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House Ghost/s
When the stock market bellied up in the mid 1970s, we sadly were unable to retain the large house, now so wonderfully improved that the greedy township had no problem happily taxing us out of it.
As the family were each members of the Studio Players of Upper Montclair, New Jersey, we found a place in Montclair on a one-way section of Orange Road near enough to Warren that we could "escape" without being trapped on a one-way street and having to drive all the way to Llewellyn.
This awesome house was at least a hundred years old.
We couldn't find anything as to its actual construction, but did find that some augmentation had been done in 1911.
We suspected that was changing some of the archway sliding doors into being sealed into common doors.
The house was three floors, with fifteen rooms.
I called dibs on my room on the third floor, while my parents had the majority of the second floor.
Going counter-clockwise, my brother's bedroom was right at the top of the stairs onto the second floor, followed by our parents' master bedroom, my dad's office, the bathroom, my mother's sewing room, and the stairs going up to the third floor (my room was above mom's sewing room).
My brother had set up his bed along the same wall as the door to the second floor common area that led to each room.
Essentially, if mom or dad were to come up the stairs to go straight to go directly to their room next to his, they would pass his doorway.
One afternoon, a few days into our having moved in, my brother was home alone in his room.
He was lying in his bed, awake, and glanced up.
On the opposite side of the room was his full length mirror.
It was the sort on a large stand, not attached to the wall, and at the moment it happened to be angled to show the doorway out of the room.
(Aware he was home alone), to my brother's surprise, he saw in the mirror's reflection someone silently passing the open doorway: a tall woman garbed in black.
And it clearly was not our mother.
More surprised than even startled, my brother ran from his bed to the door... only to find it was closed.
As I've mentioned, neither our second dog Lady (Snooper having passed years earlier), or our eventual cats, Bast and Mickey, ever made any sort of stereotypical animal reaction to/at anything Unseen.
However, even my father occasionally reported seeing movement out of the corner of his eye, when he was well aware he was alone in the house.
These events seemed limited to the second floor.
As my cat Bast had free range of the house, except for my brother's room in which my brother wouldn't allow him to enter (except for one, single occasion), he never had any problem with the second floor, occasionally even sleeping in my mother's sewing room when I wasn't home.
As I did not experience any apparent apparitions myself, I didn't really talk about it.
I had developed a large circle of friends from around the country, and one weekend a female friend was visiting who was extremely Sensitive, psychically.
She and I were home alone at one point, and for a few moments I left her in the TV room (directly below my parents' master bedroom), fetching for us a couple of sodas.
I was back within a few moments at which time she asked, "Is anyone else home than us?"
"No," I told her. "Just us." My cat Bast was wandering about the room demanding attention as usual, and Lady was in her regular spot at the foot of the stairs, so everyone living that was in the house was on the first floor.
"Because," she said, her eyes glancing upwards.
"There's someone walking around on the second floor."
"Oh," I realized.
"That'd just be our ghost," and I explained to her what little I knew.
One desperately cold winter, something Less Benign took place.
While my brother had a key to his room, he never locked his door, though at night he did close it.
Then one night, he awoke nearly frozen.
Somehow his electric blanket had been unplugged from the wall.
It was plugged in when he turned in, and it could not have been unplugged accidentally or simply fallen from the wall.
Now he was close to hypothermia, and in great pain, and was unable to rise from his own bed.
He managed to shout out for help, rousing my parents, who came to his aid, only to find his closed door locked.
It took several slams to get it to open, and my brother (at the time in his twenties), was so near-frozen, my parents literally had to place him between them in their large bed to warm him up.
It was the only time a second presence had been felt.
My brother was utterly convinced it had nothing to do with the black-garbed female spirit.
This was Something Else, though thankfully no other malevolent experiences took place.
Again we were taxed out of our home, and moved to nearby Verona.
I have no idea if the succeeding owner of the Montclair house experienced anything strange.
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