Remember the phone call I received telling me that I had the ghosts of two women living in my home and one was there with me at that very moment? If your memory is like mine you may need it refreshed, so quickly reread my October 2009 post “Gadzooks—it must be Halloween!”, I’ll wait here until you return…

It was mid-October when I called Wendy, assistant to Mary Ann Winkowski (consultant to the CBS hit television show “Ghost Whisperer”). Wendy, according to Mary Ann’s web site, does paranormal investigation and earthbound spirit and negative energy removal, up to a forty mile radius from Cleveland. As my good luck would have it, Wendy was scheduled to “ghostbust” a home just a few miles away from mine the following week.

When Wendy arrived at my front door she was greeted by my curious husband, Tim, our niece, Danielle, our many, many cats, our dog, and me. My first impression of Wendy was that she seemed very nice and normal, at least by my standards, so I began to worry about the impression my furry hoard was making on her. We were able to sequester our dog in another room but the cats, oh, the cats — how they  loved her and wanted to climb into her interesting satchel that contained sea salt and other paranormal type goodies. Fortunately Wendy likes cats and has a great tolerance for their curiosity.

We settled into the living room where we spent over an hour seated directly across from Wendy, hanging on to every word that she said. She told us that the ghosts of the two elderly women were there because they liked being around Tim. One lived in my upstairs office and the other in the downstairs family room where I sometimes work also. Apparently they liked to “keep an eye on me” during the day while Tim was at work. While alive, these women had spent a lot of time around the corner at the Chippewa Lake Amusement Park during its glory days and were most likely regulars at the popular Starlight Ballroom. Wendy gave us two names but they were common names and a search on the internet revealed nothing.

At one point Wendy sprinkled sea salt across each doorway into the house and also around the bed. Tim helped her tape Quince seeds above all the entrances, including the attic openings and basement doorways. While they were doing this the house became 2—3 degrees warmer and has remained that way all winter. When I remarked about feeling unusually warm, Wendy said that a house with a ghost will always be cold. As she was gathering her things, preparing to leave, she stopped suddenly, looked at us seriously and asked if we knew a man who had been killed in a hunting accident…she was picking up the tragic death of my brother, Danielle’s father, the previous year. This was very unnerving and we spent some time discussing his death. Later, when Wendy was leaving she assured us that our house was no longer haunted and that our visitors were now outside, free to move on to another house or wherever it is that ghosts go.

Some interesting things began to happen almost immediately. (1) The next morning the two cats that called my upstairs office “home” for five years decided it really was okay to come downstairs and join us in the family room, (2) during the day I felt more relaxed and at night I stopped grinding my teeth, no longer needing to wear a night guard, (3) our black and white cat, Cookie stopped walking into invisible walls and (4) the many odd, unexplainable things stopped happening, well, until just a few weeks ago…

Early one morning Tim called out to me from the family room saying that the brass ships lamp on the desk was rocking for no apparent reason. The lamp is designed to gently rock back and forth with the motion of a ship. The lamp continued to rock sporadically on it’s own for the rest of the day, as we both wondered—are they back?

I received a telephone call yesterday informing me that I have the ghosts of two women living in my home and that one was there with me at that very moment! The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I said “Yes, yes, tell me more…..”

Last year a friend recommended that my husband, Tim, and I read the book “When Ghosts Speak“. It’s written by Mary Ann Winkowski, consultant to the CBS hit television show “Ghost Whisperer”. We bought the book and enjoyed reading it. Imagine our surprise when we learned that Mary Ann lives in nearby Cleveland and that she was appearing on Halloween at Carrie Cerino’s Restaurant. I quickly made our reservations for the event.

Months later, we began attending Mary Ann’s monthly book club meetings at Borders Books in Strongsville. It’s always an interesting evening with Mary Ann and attracts lots of unique people with great stories. It was about this time that we learned that if you called Mary Ann from your home on a land line, she could tell you if  there are any ghosts in your home. We found this especially intriguing since we often joked about sharing our home with the paranormal.

Our ghost, we thought, could only be seen by our black and white cat, Cookie. Cookie has freaked us out for several years with her imitation of a mime. She can be walking across the room and walk directly into an invisible wall. She will actually push against it a couple of times and then step back and walk around it. Yes, very creepy.

Another time there seemed to be some type of alien force field between me and Cookie that kept her from coming to me. She tried to push past it but couldn’t get any closer than three feet! Finally turning and hugging the wall, she was able to reach me from a different direction.

Now here’s my dilemma….one of Mary Ann’s assistants has offered to come to our home to contact and remove our ghosts, for a fee, of course. Tim, who encouraged me to call her in the first place, thinks I’m being silly for wanting to have her visit. I feel that since I’ve gone this far, I should see it through and even view it as some Halloween fun. What do you think?