Haunted House – Bellefontaine, OH

Witness: Kathy Wolboldt
Location: Bellefontaine, Ohio
Date of Encounter: 1995-Ongoing

I have had experiences with ghosts in the past while living in Bellefontaine, OH. My house was haunted–by whom–I don’t know.

I tried researching the house built in 1900 but could not find much info. For some reason, I always had this feeling the original house burnt down and the current house was rebuilt on the lot in 1900. The house was on the market for a good 6 months before we bought it. It was our first house and we moved in on Christmas Eve Day of 1995.

For the first few months, we would hear "strange" noises chalking it up to mice or house settling–thumpings, knockings in walls, and drops in temperature. In fact, we tried to get the furnace replaced under the home warranty but it was a brand new Lenox furnace that worked perfectly according to the repair man.

Then in February of 1996 we had our first thought that the house was "haunted." It was 7 AM and our bedroom door was closed. And someone or something knocked on the door like how a child would before entering their parents room–my husband and I have no children. I told my husband–someone just knocked on the door–he woke up and said "Oookkkaaayyy?" (like, I need to be checking out those mental hospitals today for my wife). Then, "it" knocked again…..and I said –what else?–"come in?" and my husband opened the door–no one there!

Then other things would happen, for example, we always had a problem with bats flying into our house. Then the footsteps would start–usually running like in a panic down the hallway and down the stairs. The dog would growl at mid air…by the way, my dog has not growled at thin air since we moved out of the house in December of 1998 . The dog absolutely refused to go to the basement–and would wet herself and then try to bite if I would attempt to force her.

On another occasion, I was on the phone with my mother-in-law and my dog was barking at thin air again. Her toy tennis ball that was lying in the other room was thrown/kicked at her by something. She yelped from it hitting her and ran and hid. I would take a bath and would feel someone watching me or there would be footsteps in the hall and the bathroom door knob would jiggle when I was home alone.

The most frightening experience I encountered was one night at maybe 8:30 PM I went upstairs to bed. I just got snuggled in when the temperature in the room dropped. The bedroom door was closed and as before there was the knock. I said, "Honey why are you knocking?" Then, the knocking feverously increased to a pounding–urgent–and the door knob was jiggling like someone was trying to open the door due to some sort of emergency. My husband was downstairs watching TV and heard this and me yelling for him and ran upstairs. The pounding stopped as soon as he crested the stairs. My husband flung open the door and yelled at me, "What the hell are you doing up here…?" He then realized that it was not me pounding on the door because I was still in bed and there was no way I could have gotten from across the room into bed in the short amount of time from when the pounding stopped to him opening the door. I then told him, "That’s it–we are moving." Which we finally did about a year later.

The door knocking stopped after that incident. My friend Jen witnessed the kitchen faucets turning on full blast by unseen hands-which freaked her out! Then, one day my mom came over and as we were walking up the sidewalk something pushed me from behind. All I felt was this ice cold hand push me…it took days for the ice cold handprint feeling to subside. My mother, by the way, witnessed this thing pushing me. I didn’t trip…my mom said it looked like someone came up and just pushed me. The force causing me to fall forward.

One time in "my haunted house" I was standing in the foyer and heard the "footsteps" again. The footsteps sounded like how a child might gallop or skip down steps very fast. I watched the staircase but never saw anything but halfway down the steps it just stopped. My friend suggested that it was a child ghost going down the steps and then "sliding" down the banister.

Thank you for reading my little "Tales from the Crypt." I think I will dig out photos from my old house in Bellefontaine, OH and see if I "see" anything "ghostly" now that I know what to look for–orbs, mist, etc. We have not experienced any "psychic" or "ghost" related things since moving from the house.