Could You...

[kokopelle]

Let's say that you own a second home that is haunted, and not by Casper the Friendly Ghost. Instead the ghosts are more like the Ghostly Trio; Fatso, Fusso and Lazo.

Could you, with a clear conscience, rent or lease the house to people? What if the tenants keep moving out? Would you ignore the problem, hoping the tenants can stick it out or cleanse the house themselves? I ask because this seems to be a common theme on the media presentations of hauntings.

Comments

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

If I didn't have the skills to cleanse a house, I'd just shell out some money to someone who could. Some Roman Catholic priests and Greek Orthodox priests are still taught how to do it, and then you have spiritualists and mediums who will work pretty cheaply as long as they don't have their own television show.

And most of them who don't have a lot of hype attached to them, tend not to drag it out by going 'ohhhh these spirits aren't leaving, I have to keep coming back and you have to keep paying me.'

So I'd just get someone to come and clean the house like I'd get someone to do pest control if there were termites. Not that spirits are pests, but I think you get what I mean :)

[greensh.livejournal.com]

Very true. I have a strong feeling that most spirits are not pests, and many are hanging around because they don't know better.

I have the feeling that my new house has at least one and I may ask it to leave only because I get a sense of sadness, and I don't want that influence in my home environment. It is too bad, because I think it is just lonely. A residual or conscience entity? I get the answer "neither". I wonder what that means...

[valkyriur.livejournal.com]

Rrrrm. A lot of the houses I've lived in have been "haunted" to a certain extent. That has a lot to do with the fact that we lived on base, which means there were a lot of people coming in and out.

I've never had to cleanse any spirits because, even the more active ones, haven't necessarily been all that unfriendly.

If I were in that situation, I may make mention of it, but in the end, I think it would be their responsibility if they wanted to move in. And most people really don't take those kinds of things seriously any more.

[wander.livejournal.com]

You know some people are completely oblivious no matter how haunted something is. As long as stuff isn't being thrown out of the walls, they are happy go lucky. My dad is like that or at least he's a really good actor. You could hope for tenants like that.

W

[breimh.livejournal.com]

Why is it I read this reply and I immediately think of the Simpsons Halloween Special where the house they go to is haunted and Bart is telling it "Make the walls bleed again!"

[greensh.livejournal.com]

I am reminded of the ATHF episode "Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future". Abbreviated from the wikipedia.org entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetic_Ghost_of_Christmas_Past_from_the_Future):

Master Shake shows up to tell Carl that his pool is full of blood. Frylock determines it to be elfin blood. When Carl demands to know who had done this, the ghost arrives and informs them all that he is responsible for the blood. The blood is in the pool because Carl's house was built on elf graves, and the ghost is haunting it because Carl desecrated the land by having his house on it. The only way to end it is for Carl to give himself sexually to the "Great Red Ape."

Carl would much rather just move out, though, so he packs his boxes. He gets ready to take a shower to get ready for some potential buyers for his house, but ends up covered in elfin blood. He ends up showing the house to Glenn Danzig (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Danzig). He explains the features of the house and the shrieking robot that comes with it, and shows him the pool, still filled with blood. Danzig loves all this, since it perfectly fits his (famously) morbid taste. He asks for a price, and accepts Carl's offer of a million. After moving in, he runs sprinklers which spray blood all over the front yard and house, and comes over to the Aqua Teens' house, looking for the robot, which he says he cannot find. Shake says he hasn't seen him. The ghost says that he is freaked out and annoyed by Danzig ("He won't wear a shirt"). Shake orders him to make their house bleed.

Is Glenn Danzig in the same league as Bart? I don't know...

[(Anonymous)]

I have at least 4 ghosts in my farm house. I see them all the time. Other people see them all the time. One is my Dad's mother. Does he ever see her? Not that he lets on. I don't even watch ghost movies in that house because one of ours might show up and tell you how fake the movie version is.

W

[chimerae.livejournal.com]

Houses can have lots of problems -- Bad Ghosts are less of a problem for most people than obnoxious neighbors, infestations of vermin, or a really ugly paint scheme.

Now that I think on it, it would be a funny thing to do a spoof realty show like the haunting shows that chronicles tentants moving out and overwhelming oppressions from, say, a bad beige color scheme.

The funny thing with ghosts for me is the way people who are sensitive and likely to have trouble with that stuff are DRAWN to those houses. (I'm a prime example)

Like a bad color scheme or a plethora of other challenges, any responsible landlord would do what's reasonable to try to correct the problem. Most owners of problem housing routinely make bad choices as they bring in "experts" to address the challenge and sums of money are wasted and the problems exacerbated. One of the worst things you can do with a design nightmare is bring in a designer, who's CERTAIN that the answer is to rip out walls and other things are drama and ego. Same thing on spirit intervention.

The problem in affordable housing are most often solved, if they are solved, by serendipidous matching of the house "as-is" with residents with a natural inclination to resolve that problem.

When my brother Alan was renting in college and dental school, he did major house repairs, serious landscaping, and "curb appeal" things on the rental houses because he just can't help himself. His landlords thought he was crazy when he spent his weekend hauling in limestone and topsoil so he could build formal rosegardens. Houses Alan rented SOLD after he moved out. He only asked for money from the landlord once -- when he was in a house where water accumlated a foot deep in the basement every time it rained -- becasue Al wanted the landlord to pay for several dump truck loads of dirt so he could backfill around the foundation to correct the problem. The landlord said no and Alan did it anyway out of his own pocket.

I'm just guessing that Wander is the same.

[chimerae.livejournal.com]

After I have lived in a place, it's safe for others. My pal Ross (the architectural designer) doesn't experience ghosts, but if he works on a place that's haunted or has other bad energy issues, he fixes them -- and not the way you or I would do it. It's funny but Ross's ego is so huge (but quiet and fairly gentle) that he FULLY OCCUPIES whatever space he's in. He doesn't move ghosts out, he just fills every corner of the ether so that spirits have to make themselves compatible with his way of being . . . or the have to leave because they can't STAND it.

As a gift to me one year, Ross came into my house and cleaned once a week for several hours. HERE he noticed ghosts and spirits because he was trying to honor my way of being not turn the space into Rossland.

Now, he just Rosses any place he works in. Before he moved into the house he's had for years now, I couldn't even go in comfortably. Stan, who owned it, couldn't sleep there overnight. Now it has kind of a sanctuary feel. . . plus he took a house that was famous in the county for being a pit for 30 years and has made it into a little (albiet unfinished) jewel. The ghosts are still there. Will they trouble the next people or stay as guardians?

[chimerae.livejournal.com]

Those TV shows fluff up the implication that the landlord is bad because they need the victim drama as part of the ritual for the viewers catharsis.

There's a 2 story stone house here in the county I really love-- over 100 years old. It has great history and is in a beautiful setting. It's been empty for 20 years because before that it was used for grain storage and rat tunnels under the house are so extensive that no amount of poison or exterminators could get them out or even managed.

I keep wondering what kind of person could engage that sort of a problem and evolve it to change. I used to know a herpetologist who kept rattlesnakes as loose pets in his apartment, but then there's the old story of the king who imported cats to deal with mice and got things completely out of control. Maybe someone who raises ferrets?

[greensh.livejournal.com]

You make an excellent point about the landlord being part of the victim drama. The landlord can't help (for reasons usually not explained), so the people have to turn to the paranormal group/priest/psychic. I very often wonder what the "rest of the story" is in these "true story" presentations.

[greensh.livejournal.com]

Good analogies...