Spooked - The Miller House

Episode Date: April 26, 2024

Some houses possess a presence. Some houses make strange noises. Some houses… come with a man in a green suit.Thanks to the Strohm family for sharing your story!Produced by Chris Hambrick, original score by Doug Stuart Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I snatched the fairy from the sky and waited for to hear him cry. Instead, he whispered deep and low that I do best to let him go. You're listening to Spoon. Of homemade hot sauce my refrigerator. Someone made for me. The hand-drawn label reads Ford Glenn. And I love this hot sauce. It kicks.

Spicy, sweet, delicious, a finishing. hit of curry makes everything taste better. Throw a couple dashes on some fried eggs. Watch out. I'm savoring the very last eggs of the bottle. I will miss it and I can't get any more

because I can't recall who gave it to me. Such a personal, thoughtful, handmade gift and I have no idea where it came from. I've always had a problem remembering basic things people, events,

Stories of my own life because I grew accustomed to outsourcing all the recollecting to my brother. His amazing ability to recall the most minute details from events two, three decades past, who stood where, who said what, who burned the hot dogs and who ate up all the potato salad. His telling became the official register of my own life, the places I've been. and he'd been right there too. Things I've done. Relationships I've had and now with him gone. I didn't just lose my brother.

I lost my story, our stories. And what's crazy is it's not the big stuff that has me reflexively dialing for his number a few hours ago before my brain fog cleared this morning before the sadness. I actually reach for the phone. Fixed to ask him something completely stupid. Bra. Bra. Bra. Bra. Bra. Bra. Bra. Bra. Bra.

. Who gave me this bottle of hot sauce? The idea that one side can't affect the other. Well, Angie's strong. Angie's a new mom with a kid entering kindergarten. And her family, her family's outgrown their current home. My husband, Billy, and I and our son, Chase. we were looking to move. We wanted our son to be in a really good school district.

Our whole family had been looking around the area to see what houses came up for sale. We got lucky just at one moment when my father-in-law called and said he knew that one was available that we'd really like. And it had been in my husband's family for this would be the third generation. He said it's our great-grandparents.

And I said, well, what's your parents? which one is it? He said, it's the one down where you and I used to go hunting down in the fields out here. And I said, oh, I remember that. I used to come here as a kid. My great-grandparents always had, like, trinkets and things that they just didn't want me to touch. There was a turkey in there that was mounted on top of the mantle in the living room. You want to pull it down and look at it, but they would just flip out if you did, you know? My dad said, how would you like to live there. I said, oh, I'd love to. And he said, well, good thing because it's up for sale. So if you want it, we've got to call him and get on it right away. Within the family, it's called the

Miller House. It's because Billy's great-grandparents were the Millers. We loved that it was in the school district we wanted to be in. We loved the family history behind it, and we bought the house. The first day we saw the house, we pulled in, it was a long driveway. It was a federal-style house, two huge columns out front. It was on a corner and it had a very large lot behind it and then a farm behind that. It still had that wood trim, wood doors, the original brass light fixtures, glass door knobs on all the doors. My husband and I were happy about that because we like a house with a little character. It had that antique feeling, but also a bright feeling. because of all the windows that were in the house.

Chase, he was five, and he ran up and down the stairs and in and out of the bedrooms and asked which bedroom would be his. He was very excited about it. There were some things we were going to need to do right away before we moved in. The bathroom was hideous. It was green and pink. One pedestal sink, it was terrible,

and we knew it wouldn't work for us. So we wanted to renovate the bathroom. We wanted to get the hardwood floors redone. We wanted to put carpet in the bedroom. My friend Charlie, he told me he would work with me in the morning and early afternoon. So one day it was raining overcast, dreary, and I stopped to help him. He was upstairs here in the bathroom doing some tile. He said, how long have you been here?

I said, about 10 minutes. And he said, oh, that's funny. I've been talking to you for the last 25 minutes. He said, it felt like you were standing right behind me as I was working in the bathroom. I said, huh? It wasn't me. He said, well, I was talking to somebody standing here at the doorway. But he's like that.

He's a little eccentric. The same day we had a guy upstairs doing carpet. Charlie and I had went to Home Depot to get some plumbing supplies. We came back, and the carpet guy was sitting outside on the porch. white as a ghost. I said, what's wrong? He said he could feel a presence behind him as he was working.

He said, every time I do something, I feel like somebody's watching me. It sounded like somebody was walking up to steps and then standing right at the doorway. He kept turning around saying, Bill, Bill, are you there? And we weren't here. He didn't want to come back in

until we got back. I assured him everything was okay But after I heard that I paid more attention I would try to listen for things Almost expecting it to happen But it never did Billy and I and Chase and our dog

It's our first week in the house The neighbor across the street had free kittens So we ended up with a free kitten as well We're getting ready for bed one night And we always sleep with the door open so we can hear Chase across the hall. We know he's still nervous about being in a new house. I'm falling asleep,

and I hear this loud bang come from the kitchen. It sounds like someone took a frying pan and slammed it onto the stove. Like, bang! It's so loud it echoes up the stairs. It has me alert instantly. And I'm thinking, what is it? And then it sounded like someone took a baking dish and bang, just slammed it on the counter.

It was just those two large bangs. And that was it. For a moment, I thought maybe it's just in my head. But the cat sat up in our bed and looked down the stairs. And I thought, she heard it. That's not just me. I know that's not just in my head. I felt completely frozen with fear.

I just couldn't get out of bed. I just lay there until I felt that feeling past. I got up. I ran through the hall to my son's room. I checked on him. He's fast asleep. I climbed back in bed. I tried to wake Billy, but he's a heavy sleeper.

He heard nothing. So I just laid there and listened for it. I fell asleep and didn't hear it as I was sleeping, but I was terrified. In the morning, there was nothing out of place. Nothing was moved. I told Billy what I heard, and he kind of shrugged me off. Like, really? I was like, yes, the cat heard it too.

He just was like, ah, it was just a noise. It's fine. Chase is fine. You're fine. We're okay. Just let it be a noise. And let's move on. Billy wasn't home very often.

He was working third shift for a shipping company, and I'm home alone most of the time. I'm scared at night, so I'm keeping the TV on at a volume that's a little louder, and I'm just trying to make myself feel safe. I'd hear a sound, and I'd call him at work and say, what do you think this is? He'd say, that's the sound raccoons make Angie, or that's a squirrel jumping on the tin roof.

Any sound that I heard, he had an answer for it, and that made me feel a little more secure. I don't like leaving her in chase here by themselves at night. Most of the time, I'll say, well, it must have been the dog or it must have been the cat. I try to think her mind off it the best I can. We've been living in the house about a month. It's between 4.30 and 5 o'clock. Chase and I were home. We're sitting in the living room, watching television, waiting for Billy to get home from work.

And all of a sudden, I hear the screen door open. I hear the large wooden door open. And I hear the screen door slam behind him. Chase shale's Daddy's home. Daddy's home. And I yell, Billy, we're in the living room. And there's no response. I'm waiting.

And there's no Billy. He's not coming into the living room. So I get up and I walk to our main door to see. Where he is, he's not there, and I look out into the driveway, and his car's not there. He's not even home. That was the first time that it happened, and then it continued to happen almost at the same exact time every other day. I decided I was going to talk to Billy about the sounds I was hearing. I felt like I had proof to tell him that I heard more than one thing,

and he couldn't just tell me, oh, you're just hearing things. One evening, Billy came home from work, and I was making dinner in the kitchen. And I said to him, you know, today, Chase and I thought we heard you come home earlier. Around 4.35 o'clock and you weren't here. It was really strange, but we both thought we heard you open the door. Isn't that odd that we heard that sound? And he goes, yeah, that is strange. I think I should tell you what I heard from Charlie, our friend that did the bathroom,

and something the carpal guy mentioned to me before he moved in. I was just like, you are kidding me. Should we be scared? Like, do we need to worry? I had grown up with a mother who was very into supernatural things. I wasn't a big believer, but I didn't deny it either. I thought there might be a ghost. At this point, it had just been noises,

but I'd heard stories of other people where things have escalated. And in my mind, I think of the worst case scenario. And I worried about my son, most of all. From that point forward, I made Billy promise me that he would tell me when something happened. I get up around 1 a.m. to get dressed to get ready to go to work. So I walked downstairs. I'm getting dressed and

sitting on the ottoman to put my boots on. I looked up at the clock to see what time it was and I seemed like this mist kind of go by like a cloud. It was there and it just kind of slowly moved.

And once my eyes focused, it was gone that fast. Either I'm tired or I literally just seen something float by me in front of me. And I just continued to put my boots on and walked out to the kitchen to get my lunch bag. But I walked back into the living room and waited and looked around a minute.

I didn't see anything. All night at work, the whole time I'm thinking about this. Like, what the hell was that? I've never seen anything like that. After she told me that, I didn't know if I was. was going to turn a corner and something would be there, or if I was going to be pushed down the steps. I felt very nervous in the house. Early one morning, I woke up to Chase screaming at me, Mom, Mom, the dog ran away. The dog ran away.

I'm waking up and I'm saying, what do you mean? The dog ran away. And he said, I let Thor out to pee, and he just ran away. And I went to go chase him, and the man stopped me and said, you go in that house. and wake up your mom. Don't come outside. Go get your mom. I'm saying, what man? He's like, I don't know the man in the green suit.

He yelled at me, and he said, you go in your house and wake your mom. We don't know any of the neighbors. There's a field behind us. I don't know who could have been here. And Chase getting hit by a car or the dog getting hit by a car was a real fear that I had.

So I'm in a panic. I call Billy. I tell him. what happened. She had called me and freaking out, and I'm like, what is going on? So I told my dad, I said, look, I got to run home, figure out what the hell's going on here, I'll come back. So I leave the job site, come home and talk to her right away.

We each took separate cars and just started driving through the neighborhood. We spend hours looking for the dog. We couldn't find him. We came back to the house. talking about our next step. We were sitting outside trying to figure out who do we call, what do we do? And just like that, he comes walking down the street like he owned the neighborhood to the stop sign, walked across the street, we yelled for him, and he looked up at us like, hey, guys,

and he ran up into the yard, and that was it. He was home. And we all kind of took a breath, went in the house, and said, okay, now what happened? And Chase, let's start from the beginning. So that's when he started talking about the guy in the green suit yelling at him. Chase said he walked out on the porch to go down the steps, and the man stopped him, like right there. He said, you don't leave this house. Go get your mom.

We just couldn't figure out who this man could possibly have been because he would have had to have gotten there fairly quickly. Where would he come from? We don't know any of the neighbors except the people across the street that we got the cat from but they're too far up the street there's just no way it was them

we had called Billy's parents and we were telling them a story about what happened Billy's mom said you know who always wore a green suit Billy's great-grandfather he always wore that green automotive jumpsuit all the time

And then it was like a light bulb went off to Billy. He said, I think we have some photo albums that have some old pictures of the house when it was built. And my great-grandfather's in those pictures. He's like, let's go back and look. He went and dug them out. We went through and looked at him. And he said, Chase, do you know any of these people? When he saw Billy's great-grandfather, he said, that's the man in the green suit who yelled at me.

And we're like, are you sure? He said, yep, that's the man that yelled at me. My great-great-grandparents had been, you know, who lived here pretty much all their lives. My great-grandpa worked outside in the garage on the school bus, local cars, things like that. He was a mechanic. That's all he would wear is those grimy, like, faded dickies.

They were full of holes and dirt, but he would never throw him away. He always had him on. He was always a protector, really. Like, don't do this, don't do that. It would always keep, you know, a pretty close eye on me when I was down here with my dad. Because there was always, like, junk cars and stuff around. You want to make sure I didn't, you know, get cut or wasn't doing anything I wasn't supposed to be doing.

They were very traditional in supper is at five and then bedtime is at not. You know, they were very, like, clockwork. So the fact that that door sound happened Always the same time of the day That made us feel like it was someone Like coming home from work It just felt like a confirmation that this was Billy's great-grandfather

Just hanging around this house Making sure things were good I was never really introduced to spirits Or anything like that because I was never exposed to it But then The more I had thought about it I felt kind of safe because he was telling Chase, don't cross the street, go in the house,

and wake up your mommy right away. I thought it was a good thing. We were given the wedding photo of Billy's great-grandmother and great-grandfather. It was one of those old photos that looked like, like oil was on the photo. You know what I mean? And we actually hung it up in the foyer.

Like, it needed to be there. And I'm thinking, oh, geez. I don't know if I could. If I want anybody talking to me, you know, because I still was a little unsure about it. But, like, it makes me feel better in my mind knowing that it's my family that's still here because, you know, they want to make sure we're okay. I just felt this calm come over me, and I have not felt scared since then. I walked to the foyer, and I was just like, thank you so much. for saving your great-great-grandson.

I hoped he could hear me. I was just so grateful. The strong family for sharing your story, Angie is a spooked listener, and she reached out to tell us her tale. If you have a story, make sure that you drop us a line as well. Spooked.

Snap Judgment.org. The original score for that piece was by Doug Stewart. It was produced by Chris. Incredible stories. Journeys, explorations, explorers. soldiers. We have all traveled from one place to the other by foot, by car, by

plane, but some people they claim they don't have to take a single step to complete a long journey. That they can send some aspect of themselves anywhere they wish to travel while the body stays put.

If you and yourself are capable of this feat or if you know someone who is, yes, I want to know about it. I want to know all about it. I promise to only tell the most engaged, passionate community of seekers in the land. Please send us a note, spooked at snapjudgment.org, because there's nothing better than a spook story from a spooked listener. Spooked at snapjudgment.org.

And remember, if you like your storytelling under the bright light of day, get the amazing, stupendous sister podcast, Snap Judgment, it is storytime with a beautiful. This is brought to you by the team that listens intently to the whispers. Except of course, Mark Ristage, he always, always runs away as fast as his legs will carry him. There's David Kim, Chris Hamburg, Leon Morimoto, Tailed the Codd, Marissa Dodge, Zoe Fergnal, Ann Ford, Eric Yanez, Cody Harjo, Rola Abrera, Miles Lassi, Yari Bundy, Doug Stewart, the spooked theme song is by Pat Mascheeee Miller, My name is in Washington. It's important to understand that when we pierce the shadow land seeking knowledge, the knowledge does not come without cost.

The more we touch the mystery, the more the mystery touches us. It changes us. It alters us. It twists us. This path, this knowing makes the knower a target. A beacon for the shadow. The breadcrumbs we leave in the dark forest leave right. back here. And yes, you have to ask yourself, is it worth it? If not, turn back. Go no further.

Forget everything you've heard and everything you know. Be well. But the shadow's gaze is a price you're willing to pay, a price that you need to pay. That's since you have available and remember to never, never.