I grew up in a haunted house.  This usually is a topic I avoid talking about in mixed company.  I already have a reputation for 
being a bit of an iconoclast; there's no sense in embellishing that with the epithet "kook."  But haunted house it is; even if its 
ethereal inhabitant is rather mediocre and dull. And I think now is the time to hear about it. 

My parents' home sits atop a hill in a charming Central Pennsylvania village...across from one of the town's THREE cemeteries,  appropriately enough.  It does not look like the Addams Family mansion; it looks more like one
of those dollhouses my great-grandmother used to collect.  It's adorable, and it was cheap.  The low price had nothing
to do with any ghosts in the house, either.  The previous owner had gome bankrupt, and my parents walked into a great deal. 
Sure, the house needed oodles of renovation work, but since my dad does that for a living anyway it was no small price
to pay. 

My parents, being history junkies, had looked up the past owners in the county courthouse.  All of them had been fairly poor; 
as our house was never anything special.  One woman died of TB in what was to become my bedroom (all of her children had been shipped off to the orphanage).  The town drunk lived there for a while but he died as well. Most of the other people who lived there only lived there for a short time because they either died, or the sheriff had them evicted for back taxes.  Although no one particularly interesting had lived there, my parents felt  more at home knowing the house's past and who had inhabited the same space.  It's just something cool to know. 

The people who had lived in that house the longest were a couple named Harry and Ruth. They were well-loved by the children in town for being a nice elderly couple who would give them lemonade, until Harry died and Ruth
was shipped unwillingly into a home by her daughter. Ruth spent the rest of her substantial life (she was 102 when she finally
passed away) crying, and wishing she were back in her beloved house.  Which was by now the Teeple home. 

I had always felt so sad for Ruth when I heard these stories from our elderly neighbours who would visit her occasionally in the nursing home.  It was a darling house, and I loved it too.  She had been there for fifty years, I didn't blame her one bit for wanting to come back.  But she couldn't, until she finally passed away....and then the hauntings started. 

Even after we had just moved there, sometimes the doors would mysteriously open into the summer kitchen, which adjoins the house.  We attributed that to the peculiar, ancient doorknobs still attached to the house's doors, all of which have individual temperments.  The knob to the side porch has a special trick to it; the front porch doorknob has a special stick to it.  The summer kitchen door is the token jiggly knob.  None of them work properly, and we have to explain to visitors how to operate each one. These door-openings could always be explained to changes in air pressure (our house is circular
upstairs and down) and failure to operate any of the aforementioned doorknobs correctly.  Until the attic door started
mysteriously opening when we were out of the house. 

The upstairs doors are fastened by 19th-century latches that are probably original to the house, or pretty darn close.  The only one that is broken is the latch that opens the attic door.  Wanting to stop any draughts, my mother put a pin inside to keep the latch from jiggling, and the only way the door can possibly be opened is for someone to physically remove the pin, which cannot fall out. 

On more than one occasion we have come upstairs and found the pin on the floor and the attic door wide-open. The latch to my bedroom door started mysteriously lifting in the middle of the day (always around the same time in the  afternoon). My mother, sitting alone in the house downstairs in the living room, said some days she would hear distinct 
footsteps upstairs walking to my door and hearing the door opening....but she would be the only one in the house.  We thought for a while that it might be our cat (who is quite heavy), but our cat would often be sleeping right next to her.  She also said that several times when she was running the vacuum she would feel someone tap her twice on the shoulder...but no one was there when she turned around. 

My mother kept this quiet for quite some time, for fear of being laughed at by the rest of us.  Indeed, the whole idea was kind 
of silly, considering we had had no previous haunting occurrences.  My dad and my sister had not witnessed any of this, and I didn't believe in it, nor wanted to.  We all noticed from time to time that our cat would sit placidly at the same spot in the 
kitchen and yowl vaguely toward the kitchen window.  He never looked alarmed; he simply yowled and moved his head as if 
he were watching someone. Our next-door neighbour told us fondly one day how Harry used to sit at that window in his 
rocking chair. We hadn't told her about the cat, but it explained his weird behaviour, and we found it sort of cute, but my dad 
and I still didn't really think there was anything supernatural living in our house. 

One night when all of us were in the living room watching TV, when the VCR mysteriously turned itself on, rewound the 
tape inside, and shut iteself off.  None of us had touched the machine; none of us had touched the VCR remote. We all stared  at it in disbelief for about 10 seconds, said 'that was weird,'  and continued watching The Simpsons. 

Several nights later, I stayed up late studying in the kitchen, wearing headphones.  The rest of my family had gone to sleep; I 
was getting tired myself, and drifted off at the table.  I wakened to someone gently tapping me on the shoulder, which I 
presumed to be my mother or sister, telling me to call it a night.  There was no-one there.  I nonchalantly attributed it to 
dreaming and went upstairs to bed. It wasn't until I told my mother about this the next day that I got the story about her getting tapped whilst running the vacuum, when I started getting chills. The tapping only seemed to be happening to me and my mother. 

It happened to me again one day when I was running the vacuum myself. I had a space upstairs in the summer kitchen (which hasn't been renovated since before WWI),which I intended to use as a painting studio. I couldn't work there because of this gnawing, disturbing feeling that someone else was in the room with me.  I haven't been back up there since.  My mother refuses to go into the summer kitchen alone out to our freezer because she gets the same feeling.  It's unnerving, yet unexplainable. 

I had this china figurine on my bureau that my grandmother had given me.  One day, right after Christmas while I was cleaning my room, I placed it in the middle of the bureau so it wouldn't fall.  I needed another towel, so I went downstairs.  When I 
returned, the figurine stood upright in the middle of the floor, as if it had been gently placed there.  I was the only one in the 
house at the time, and there was no way this thing could have fallen - or if it had, fallen without breaking. 
My mother had been yelling at my sister and me for eons for taking her pens.  Yes, we had taken them on occasion, but usually returned them to their proper place.  Mom, however, could never find them. 
I had bought a nice pen for my sister for Christmas and wrapped it, but for the life of me I couldn't find the parcel when it came time to bring down the presents.  I assumed I had hidden it better than I thought.  But that same day when I was cleaning, I found an old backpack I'd stopped using several years ago.  The front pocket seemed heavier than 
expected, so I opened it to see what was in there... 

Close to twenty of my mother's special pens, including the one I had bought for my
sister....unwrapped, and lying on top. 
 

These little things would give me chills and something to commiserate about with my mom, but NewYear's Eve changed 
everything. We had stayed up until midnight to watch the ball drop, but as usual with my family, the copious amount of champagne we usually consume made us copiously sleepy.  So we all went to bed.  I had been painting in my room and the fumes were too much, so I opted to spend the night on the living room floor. 
Over by the Christmas tree there was a balloon that my mother's students had given her.  It never moved, it just hovered silently above the several fruitcakes that her students had ALSO given her.  It barely moved whenever someone walked underneath it.I had just gotten used to it being there, in the back of the living room, leaking out helium daily. 

Scritch-scritch-scritch.  

I opened my eyes to see what the noise was.  

Scritch-scritch-scritch. 

The balloon brushed against the ceiling, the string taut as if it were being pulled.  I ran upstairs to my sister's room; she
was sound asleep. 

Scritch-scritch-scritchscritchscritchscritch!!!!!  The balloon followed me up the stairs!
This would not  have been remarkable, had there not been a transom window that the balloon would somehow have to go under to reach the stariwell. Horrified, I grabbed the string of the balloon, ran down the stairs, threw it outside, and ran
back upstairs and pulled the blanket over my head.  I did not sleep an hour that night.  Thank god we drove to Philadelphia the next day. 

After that episode I was so freaked out about sleeping alone in the living room that I never did it again until I moved out of the house and came home for a visit.  My parents have since gotten a new sofa and chair, and the hauntings in the house became less frequent since I left.  On occasion, missing socks turn up in bizarre places.  I no longer feel scared of sleeping in the living room, because I know the ghost is some nice old lady.  And when the VCR turned itself on the last time I was home and rewound the tape inside, I said "Thank you, Ruth - be kind, please rewind."