April 23, 2009

Strong Odor and Darting Shadows

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Nikki - Southfield, Massachusetts - April 13, 2009

I live with my mother in a rather rural area. Our house was built by our landlord, and was built on a lot that originally held a small gas station. I don't know much about the history of this area or our home beyond that. Anyway, my mother started to complain that she was smelling an extremely foul odor in the house in late February 2009. She only ever smells it in our house, nowhere else. She describes the odor as stinking like rotting flesh and blood, and she says it's been very strong throughout the house, especially in the hallway and bathroom areas. I have never smelled anything like what she has described, and none of our guests in the last few months have either.

Since Sunday, April 12th, she has claimed that the scent is now moving. It becomes fainter throughout the house, and at times she doesn't smell it at all. We both started seeing shadowy moving figures in the corners of our eyes randomly that night. Yesterday, April 13th, she went into the bathroom to take a shower and get ready for work, and didn't smell the odor. As soon as she got out of the shower, she suddenly smelled it and felt as if someone was in the room with her. She immediately told it to leave the bathroom. The scent suddenly disappeared. Two minutes later, the smell returned to the bathroom. She again said, "Get out!" and the odor left, leaving behind a smell akin to dryer sheets, even though we don't use dryer sheets. Five minutes later, the foul odor returned yet again, and she yelled at it, and it left for the rest of the night.

Around 10:00 PM that night, I started hearing a scratching noise in the kitchen, which is attached to the living room (where I was). I then heard a strange meow. It sounded unnatural, almost as though it was a human making the "meow" sound and not a cat. I at first told myself, "It's just one of my cats," (I have two) but they were both in the living room with me and were staring into the kitchen with wide eyes... so I'm not exactly sure what the meow was from. I then started hearing a light thumping noise, as if some light object was falling on the floor, coming from our back storage room, which is right off the hallway. I investigated and found a few of my candles on the floor. They had been on top of the dresser back there. The storage room door was closed at the time of the noise, and no one was in there. I sat back down in the living room, and saw another moving shadow out of the corner of my eye, this time in the living room. Mom returned from work at 7:00 AM today (April 13th, 2009), and claimed she didn't smell anything unusual. After settling in on the couch, she suddenly claimed to smell the foul odor stronger than ever. I left the room (I had to use the bathroom), and when I returned to the living room, my mother laughed at me and said, "Very funny!" She then went on to tell me that she heard a creepy meow coming from the hallway when I was in the bathroom, and she thought I had made the noise. She said it sounded like a girlish voice saying, "Meeeowww." I assured her I didn't make the noise, and I told her about the similar sound I heard in the kitchen last night. Both cats were in the living room napping at the time she heard the noise, and I didn't hear it that time, despite being only three feet away from where she said the sound came from.

The only other things I've noticed is that certain rooms randomly become quite cold, and then warm up momentarily, only to get cold again. I also keep getting the creepy feeling that I'm being watched at times, and it doesn't help when my cats look behind me with wide eyes. My cats have not reacted aggressively, but I've noticed that my younger cat is quite jumpy lately, and my normally silent older cat is vocal at random times (usually meowing at something I can't see behind me).

We moved into this place in April 2007. Beyond feeling randomly uneasy at random times, I've never experienced anything here until recently. Mom has never experienced anything like this until February 2009. Between late February and April 11th, the smell was just a constant odor, as if it followed her around the house. Just within the past few days, the odor has begun moving about the house randomly and we've started seeing shadows out of the corners of our eyes and hearing weird noises. My mother, being her, thinks this is all quite awesome. She's always been rather interested in the paranormal, but has never experienced anything until now. I, on the other hand, am rather creeped out and want to resolve this issue as soon as possible. Any ideas on what could be going on? Why now? What we can do? Anything at all will be appreciated. We haven't changed anything or moved anything around in the house, or done anything that should of woken up a spirit of any kind. I'm assuming it's a spirit because of everything that's happening. I'm a little afraid of its sudden active behavior as well. It was okay when it was just an odor only mom could smell, but now that we're both seeing and hearing things, I'm a bit concerned. I should also mention that when my mother checked out the back storage room this morning, she said the air felt heavy and she had a hard time breathing in there. She immediately left the room. I went in there a few minutes later, and it was very col, but I didn't feel that the air was heavy and I was breathing fine. I do know that the previous renters of this house owned a cat who died of kidney failure in the room we now use for storage. I'd be the first one to blame the weird activity on a ghost cat (ghost cats seem a lot less scary than unknown creepy meowing non-cat ghost), but the meow is really not feline in nature at all, and the shadows that we've seen seem to be tall and human in stature. That's what really throws me off. Again, any help will be very appreciated. Oh, and we're not religious people. She's agnostic, and I'm atheist... so calling a clergyman probably won't help us out too much.