I always told myself that if I ever lived in a haunted house I’d just move. Why be like one of those families that just “stick it out” because it is their “home” and they love the house and are certain to explain away the problems/spiritual-overtaking, or can get a paranormal expert to come in and cleanse the house.

Have you ever ruined a shirt or pair of pants? Gotten a stain so deep into them that they are worthless as regular day-to-day clothing in the normal world? Ever encountered something you simply couldn’t fix? Sure the stain can fade – but the imperfection is still there. With each washing the rest of the fabric wears down and becomes weaker, a mere shadow of its former sturdy self. That’s what you are asking for if you want to try and “fix” your haunted house. You may diminish the whatever-decided-to live-with-you, but you can never truly rid yourself of it.

So why not just leave? Run away and never look back – become the person you want to be after shedding those final ties to that God forsaken house. Its just wood and nails after all, right? Not really.

The stain is set, and just like a ruined jersey that grinds into the rest of the clothing in your hamper – the stain spreads. Well the stain is spreading. I feel my house hate me, while also needing me. I feel myself wanting to escape these sometimes-darkened walls, while also needing the solace of the warden made of 2×4 timbers.

Is this an addiction? Am I addicted to my house? What part of me desires this unnerving and soul tapping fear?

While troubleshooting an electrical problem with (you guessed it) a ceiling fan, I put on a brave face and climbed into my attic to check out the electrical box that the fan attaches to. I tried doing this from below but the box got wedged and wouldn’t come undone. I am deathly afraid of the attic – I can hear something moving about up there all through the night. I once dismissed it as a raccoon or something on the roof, but sometimes I see the ceiling bulge down and know its something between the rafters.

I spent several minutes standing on my ladder and rotating in place with my flashlight shining it around the surfaces and watching for any movement. Of course there was nothing up there that I could see other than the blown insulation and the gray dust that hung in the air drifting in the beam of my light and from the few vents that speckle the wooden supports and plyboard above me. I hesitated several more minutes before ascending all the way up leaving the noises of normal air below me and engulfing myself in the stifling heat of an attic in early summer.

It was almost peaceful with all the silence. The thin planks of wood that stretched between the ceiling joists helped me make decent time from the entry to the slanted and thinning eves portion of the crawlspace. It would become pitch black each time I would mistakenly use the flashlight to move some of the insulation and buried it – the vents providing zero reprieve. The seconds of extreme blackness seemed like minutes as I would shift my weight to remove the light from the fluff and reinspect my surroundings. I was dripping sweat like I never had before, sticking my shirt to my back and drenching myself. My one splayed hand and two kneed approach to getting from my point A to my point B was taking too long.

I just managed to get to the light electrical box thing when the board beneath me cracked and I quickly got to a safe beam – not wanting to fall to my demise, through the ceiling and into the kitchen. Disorienting as it is up there, it began to spin slightly clockwise, and though I perched my torch on the rafter beside me and I squatted on all fours, vertigo set in and then the fun began.

The attic exhaled and boards creaked all around me as the attic-top descended and tried to crush me where I “stood”. I could see the opening I crawled from only minutes before, not more than twenty feet away. The light that shined up from the promising cavity hit the boards and was absorbed into the grain – without my flashlight I would be in a slow labyrinth of rafter trying to make it back to the cooler air. More disheartening was the flicker of shadows below the attic doorway dancing on the press board and shingled layer above me. I was the only one home, there shouldn’t be anyone down there.

Deciding to forget the risk of falling through I just moved full throttle to the entry, planning to take my chances with whoever was below me. Sight eluded to blindness and I shoved my flashlight down to stabilize me with each bound towards the horizontal door. My attic didn’t want me to leave – halfway to the opening I witnessed the light below diminish as if it were falling away or the attic was blasting off. More grunts from the planks around me only kept me leaping forward and I reached the hatch and slid down the ladder face first and let my legs crumble on top of me raining gray insulation into my eyes.

I righted myself and reached up to grab the handle on he crawlspace cover and pulled it across to seal in the dusty glutton that is now my attic. In an almost vacuum-like seal the cover came to its normal resting spot with a slight sucking sound. Collapsing my ladder and pulling it away from the opening seemed to spur the rooftop into a frenzy and it moaned for several seconds. I can only imagine what kind of contorting and emissions it was making outside the house.

Suffice to say, I am not finishing the installation of that fan.

I’m not even sure I can use the term inanimate in all cases. My ceiling fan is definitely animated. It spins and creates drafts just to get my attention. Is that what all this is? Just a ploy to garner a little attention? That makes me sound even more vane or selfish doesn’t it? That I would think objects around me would be demanding my attention?

Regardless, my fan kind of sputtered in the middle of the room increasing speed and slowing down again, and when I finally gave in and tried to investigate it swung around normally and just gave off its pleasant breeze. But when I tried to walk away it came back to life with a whir and spat hot air down on me. I turned off the switch and let it slowly die – its propellers in a decaying state of orbit above my bed.

So I leave it turned off. I don’t even use the light attached to its underbelly. I can still hear it giggle when I turn my back, but when I try to get close enough to decipher the other whispers it denies me the pleasure of confirming its existence. Only its wobbling chain connected to the motor give off any evidence to the mayhem.