My house that went bump in the night

This is my true story that is not an attempt to validate nor dispel the supernatural. I am simply telling what took place. In February 2018 my family moved into a 2 story house that was 113 years old. It is made of those really old red bricks but looks decent on the outside. One night a few days after moving in my husband was walking to the kitchen without any lights on and said he felt something run past his leg in the hallway. He turned on the nearest light but did not see anything and we decided it must have been the cat.

At times during the night, it would sound as if my grandchildren were running downstairs when they were not around. After the cat died we began seeing mice and could hear them in the walls and attic. Sometimes they were scratching and on other occasions, they made bumping sounds inside of the walls. One night I was in the kitchen and heard what sounded like heavy footsteps in the room above. I ran up the steps and entered the room above the kitchen and underneath my feet was the sound of scurrying so loud I wondered if something larger than a mouse was involved.

When the neighbor next door is working in her yard it sounds like someone is in the downstairs back room. There are squirrels that crawl up the side of the house and peer in windows and also run through the front porch roof. Two nights in a row I woke up at around 2 am to what sounded like someone in a closet going through coat hangers in the adjacent bedroom. There was nothing in that closet so I attributed it to the mice and or squirrels.

Sometimes it sounds as if someone is actually knocking from inside the walls and this can be annoying. We live on the corner and when cars go by they cause sounds to echo in various parts of the house. When water goes down the drain in the upstairs bathroom it sounds like someone is bumping on the ceiling in the bathroom directly below. I now wonder how many people who believe something supernatural is taking place in their home are simply dealing with an old house that creaks and groans or has rodents?

We got a new cat and the mice have decreased but once in a while, we hear one or more inside of a wall. The cat often sleeps alone downstairs and seems very comfortable. For this reason, I don't think anything supernatural is going on but it cannot be ruled out. On television shows about hauntings, the animals are always nervous or have places in the home they will not enter. There is only one place in this house my cat will not set foot in and that is in the area off from the kitchen.

When you walk straight down the hall from the front door there is a back door, On the other side is a small area for the washer and dryer. To the left is a bathroom and to the right is a small carpeted room that is used as an office. In the middle is a door that leads to outside. The cat followed me once to that area but after that he would just sit in the hallway. He will look out of the front storm door and stand at the upstairs door that leads to a small porch but will not cross that downstairs threshold.

No one in the family has ever had a problem in that area and the first cat spent a lot of time there so we have no explanation. There was one night where my two youngest grandchildren claimed to have seen a blonde woman in a white hoodie peeping through the window of that back door but we found no evidence. I can recall during our first months in the house I would be sitting in the living room at night watching television. Out of the corner of my eye it would look as if something like a shadow went right by the door. I always got up and investigated and saw nothing.

This happened on 3 or 4 occasions and the last time it happened I went to the hallway and said out loud that no evil spirits were allowed in my house and only the Holy Spirit was welcome and I never had that issue again. There are a few things for which I have no logical explanation. On 7 or 8 occasions my husband and I would hear what sounded like footsteps outside of our bedroom door only to find no one was there. We have a laminate floor and footsteps make a very distinct sound. It has happened during the day and night. It will sound like someone is walking right in front of our door. There are also times when we are upstairs and it sounds like the front door opened and we wait but no one comes inside.

There are times when it sounds like someone is knocking on the front door which makes no sense as there are two doorbells. One for upstairs and one for downstairs. It could be that we are hearing people knocking on neighbors' doors. All of these incidents happening frequently can be quite annoying and this is why I am thankful to be moving in a few days. All homes have their issues and I am certain the new one does as well.

I hope I never again live in a house with as many creaks and groans and unexplained occurrences as the one I reside in at this moment. This house sat vacant for many years before it was remodeled and the mice and squirrels have been used to having their way. Once we leave they can roam freely again and if there were any spirits lurking they will probably return as well.