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Paranormal Activity

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I used to live in Gladstone, SA, which is a very small and historical country town. It has an old goal that isn’t used anymore but is now just a tourist attraction, but it used to house male prisoners. When we moved there, my parents made friends with a lady who was going overseas, and she asked my parents to house-sit for her for several months. This house was a very old cottage, part of the history of the town. It was quite dark and had lots of small rooms attached to each other but was very homely and pleasant to live in. It was right next to an old church and was on a large block. I always felt that the house had a lot of history, and I didn’t like the garden much because it was unkempt and a bit spooky.

I was in year 4 (about 9 years old) in the year 2004. One weekend, I had 2 friends over for a sleepover. We were staying up late and being silly in my room when we heard the heavy footsteps of my dad in his work boots going down the hall, which had wooden floorboards. It wasn’t uncommon for my dad to get up very early in the morning to leave for work, so I thought nothing of it. We jumped into bed and turned the lights off, pretending to be asleep, then when we thought he was gone, we’d get up again and start talking. This happened about 3 times after midnight, around 3 am. It was a fun game to us, jumping in bed to pretend to sleep, etc. The next morning, my dad was at home, when normally, if he’d been up that early, he’d be at work, and we wouldn’t see him until the afternoon. I think I asked him why he was up overnight, and he said he wasn’t, though my memory isn’t very clear. I think I explained the footsteps, and he might’ve said he went to the toilet at one point overnight but didn’t put his boots on. I thought it was weird but didn’t think much of it. My dad is a heavy sleeper, and sometimes he didn’t remember if he got up overnight or not, and he couldn’t be sure if he did or didn’t. Nothing else happened in the house for me.

When the lady returned, her grown-up daughter asked my parents some questions. She asked if we’d had any unusual experiences in the house. Mum said no, not really. I didn’t even think of my experience at the time. The daughter went on to explain that she had experienced heavy footsteps down the hall, like a man in work boots, but it was only her mum who lived there and she visited. She also said she’d heard a whistled tune on occasion. She did some research, and the house belonged to one of the officers that worked at the old goal, who would’ve worn heavy boots in his role. The daughter said she never felt the presence was negative, just a presence. I can’t remember it exactly, but she said the man either died in duties at the goal or died in the cottage. Much later on, I connected the dots that the footsteps were likely this officer, not my father. I never experienced any negative feeling either, which is in part why I thought it was my dad. The more I thought about it, the less it made sense, as the footsteps just went down one direction of the hallway several times in one night, very early in the morning. The only explanation was dad leaving for work, but usually, that was 5-6 am, not 3 am, and he’d walk once through the house and out the door.

The next main experience I have had is actually where I work currently. I am a youth worker in residential care, a house where young people live who have been removed from their parents. Youth workers work on a 24-hour roster to care for the young people, and they live there permanently. It is set up like a regular home. At first, it began with feeling like someone was watching me. Often, if I was on shift alone (kids at school, team leader off-site), I would feel as if someone was behind me, like an oncoming staff member, and I’d turn around fully expecting there to be someone standing there. This happened many times. I often saw murky, dark shapes in the corners of my house. Other workers who’d been there longer than me asked if I thought the house was haunted and recounted their own feelings, nothing sighted, just an uneasy feeling. Often noises would be heard in the house, like creaking of the floor or just movement from a room. During night shifts, there was only a single worker, and the kids would be asleep. I’d often hear sounds like a couple of footsteps and have the intensely strong feeling that someone was outside the worker’s room/office. I always felt that there was something in the house, and I would feel a strong feeling of fear/anxiety in the atmosphere. On more than one occasion, I saw the shape of a person walk by a window, but no one would be there. One particular time, I was talking with another worker in the worker’s office. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the shape of a person walking by the office window, towards the front door. No one came to the front door, but there was a loud sound in the hallways which connected to the front door. I looked and saw nothing, not stopping the conversation. I looked back to my colleague,

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