A Cure For Haunted Houses & Hotels - Explanations for noises, lights, and hings that go bump in the night

 When I was a busy freelance travel writer for newspapers and magazines I went to visit a family-owned countryside hotel. 

At the bar, my husband and I got talking to the owner. I had researched the hotel, and found that in the old days, under other owners, it was supposed to be haunted. Yet the current hotel publicity of the website and brochure made no mention of this attention-getting and memorable fact.

I asked him, "Is your hotel haunted? Has anybody seen a ghost? Why on't you mention it?'

He told me, "When we first opened, we had a visitor who claimed the hotel was haunted. She said one of the rooms felt cold. She was a ghost-hunter. I let her stay the night for free. She did not see the ghost.

'I was getting a lot of complaintes about chilly rooms. So we put int double glazing. The chill went away. No more complaints.

'The ghost hunter came back. The room was no onger chilly. She said the ghost must have gone way. So we don't mention the ghost in our literature.'

That seems to me to be a very rational answer.

I've also read lots of stories about unnerving noises in houses. The noises turn out to be a wasps' nest

Or other creatures.

Unnerving Noises

We had noises. They were either magpies hopping about on the conservatory roof, trying to crack open fruit nd nuts..

Or the fridge turning itself on and off. The dishwasher on a new cycle. The washing machine or spin dryer on a new cycle.

The radiaators with air locks. The boiler with air locks.

The central heating turning itself on and off with a timer

We also had cats running along the fence. Foxes mmating with dreadful screas.

The gaardener letting himself into the back garden through the side gate with a key. My faather in law who had a key going to the bck garden to trim the roses and prune trees.

Worried About Being Watched

I also had the feeling I was being watched. I was. I caught the culprit. It was a fox.

Fox in a London garden. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

 I mistyped that as fax. In the olden days, a fax would come through at night. I have also been alarmed by the sound of the printer turning on and off when I was printing something. There is a delay between pressing print and the prininting starting..

Mysterious Light

Finally, those lights and ghostly figures. What are they?

Floaters in your eyes. Reflections in your spectacles.Relections of the house lights in the window pane which look like lights outside.

Flow worms and fireflies.

Cars driving pas whose headlights shine through your window.

Bumps In The Night

Somehing knocked my bed in the night. What was it.

1 My husbnd returning fro a trip to the bathroom.

2 A small earthquake. Reported in the newspaper next day.

Mail

Mail comes through the letter box. Leaflets are dropped in. Parcel deliverers get no anser and leave a note helf way though the letter box.

Door Knocking

Deliverers ring, get no answer, and leave. Popel who are lost knock to ask the way, then realise they are in the wrong street nd toddle off.

A passer-by