I have been a believer in all things paranormal for most of my life. Well, a believer in most things paranormal, in any case. Growing up, the house that I lived in was a hotbed of activity ranging from ghosts, to shadowy figures that moved swiftly through the tops of the trees, to multiple sightings of one very terrifying and otherworldly dog-like creature. So, by the time that my husband and I bought a home of our own, I was already well versed in living in a house that seems to already be inhabited.

After years of saving, we were finally ready to buy our own home. I fell in love with the old farmhouse on first sight, and despite it's state of severe disrepair, this was the house that I just felt like I had to have.

It had been on the market for years. The current owner was an elderly woman who had been moved to a nursing home a long time ago, and her family all lived out of state. They tried renting the farmhouse out to a variety of tenants, but the renters never stayed long. Finally, the family decided to sell, but no one was buying. Time, and a variety of renters who seemed intent on destroying the 100+ year old home, had left the house in need of a lot of work to make it inhabitable again. Add in the failing economy, and the once beautiful three story brick house stood empty.

Then we came along. Looking past the grime, holes in the ceilings and walls, and flooded basement, I saw beauty. I loved the original hardwood floors, the big backyard, and the views from the upstairs windows. From the master bedroom, you have a spectacular view of a historic cemetery that is just next door. The stone wall, ornate iron gate, and massive sundial centerpiece set this cemetery apart from others. The people buried there are from back when settlers were first inhabiting this area, and Captain John Brady, the historic figure for whom our street is named, is interred there along with other important people of the time. The setting is very quiet and peaceful, and perfect for raising our daughter away from the chaos of town.

So, we made an offer for the house. At half of the asking price, we were sure we would be turned down, but that was all that we could afford. To our surprise, the owners accepted the low offer, and just a few days before Christmas, we were the proud new owners of the old farmhouse on John Brady Drive. Our budget was tight, and we decided to do a lot of the repairs ourselves. What this meant was, I was doing a lot of the repairs myself, as there was no way that we could afford for my husband to miss work.

During the day, while our daughter was at school, I would drive to the new house and spend hours here alone. At first, nothing out of the ordinary caught my attention. I've never minded being alone, and the empty house did not bother me. If, sometimes, the house felt almost expectant, I brushed the odd feeling off easily. It was around a month into the renovation before the first strange occurrence happened.

I was painting the bedrooms, and had taped paper over the floors to protect them from any drips. The paper made the expected noise when stepped on, and while rolling green paint onto the walls of my daughter's room, the distinct crackle of footsteps on the paper sounded from the master bedroom. Someone had clearly walked through the master bedroom, just across the hall from where I was currently working.

I stopped painting. I knew that I was the only one in the house, so I listened intently for more noise, but there was none. Peeking out of the bedroom, I looked up and down the hall, checking to be sure that someone hadn't come into the house without my knowledge. I searched the entire upper floor, but found no one. Brushing the footsteps off, I went back to painting.

I told my husband, also a believer, about the footsteps and we joked that the house must be haunted. But, not wanting to alarm our seven year old, we agreed not to talk about it any more. That agreement lasted a few days, until my husband had an encounter of his own.

The thermostat in the living room needed to be replaced. That type of work was not in my bag of tricks, so my husband and his brother went to the house one evening to work on the tasks that I couldn't do myself. They spent hours there, and finally found themselves in the living room together. They replaced the broken thermostat and as it was late, decided to call it a night. Leaving the living room, they walked into the dining room, and stopped in their tracks. The group of paint supplies that had been left neatly stacked on the floor of the dining room was scattered.

Paint cans were turned over, brushes laying all over the room. The mess was a sharp contrast to the neat stack of supplies that they had been walking past all evening as they worked around the house. And all of it had been done silently, as the two of them had been just on the other side of the wall. They would have heard metal paint cans falling to the wood floor if the stack had simply fallen over.

We've now lived in our house for a year and a half. I work from home, and so spend long hours here, alone. In the middle of the day, when everyone else is gone and the house is silent, it is not unusual to hear booted footsteps walk across the upstairs floor or clomp their way down the stairs. Things go missing, only to turn up later in a place that we are confident we did not leave them.

More than once, both my husband and I have woken up to someone shaking our shoulder, only to turn over and find that the other is sound asleep and the room appears empty. And once, when our closed bedroom door flew open violently to bang against the wall in the middle of the night, my husband responded with a sardonic, "Well, hi to you too," before rolling over and going back to sleep.

We thought that we were hiding the activity well, in an attempt to keep our daughter from becoming frightened, but I guess you can't keep these things hidden forever. Just the other day, my now eight year old came to me and said with a solemn expression, "Mom. I think our house is haunted."