SOUTHINGTON, Conn. — When Jim Post and his wife Jackie rented the top two floors of a big Southington colonial in 1995, they had no idea of its reputation as a haunted house or of the history that would one day make it the subject of a horror film called, "The Haunting in Connecticut."
As fate would have it, they found out on Halloween, when Post asked the first-floor tenant if he wanted to share trick-or-treating duties.
The man replied, "We don't do Halloween anymore. It got too weird, people would come from all over, and they would line up down the sidewalk and down the road, wanting to get in."
Later, Post said the neighbor showed him a tabloid, that listed the top ten haunted houses in the world, and there was the house he had just moved into.
Strange things began to happen right away. Not terrifying things, just things that occasionally happen to all of us, but seemed to happen a lot in this house.
"There were some missing keys, missing personal items, I'd look for an envelope that I had in the mail and it wasn't there," said Post.
An envelope with $500 cash inside went missing from a chest full of sweaters and other items. They turned it inside out looking for the money, Post said, but it was gone.
More strange things continued.
"I had some friends coming over to visit me, we were gonna go out that evening," Post said. "I'm in the shower, I hear the car pull up, I hear them bounding up the stairs and they start talking to me. And I'm like hey guys I'm in the shower, and they said okay, we're gonna go get some food get some drinks, we'll be back in 10 minutes. I got out of the shower, got out got dressed, I hear em pull in, they bound up the staircase, and they had the same exact conversation with me from 10 minutes earlier."
He quizzed them about that conversation from 10 minutes earlier, and they said, "What are you talking about? We just got here."
Then there was the night that Jackie saw her mother, who had passed away years earlier, hovering in a corner of their bedroom.
"She said she saw her in the corner there watching over her, and she recognized her flannel nightgown that she always wore," said Post.
Post said he didn't see Jackie's mother, he just saw the curtains move, for no reason. But the scariest story Post has to tell actually happened to a friend who was helping him paint a room.
One night that friend stayed behind alone to work while Post and his wife went out for dinner.
"He said he was painting, and he just felt a presence, the hair on the back of his neck went up, looked around, nobody was there, so he started painting, and then he felt actually like pressure, something pushing him against the wall. "He said he got out of there so fast, he ran down the stairs... He said he felt like he was going down an up escalator," Post said. "Got in his car, pulled around, and he said the transformer blew up in the street."
Still, Post said the episodes he experienced were mischievous, even playful, but not malevolent, and he wouldn't necessarily call the house "Haunted," at least in an evil way.
Post's cousin, who was a medium, visited and had a similar take, but with an interesting twist.
"She said I'm picking up, especially a female presence... Ad she likes you... And she points right at me. And she said I think she's trying to get you and your wife into a little bit of a tiff," Post said.
Brent Hardin is an anchor at FOX61 News. He can be reached at bhardin@fox61.com. Follow him on Facebook, X and Instagram.
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