A bed that shakes violently, an uncontrollable banging coming from inside the walls and a Ouija board that moves by itself – sounds like scenes out of a scary movie.
But in reality, those were just a few of the experiences a family says they endured while living in one of Norwich’s numerous Victorian mansions in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The family, who wished not to be identified, reported years of ghost/spirit activity on the third floor of the house, the location and address of which will also remain confidential.
Here’s a few summaries of their most recent testimony:
• The youngest daughter, 15 at the time, often complained to her mother that her bed shook violently at night, eventually bringing the mattress downstairs to sleep in her parents’ room.
• The oldest sister, home visiting from college, witnessed the bathroom faucets going full blast while she was taking a shower. “The faucets were very old, hard to turn and you had to turn them a lot to get them off and on,” she said.
• The younger daughter also said she used to leave the closet light on and door open when she went to bed and would find the light off and door shut when she go up. And whenever she played loud music, there would be a banging on the walls.
• The younger daughter (who said she is to this day very fascinated with spirits) always felt there were people with her when she went up and down the steps from her room on the third floor. “I never walked down those steps,” she recalled. “I always jumped so they wouldn’t touch me.”
• On one occasion, the teenager and her friends played with the Ouija board upstairs and when they let go “the thing went all over the place.”
• The mother said once, while doing dishes after a party, she felt surrounded by people so much so that she had to go outside and stand in the driveway for 15 minutes. “It gave me the cold chills and has stayed with me ever since,” she said.
The last family to live in the house claims to have heard music and doors opening and closing, but would say whether or not it was paranormal activity.
In an effort to understand these phenomenon, The Evening Sun staff and two local mediums explored the house; what they discovered was interesting, to say the least.
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This place didn’t creep me out until we hit the basement.
That’s where we were shown a portal that let evil spirits into the house from another, not-so-friendly dimension.
The rest of the house was apparently fine. The kitchen, living room, dining room, upstairs, and attic – all modern, seemed cozy; nothing that screamed “Amityville Horror.” It was very nice, too. So nice, in fact, that it made me wonder what kind of ghost could be horrible enough to make families run from the place.
Then we learned about the gateway to hell in the cellar.
I couldn’t actually see it. I don’t have the gift of second sight. But I could feel it, and an “expert” who says they have contact with the spirit world told us the portal was there, and was the source of all the disturbances in the house over the years. And, because I like to scare myself for fun, I believed them, whole-heartedly. And if you’re like me, and you like to believe, then the hair on your arms and neck would’ve stood on end. Mine did.
But, apparently the ghosts and spirits aren’t in the house anymore. The portal was sealed and the house cleared by another medium a few years back, the spirit medium who was with us said. So, what made my hair stand up, the medium explained, was a force that was trying to push its way through the wall. They said it was really just a form of energy. In this case it was negative energy, and it had come from a far off, dark place, the medium said, trying to find somewhere it could feed.
The cold emanating from this spot on the wall is what I remember distinctly. It felt like when you’re swimming, and you pass through a cold patch in the water that’s noticeably different. It’s no big deal in the water, but it’s scary when you feel a drastic temperature change in a basement. Especially if it’s very dark and you have a mildly spooky medium there telling you that you’re feeling an evil spirit trying to cross over.
Was it real? No idea. Was it fun? Sure was. There’s nothing like getting the heart and the imagination all revved-up.
– Mike McGuire

 I’ve always believed that there is something that can be left behind when a person passes on. What that something is, I don’t know, but I planned to find out when we traveled to the Old Victorian house by the dark of night.
The house was gorgeous, and for a while, I was thinking about what kind of job I would have to have to be able to afford the thing more than about anything having to do with ghosts and spirits.
We walked through immaculate room after immaculate room before we found the entrance to the basement. As our friendly medium guide led us down through the more creepy area of the house, he stopped in the middle of the floor and crouched low. “Someone died right here. Heart attack,” the medium said. “Can you feel that?” Being a group of snoopy reporters, we all hurried over to the spot our guide had indicated and stretched out our hands. I felt my hands tingle just a little and goose bumps began popping up on my arms.
Soon after that the conversation turned to portals and evil trying to get through. I was raised a new age hippie, but even I don’t buy all of that, so I ventured up the stairs to the attic area. The ceilings were tall and I could hear my own voice echo back at me. On one side of the attic was a small opening that resembled a door way. I walked through it and down what looked like a hallway, and found what a large open space on the other end. My imagination got the best of me, and it wasn’t long before I started thinking of all the things that might jump out at me. I hurried back out of the room feeling slightly spooked.
I stood at the top of the landing and glanced back at the room to make sure no one and nothing was following me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a figure standing on the stairs. I turned to greet the rest of the crew, but no one was there.
I’ll be the first to admit, that it is entirely possible that my imagination was playing tricks on me, or that it was just a trick of the light. (At least that’s what I told myself as I hurried down the stairs with goose bump-covered flesh to find the rest of our party.) But I have to admit, that as I drove home in the dark of night, I had to keep checking my back seat to make sure there was nothing there.
– Jessica Lewis
Part 5 of this 5-part series appears in Wednesday’s Evening Sun.