NORTH VANCOUVER B.C.

The following is the author’ s personal account

About 15 years ago, myself and some friends moved into a duplex in North Vancouver on St. David’s Avenue. 

Built in the 1950’s, the home was large, with two bedrooms upstairs and two down. It had two full bathrooms, living rooms on each floor—both with wood-burning fireplaces, as well as a full-sized kitchen and laundry room. For $2000 a month, the price was a bargain for the area, even in those days. Split between the four of us and close to stores and the SeaBus downtown, it was ideal for four guys in their twenties looking for adventure in the big city.

In the months that followed, however, we’d soon discover there was more to the seemingly good bargain than met the eye.

The first thing we noticed was the unmistakeable feeling of being watched, particularly in the basement. The moment you set foot down there, the sensation was almost palpable, especially in the small, dark area beneath the front steps. The home was your typical mid-century bungalow, with concrete steps leading to the front door on the upper floor and a partially sunken lower level. It was beneath those steps, in a cavern-like space off the basement living area, that that feeling was most pronounced, enough that made your nerves buzz. I remember my mother, on her first visit to the house, even remarked how uneasy the space made her feel. 

It wasn’t a sinister presence exactly–though it certainly didn’t make you feel welcome either–and the four of us quickly began to avoid the space, opting for the upstairs living room instead.

Shortly after moving in, one of our housemates, “O,” who occupied a basement bedroom, asked me out of the blue one day if I thought the house might be haunted. Surprised, as “O” was not the type to put much weight in the paranormal, I nodded and told him about the creepy feeling the whole lower floor gave me. I don’t recall him going into specifics about why he thought to ask, but I do remember being unnerved by his question, knowing now I wasn’t the only one who felt something was off about the place. Unfortunately, in the years since “O” and I have lost touch. 

The first tangible experience we had occurred a few months after we’d moved in while hanging out with friends upstairs. We were on the large sectional in living room talking, when one of the girls in the group suddenly pointed towards the open basement door and asked what was wrong with our light.

Turning to look, we watched in awe as the light over the stairwell turned on and off over and over. It didn’t flicker as it would if the bulb or wiring were bad. Rather, it came on for a few seconds, shut off, then came on again–as if someone were standing at the downstairs switch and deliberately manipulating it. The only people down there at the time were “O” and his girlfriend, both asleep in his room at the end of the hall. They later denied messing with the light, nor were they the types to pull a prank like that. It never happened again.

The next incident occurred only to me. I was in the upstairs bathroom showering with the door locked. I was partway through washing myself, when, out of nowhere, something small struck me and landed in the tub. Startled, I looked down and saw a quarter lying in the basin at my feet. More confused than frightened, I tried to rationalize how a coin could’ve gotten beyond the curtain and into the tub. There were no windows in the bathroom; no clothes hanging overhead where it could’ve fallen from; no shelves or ledges where change might’ve sat. I was in there alone and–as mentioned–the door was locked. Finishing up quickly, I concluded there was no rational way it could’ve happened.

It’s worth noting that by then the energy in the house was becoming increasingly negative. Rifts had begun to develop in our relationships, even to the point of violence. During the time we lived there I began to experience dark thoughts and very bad anxiety, enough that I sought professional help and got on medication. Later, after moving out and into another place, I saw a significant improvement in my symptoms almost right away. Now, none of that’s especially unusual for young guys living together in a new place for the first time, though I sometimes wonder if whatever was in that house might’ve played a part. Or perhaps, in a chicken or the egg type scenario, our own energy might’ve given it strength.

The creepiest encounter happened to another housemate, “N,” shortly before we moved out. We were all next door at our neighbours’ half of the duplex when “N” went back to our side to get something. As he stepped through the front door, he glanced into my open bedroom door, directly adjacent from the entry, and froze. Standing in the doorway, “N” claimed he saw the figure of a man in a white t-shirt–a man who had no business being there. Freaked out, he returned next door and told us what he’d seen. Upon investigating, there were no signs anybody else had been there and all of us were left unnerved by the incident. By then “N” had had experiences of own, including the same uneasy feeling downstairs and hearing sounds while trying to sleep at night. Interestingly, our neighbours—a group of guys the same age—claimed to never have had anything odd occur on their side. It seems that whatever resided in the house, stuck exclusively to our side. 

We moved out a month or so later. After “N’s” experience I had become increasingly uncomfortable in the house. Things came to a head one night while I was there alone. That feeling of being watched, previously confined to the basement, was so strong while I sat in the upstairs living room, I couldn’t stay inside any longer and ended up waiting on the front steps until someone returned home. 

Who might the ghost have been? The only possible insight came from our landlord, an eccentric English woman in her 70’s, who’d owned the house since 1973. 

Once, while she was over collecting our rent, “O” asked her the same question he had to me months before. While she scoffed at the idea of her house being haunted, what she said next partly answered the question, at least for me. She told us her father had once lived in the home and that he’d been very fond of it because it reminded him of his home back in England. 

Was he the presence we felt and saw? I guess I’ll never know.