These chilling signs will answer the most harrowing question: "Is my house haunted?"
Is My House Haunted? 10 Signs of a Haunted House
Updated on Oct. 04, 2024
How to answer, “Is my house haunted?”
Haunted houses aren’t just ghost stories for Halloween. For those who believe in the paranormal, hauntings can take place anywhere and at any time, whether it’s in abandoned places like old hospitals or in a currently lived-in house. That raises the question, “Is my house haunted?” We’re letting you know!
Hauntings can take the shape of ghostly figures, unexplained occurrences or even a feeling of being watched. While some signs might be more obvious, like missing objects, others might be harder to catch. That’s why we’re diving in with expert advice from ghost hunter Greg Newkirk and psychic medium Patti Negri for advice and their experience with the beyond.
So, wondering how to tell if your house is haunted? Keep reading for 10 signs of a haunted house to watch out for.
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Are ghosts real?
Science tells us there’s no hard evidence that ghosts exist. In fact, most spooky stories are far from real life. But wait—there’s a twist! Some scientists and engineers have stumbled upon intriguing phenomena that might explain why some people believe they’ve had spooky encounters. The potential reasons include electromagnetic fields, which disrupt brain signals and cause hallucinations; low-frequency sounds, which make your eyes vibrate and create vivid optical illusions; and old wiring, which can lead to electrical fluctuations. So, while the scientific consensus might lean towards the absence of ghosts, we’ll let you be the judge of that.
How do I get rid of ghosts?
Both Newkirk and Negri agree that the best way to deal with a haunting is to make a firm statement. Talk to the presence in your home and let it know what your intentions are. “Generally, most people who come to find out that their house is haunted can live peacefully with whatever spirits are there,” says Newkirk. “If it’s something that really, genuinely bothers you, say something as simple as ‘You need to leave.'”
If you try to use sage, just be cautious and use it the right way. “Sage is great, but in my opinion, it’s a little overrated because it’s harsh. It’s so cleansing it almost creates a vacuum. It’s like dusting your whole house and then leaving your doors and windows open in a sandstorm. If you’re going to do sage and clear your house, then come in with something holy or something magical so you fill it back up with [your] intent.”
Now that you know how to get rid of ghosts, take note of the telltale signs below to figure out, “Is my house haunted?”
What are the three types of hauntings?
According to Newkirk, there are three kinds of hauntings: intelligent, residual and intentional. He describes the classic haunting as an intelligent haunting, where it has a personality and interacts with people. This kind of haunting could include, for example, a poltergeist.
He describes the second kind of haunting, residual, as a trace left behind from another life that replays over and over but isn’t intelligent. This could be somebody who died tragically and repeats their final moments forever but doesn’t interact with people. Newkirk explains that a residual haunting “doesn’t ever really acknowledge that people live in the house. It just is. It just happens. There’s no intelligence there, so there’s really nothing you can do about it.”
Last, an intentional haunting is actually more about living, breathing humans than ghosts. “It really comes from people who have put so much energy and intention into the belief that their house or object is haunted that they’ve ended up actually manifesting a haunting.” Think of kids who follow urban legends and routinely go visit the place of the supposed haunting. They feed the scary stories so much that they actually open the place up to paranormal activity.
Odor
Wondering, “Is my house haunted?” One clue might be mysterious scents wafting through your home or in certain areas that appear eerie. Ghostly aromas will usually be familiar—think perfume, cologne or cigar smoke. While this can be a sign of a ghostly presence, make sure to consider other options first, like the condition phantosmia, where you smell things that aren’t there. Causes can range from sinus infections to certain medications.
Flashing lights
Flickering, buzzing or dimming lights can indicate electrical issues, but they are also often seen as signs of a haunted house. According to spiritual teacher Claudia Romo on her blog Inner Insights, lights flicker for two main reasons: a spirit’s presence or the energy from your own spiritual awakening. Romo explains that spirits can manipulate existing lights to catch your attention, often merging their energy with that of electronics. And if you’re wondering why the lights actually blow out, it’s “due to a large amount of energy coming in, [as] their presence can trip bulbs, breakers and even instruments,” she writes.
Frigid temperatures
A change in the air and the appearance of goosebumps are common signs of a haunted house often depicted in Halloween films. For those who believe in ghosts, pay attention to cold spots or sudden temperature shifts, especially if other unusual or seemingly otherworldly events occur.
Mysterious sights and sounds
Newkirk says most hauntings aren’t evil, only misunderstood: “I think they’re trying to send us a message.” This can manifest as mysterious sights and sounds as the haunting tries to communicate or navigate its environment.
When it comes to answering the question, “Is my house haunted?” he says, “I think a lot of the classic signs are mysterious noises that seem to come from places they can’t locate, a lot of bumping and scratching on walls, seeing full-bodied apparitions, and things moving from place to place when you’ve not touched them.”
However, what you call a “haunting” may not be the real deal. Newkirk has been called to houses where the cause of the phenomena has actually been carbon monoxide poisoning, which caused people to hallucinate. Mold, too, can cause the same reaction. For houses with legitimate ghosts, there are more telling signs that your house is haunted—like maybe your dog barks at something you can’t see.
Ectoplasm
Fact: Ectoplasm is a substance that still mystifies even the most seasoned paranormal experts. It’s not just the realm of Halloween monsters and Ghostbusters! Historically, it has been reported to show up during seances through a spiritual medium. Newkirk himself has experienced the phenomenon in real haunted houses.
“There was a house I investigated several years ago where the family claimed that things were moving on their own,” he says, “and while I was there, I actually had a strange, viscous fluid show up. [It] dripped down my arm, out of nowhere. And [the family] claimed that would happen all the time. It was a very strange kind of off-white, almost like a raw egg kind of fluid.”
Ectoplasm is not often seen or experienced at your run-of-the-mill haunted house, but paranormal experts see it as a sign of certainty that there is a paranormal presence at work.
Feeling watched
Though “feeling watched” isn’t a quantifiable factor, people who live in genuine haunted houses do report it a lot. Many believe in a kind of sixth sense. Basically, you might be in a house with a really bad vibe.
“Cold chills move throughout the room,” Newkirk details, “and even just the feeling of being watched. Sometimes whispers, or being awoken in the middle of the night because of the feeling that somebody’s standing there.”
Whether there is a normal explanation for this sensation or a paranormal one is hard to know for sure, but it’s definitely a contributing factor for nearly any house afflicted by spirits.
Inexplicable movement
Objects don’t move on their own. That’s why when you see things flying around your house without visible cause, you can be pretty sure that there is something—or someone—other than you in your house. “I’ve seen books thrown through the air by an invisible force,” Newkirk recalls.
Soaring objects are another staple of horror flicks about exorcisms, but inexplicable movement can be even more sinister than that.
“I’ve had people literally burst into flames in front of me,” she says. “The house where [they caught] on fire had been a famous movie star’s house, Mary Astor, in the early days of Hollywood. Then all sorts of people lived there. The Rolling Stones, the Mamas & Papas … The last person there was Marilyn Manson, and the house was too scary for him, so he moved out.” When she visited the Black Dahlia house in LA, she herself was violently thrown against a wall.
If anything small or big like this happens in your home, you can be sure you’ve got a haunted house.
Personality change
When we think about possession, our minds immediately go to demons, demons, demons. Ghost hunter Newkirk says that more often than not, demonic possession and even a demonic presence is not behind whatever it is you’re experiencing. A “normal” ghost can possess you too.
The tipoff is if someone you know is acting extremely strange all of a sudden. If you’re questioning “Is my house haunted?” and a housemate has a radical change in personality, that’s a red flag. “We see cases of possession or influence by a spirit all the time,” Newkirk says. “If you start to notice someone has taken on a pretty distinct personality change, that can be a sign of that.”
Previous tragedy
If you suspect you might have a haunted house (or haunted hotel) on your hands, you should probably dig into the history of your property.
“Once I was in somebody’s condominium,” Negri says, “and this woman just could not breathe in her bedroom. She didn’t have breathing issues, but in her bedroom she just couldn’t breathe. I found out that her room had caught on fire and the [previous] woman had died.”
If you’re experiencing things you can’t explain, doing research might help clear it up for you. The hope is that once you know what happened, you can then ease the haunting. However, some places just can’t be cleared of their histories.
“One house had everything going for it,” Negri recalls, “from Indian burial ground to being a drug house for years. When I first went there, seven people had already died, one in every room. I [was] seeing dead bodies everywhere. I would clear it, and then it would ooze back up.”
Physical and emotional disorientation
Much like a horcrux in the Harry Potter series, a haunting can have a terrible effect on your mood and even your physical state. It can leave you feeling angry or weak. Newkirk reports having this kind of experience while investigating the famously haunted Hinsdale House in New York.
“That’s a place where it’s a very extreme haunting. There’s something about that place when you walk into it, it gets very, very confusing. Some of the things we started to see in this place and hear in this place—including drumming and strange lights—were very disorienting. I noticed that my mood would change when we were in this building, and I would have to keep leaving it regularly.”
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At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experience where appropriate. For this story on signs of a haunted house, we spoke with professional ghost hunter Greg Newkirk and psychic medium Patti Negri. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
Sources:
- Greg Newkirk, professional ghost hunter
- Patti Negri, Hollywood-based psychic medium
- Inner Insights: “The Lights Are Flickering: What Does This Mean?”
