimpering frantically. But in his paralyzed state, he wasn't able
to fight back or flee. He could do nothing but watch an absolute horror as the thing approached
him. It stopped at the foot of his bed and just stared at him for a minute. Nathan continued
to hyperventilate and didn't appear to blink once during the entire ordeal. And then the thing
moved closer. It leered down only a couple inches from his face and appeared to whisper something.
It was too quiet for the mic on the camera to pick up, but needless to say, it didn't make
Nathan feel any better about the situation. Suddenly, the thing lashed out with its twisted
hands, constricting like pythons around Nathan's throat. In his paralyzed state, he couldn't even
struggle against his shrouded attacker. Within a minute, Nathan's chest stopped moving,
and his eyes fell still. The entity retracted its hands and just stared at him for a minute.
Then, as if taunting those who would see the footage, it looked directly into the camera. It
whispered something again, but again it was too quiet to discern what it was. Then,
As quickly as it had appeared, it waltzed out of the room and vanished back into the darkness.
Nathan was found by his wife Janelle a few days later, and she called the police.
After an autopsy, Nathan was determined to have died via strangulation, much as what was shown in the video.
Cops scoured the premises and found footprints from the intruder.
However, the footprints were soon matched to a pair of Nathan's own boots.
The police, of course, were not so quick to believe that Nathan was simply killed by supernatural
forces.
They conducted interviews with neighbors, friends, and family members, but none of them seemed
capable or motivated enough to have done it.
There were no signs of breaking and entering, and nothing had been stolen from the home.
They came to me and conducted an interview.
you as well. But of course, that was a futile effort. I mean, sure, the fact that Janelle was my
ex-girlfriend was reason to suspect me, but I quickly dissuaded their accusations. Nathan was my friend,
despite him not really being a good friend. What kind of friend steals your girlfriend, anyway?
I'm not bitter about it, though, at least not as far as the police are concerned. My alibis were
solid, and that's good enough for them.
This brings us to my final rule. Rule number 11. Make sure you exhaust all other options
before coming to the conclusion that your house is in fact haunted. If only Nathan had taken a little
more time to investigate his home and himself more thoroughly, then maybe he'd still be alive
today. Maybe he would have found the many wireless speakers hidden in his attic to play the
sounds of knocking. Maybe he would have found the patches in his air ducts that leaked mild doses
of hallucinogenic drugs into his home. Maybe he would have detected the dog whistle alarm
that caused his dogs to react so strangely. If he bothered to check himself, he may have found
trace amounts of a paralyzing toxin that once ingested will leave the person immobile,
yet conscious to all pain, it would have been difficult to find, as even coroners do not
normally test for the substance unless specifically requested.
No matter how you really slice it, this entire ordeal really comes back to Nathan himself.
If only he'd been a better person and not constantly demeaned his peers at every turn.
If only he hadn't been so stubborn and proud.
If only he hadn't gone behind my back and stolen my girlfriend, thus ruining our future
and sending me into a spiraling depth of crippling depression, then maybe I would have helped
him.
So, you may be wondering, is this my confession?
No, no, of course.
Of course not. This is only my list of suggestions and rules for how things may have turned
out differently for Nathan and his family. These are all hypothetical explanations and are in
no way to be considered incriminating evidence to be used in court against me, or anyone else
for that matter. Besides, if this really was a confession, then that would make anyone who
read it an accessory to murder. And we certainly wouldn't want to
That. I hope you can understand that. And I do hope that we can trust each other in this regard.
After all, I have a really good software for tracing IPs, and it is incredibly easy to access them.
We wouldn't want your house to become haunted.
