Sue Darroch and Matthew Didier's Paranormal Blog

Each Friday we will have a look at the stories and experiences that have been related to us over the years that are amongst our personal favourites. These will include Crypto, Ghosts, Hauntings, UFO's, and other strange events that may be considered Fortean, from in around the Toronto, Canada area .... and since they are from our own personal files will likely not be found elsewhere on the web .... enjoy!

"In 1974-75 we rented a large house with some relatives on a major street in downtown Toronto. We took the upstairs and the other couple and their two kids took the downstairs.

Right from the start we could hear all kinds of noises during the night in our part of the house. There was the usual creaking and things like that which happens in any older house, but the most disturbing was a light tapping at the foot of the bed. It would usually start a little after midnight and continue off and on throughout the entire night. Sometimes the noise didn't wake me so I can't verify that it happened every night. My wife is a very sound sleeper and missed a lot of the happenings.

The noises seemed to intensify and become louder on weekends, maybe because we always seemed to have a full house of friends and relatives either dropping by or staying the night. Also, many a roving party would land there on a Saturday night.

Very rarely would anyone downstairs ever hear anything. After one extremely loud Saturday night, I asked a couple that had spent the night downstairs if they had heard any noises during the night and they replied that they had heard little feet running back and forth upstairs all night long, they wondered if we had mice, we didn't.

The owner of the house sold the place and a few nights before we were to move out we had the worst night of all. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, there was a banging at the foot of the bed, not the usual tapping, it was so loud that it sounded like somebody was pounding a hammer down against the footboard. We both sat up kind of scared and I glanced over to our totally fearless half-shepperd dog who was walking around in circles as if chasing his tail. This was something he hadn't done before and would never repeat. At any rate, the noise stopped as suddenly as it had started and we never heard it again in our remaining time there. I haven't got a clue as to what this last outburst meant, if anything. Was it someone or something saying goodbye or maybe even good riddance.

Although we heard all kinds of noises in this house, we had never seen anything out of the ordinary. However, one of the kids from downstairs constantly complained of seeing some kind of weird looking person or thing just standing around in the kitchen down there. He is now grown up and still mentions it to this day whenever we speak of the goings on in that house.

Other than the noises, the only really strange thing that ever happened to me was once when I was home alone one weekday afternoon, I heard a rustling noise coming from our hall closet. This caused the dog to go over and start investigating and when I opened the door a black bird came shooting out towards me and just barely missed flying right into my face. I chased it around the house and the dog finally caught it. I opened the back door and the dog released it unharmed. Five minutes later the rustling began again and we went through the catch and release thing once more. And then five minutes later the whole process was repeated, thankfully for the last time.

There are a couple of interesting points that I should probably mention here. Within two years of our moving out the house was sold three times. I wasn't inquisitive enough to actually go up and knock on the door to find out if any of the residents had experienced anything out of the ordinary. Years later, after telling someone the story of the house and answering a few questions, they suddenly blurted out that they had the whole thing solved. It seems that our house having street number 664 and being attached to house number 666 made it receptive to all kinds of spooky things. Of course the latter number being the sign of the Devil. Well, I doubt that very much, but then again who knows, who cares? I'm just glad we've never experienced anything like this in any of the other places we've lived in."

Our thanks to the witness a longtime friend of our group for writing in and sharing their experiences with us. Have you had a similar experience? Do you have any information that you would like to add? If so, please contact us.

A quick note before I sign-off for the weekend. If you are a fellow ghost researcher, and have to stay alert way into the wee hours of the night or if you are just a lover of fine products Illy is now available for purchase online. Yum!

Do you have a real life ghost story, an encounter with a UFO, or other paranormal experience/s you'd like to share? If so, we'd love to hear from you! Post your own experiences in our comments section or send us an email. Please post only true life experiences ... we love good fiction, but there are other fantastic blogs out there to post fictional accounts to.