I grew up in a scary house.
It was an old farmhouse. With all kinds of attics–my bedroom had two. And crazy storage areas in stairwells, etc. We had a gigantic barn, too, which before we owned it had caught on fire, and parts of it were still scorched black inside.
There was also a root cellar. A little building with a dirt floor. It was actually quaint rather than scary.
But the basement–the basement was scary. Horror-movie scary. It was actually a cellar. With rickety wooden steps. And a bare, rough cement floor. It wasn’t just damp–if it rained, it would flood. There were dusty wooden shelves with glass jars of who knows what stored in them.
That’s where we had to do laundry.
Every time I went down there, I’d be aware of all the potential spiders lurking everywhere–particularly above my head. You DO NOT want to know what the ceiling of that place looked like. I never looked up if I could help it. And when I was done, I’d run up the stairs. Mostly because going up them, you could see in between the steps, and all the cobwebs and gross stuff that was lurking behind them.
I’m telling you, horror-movie scary.
But aside from the basement, I was never that scared in the house. Even with all the antique farm equipment my dad liked to collect. When you grow up with rusty old farm equipment in the yard, it was just home. Even with old grim-reaper-like scythes hanging around….Until you’re in the darkened living room watching Evil Dead with all your friends, and suddenly your dad appears in the window weilding one.
My dad was the best, ever.
The only time I remember getting freaked out, aside from your typical kid-nightscares of axe murderers lurking in th closets, was when I was listening to a local band called the U-Men, home all alone, at night. They were basically a rip off of the Birthday Party. (Which is why I say Nick Cave is responsible for grunge, but that’s another post.) And they were kinda scary. So there I was, getting creeped out, telling myself if anyone was around, the dogs outside in the back porch would start barking.
And then, of course, they started barking.
I didn’t really realize how scary our house was though until I spent the night at my best friend’s house and we were telling scary stories to freak each other out, late at night. I told her, perfectly seriously and rather hauntingly, a made-up story that someone died in our house. She totally believed me and was really scared. I hadn’t realized that she was scared of our house before.
It’s funny how ghost stories, tales of people dying in certain places, can be so freaky. But the real thing isn’t at all. My brother ended up dying of cancer in the living room of that house. And there was nothing scary or creepy about it. It’s just a house. And it happens to be where my brother died.
Maybe it’s just different when it’s your house, and your brother.
Your house sounds a little like my best friend’s house. They lived on an old farm - I remember going down into their cellar once and it was dank and diry and spooky. They (or, the kids anyway) thought they had a ghost living in their house and late at night we’d stay up talking in bed and convince ourselves that we could hear the ghost walking up and down the stairs.
When we lived in Salt Lake we lived in a house that Ted Bundy had lived in. We weren’t sure if we wanted to live there or not, but it was a lot cheaper (and nicer - it had been remodeled) than the other places we looked at. The first night it was just our place. It never freaked me out.
Comment by Laura — July 27, 2005 @ 8:30 pm
uh, that’s dirty. Not diry.
Comment by Laura — July 27, 2005 @ 8:31 pm
Was it cheaper because he used to live there and so no one wanted to rent it?
Comment by Susan M — July 28, 2005 @ 5:27 am
I think so.. The house was split into several rentals and it was full, so enough people didn’t care. We had to think about it for awhile before we took it.
Comment by Laura — July 28, 2005 @ 3:46 pm