I awoke to the creaking and moaning noises again this
morning. I hid my head under the covers,
afraid to look up, lest I should spy the ghoulish source of this terrible
noise. Taking a deep breath, I peeked
just above the comforter, and saw…nothing unusual. It was then I realized that it was just the
neighbors, jumping on the bed again.
Despite the fact that these noises had no otherworldly source, I am
convinced that my house is indeed haunted…by the spirit of poor planning and
shoddy workmanship.
The poor souls who planned and constructed this house were
obviously suffering from some kind of psychosis. My miniscule home gives one the feeling of
being trapped in a coffin. The
downstairs is also half-underground, so if you look out my bedroom window, the
first thing you see is a large patch of dirt.
This only serves to enhance the feeling that you’ve somehow been buried
alive. Due to its small size, there is
very limited storage space in our house.
We have dozens of totes stuffed in the back of our garage, leaning
ominously and threatening to fall on anyone who dares walk too close. As a testament to sloppy construction, the
walls of our home resemble someone’s lame excuse for a fun house. To look at the walls or windows is rather disorienting,
because nothing is level. This also
makes it nearly impossible to hang pictures properly, which increases the
lopsided effect. However, if the
claustrophobia or asymmetry bothers us too much, we can always take refuge on
the rickety, slanting porch outside.
Many noises heard in this house might make one suspect supernatural
presences. Our house is part of a
quadruplex, and because there is no insulation between the walls, we can
clearly hear the activities of the neighbors on both sides. I often hear demonic children yelling and
running up and down the stairs. Late in
the evening, I can hear a child crying, but it is not my daughter’s voice that
emanates eerily from the monitor. It is
the voice of the three-year-old next door, and I can hear her because my
daughter’s monitor is too close to the shared wall. Though this housing was built in the late
80s, and the floors are carpeted, the floorboards often creak like you’ve
opened a mausoleum door that leads straight to hell. And then there are the winds, prevalent in
this part of South Dakota,
which whistle through the stove and roof access panels like a disgruntled
banshee.
Daily occurrences in our home mimic scenes from horror
movies. My husband once went to turn the
faucet on and the hot water handle crumbled in his hand. The knobs and shower head in our bathtub look
like they’re going to fall off, because none of the bathtubs were installed
correctly. The bar in the tub also falls
out if you apply the least amount of pressure, which has resulted in a few
slips and several blood-curdling screams of frustration. One of the local maintenance men even told me
horror stories of bathtubs falling in. And our household appliances behave
strangely as well. Many mornings, I
awake to find an ectoplasm-like substance lingering on my supposedly clean
dishes. Our water heater also taunts us,
as the water runs hot, then cold, and then scalding hot again.
The temperature fluctuations in our home are enough to drive
one insane. It seems the fires of hell
possess the upstairs portion of our home.
There are no ceiling fans upstairs, and sometimes the weather conditions
prohibit us from opening the windows.
Our only other options are to run the air conditioner (which we’re not
supposed to do in the winter), or bake in the stagnant air. Downstairs, one can feel many cold spots,
which might indicate that there are supernatural presences at work. Or it could just be that no matter how hot it
gets upstairs, it is always freezing in the half-buried basement. On the rare occasion when we pry open the
windows, the unholy stench of dog poop invades.
Each housing unit has a very small yard, and my neighbors have very big
dogs…you get the picture.
In addition to the clinging stench of canine excrement,
there are also a variety of uninvited guests in my house. During the winter, large spiders skulk
between the folds of the shower curtain.
Earwigs galore inhabit the downstairs in the summer. They like to hang out on the toilet seat,
which can be particularly unnerving if you have to go to the bathroom in the
middle of the night. The flies also
invade during the summer months, as if each garage on base contained rotting
corpses. It’s truly disgusting, and it
gives one the cozy feeling of living in a garbage dump.
So, as I lay awake at night, hoping not to hear those infernal
creaking noises again, I must ask myself…is my house haunted, or does it just
suck? In either case, I think it’s time
to move.
