A mysterious light

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

To get to my house, which is sorta in the boonies, one must travel ~10 miles down a windy, two lane county road. There are several houses and farms along this road, it isn’t exactly the middle of nowhere

There is a house, right beside the road, that has been abandoned for years. It looks very much like a stereotypical haunted house: ivy covering the outside walls, roof caving in here and there, and the windows that aren’t boarded up are devoid of glass. What was once a yard is now a large expanse of briar bushes and thistle. The short driveway has been reclaimed, and from the road all you can see are two short tracks disappearing into some brush. The detached garage has collapsed into itself.

I have to take my kids to school early, before it is fully light outside. Several weeks ago, when I drove past the old house, the front porch light was on! WTF?

I spent most of the day trying think of some scenario in which the front porch light would be on. I came up blank. I can’t imagine anyone in the house; even squatters would be pretty miserable in that old place. Kids finding someplace for illicit drink/sex? Doubt it. Besides being a dump, and having more comfortable/private places nearby (barns), it is literally right next to the road. Even a candle would be noticed. Even if it is kids, squatters, etc. why turn on the porch light?

My wife goes to open her daycare (in a different house than the one we live) before I leave, and she mentioned that she had seen the light on that morning, too!

The next morning, it was on. That day, returning home in the daylight, it was off.

:confused:

So we started keeping a tally. The light is on in the mornings, but only on weekdays. I work saturdays and the light is not on Saturday mornings, and it is not on Sunday morning when my wife goes to church. My wife comes home late, about 8pm a couple nights a week, and the light isn’t on then.

This morning, while taking my kids to school, I said screw it and pulled off the road in front of the old house. I spent a good ten minutes trying to figure out an answer. No luck. Absolutely no sign of people. No path cut through the briars to get to the door. No footprints in what remained of the driveway. Nothing. I also noticed today that the roof is in worse shape than I imagined. It is all but gone; I doubt there is a dry board in the house.

And, as usual nowadays, the front porch light was shining brightly.

I’m thoroughly stumped.

2

Weird and creepy. I’m surprised there is even electricity to the house. Next time go up to the house and see if you can get any other lights to turn on. Call the electric company and ask if the house has service.

3

I was going to suggest a photocell that turns the light on when it’s dark, but that doesn’t make sense when you factor in evenings and weekends with no lights. So obviously the place is haunted, but only on workdays. That’s all I’ve got…

4

You said yourself that the place looks like a haunted house. This is October. Either some teenagers thought it would be fun to have a haunted campout, or they’re preparing the place to show off as a haunted house.

5

Did you happen to notice if the bulb was an old incandescent or a new compact flourescent? Are power lines still visibly strung to the place?

6

Call the electric company just on the off-chance that they’ll tell you “That light has been burned out for twenty years!” (End of just about every single ghost story ever.)

7

This pic was taken with, and sent from an Android smartphone, so my apologies that its only a couple hundred pixels. But it gives you some idea of what I’m talking about. This was taken about 10.30 am. I usually get home aboig 3.30-4pm, so now I know the light goes out between 10.30 and 3.30. Near as I can tell its an incandescent bulb. There are power lines running to the house, I think yon can see them in the photo.

If this is just kids pulling a Halloween prank, then those kids need to think outside the box a bit.

http://m1138.photobucket.com/albums/Lancia1/

8

The light is on a timer. Recently someone, for some reason, restored power to the house. Originally the timer probably kept the light on at night. Now it’s out of synch.

9

That was my first guess, but why the hell would someone do that? Theft deterrent? Nothing to steal. Besides, spending an afternoon cleaning up the yard, painting the door, then putting a light with a timer inside the house would make more sense to me.

The house isn’t on the market; nobody has lived there in ten years or so. Why restore power? In that house, that’s asking for a fire.

10

If there are no footprints out front…is there a way into the house from the back? Maybe somebody is intentionally trying to avoid using the front entrance, but the light signals to friends that he’s at home .

also, your pic—(which I found a bit disappointing for a pre-Halloween thread-it’s not quite as haunted as I expected) raises a few questions:
where is the ivy? A proper haunted house needs enough ivy to completely cover the exterior; bonus points if the rustling leaves whisper ghostly sounds at night.
Are you sure there is no glass in those windows? They don’t look so dilapidated to me.
I can’t see the roof from this pic–but even if it has collapsed, maybe one room of the house is still usable?
(I dunno…drug dealing?maybe not even from inside the house, but from someplace nearby, hidden by the brush?)

So all in all…it’s a wonderful mystery!!! Please follow up on it for us.

11

What I meant was that the light was put on a timer years ago when the house was inhabited. When the power came back on, the old timer started ticking again, turning the light on and off .

Power might have been restored by vandals or squatters.

Personally I’d call the electric company and tell them that the power is on in the place. As you said, it’s a fire waiting to happen.

12

Subscribed. I’m intrigued. Are you sure the house is vacant? Do you dare go up and peak in the windows?

13

Clearly, what you’ve got yourself there is a gardinel. As that eminent folklorist, Silver John put it:

Yours must be a subspecies that has developed a bioluminescent organ that mimics a porch light. It hasn’t been getting enough prey lately, so it’s putting out another lure.
:wink:

14

Perhaps the owner is becoming divorced and needs a place to live for a bit.
:slight_smile:

15

It’s even worse than I thought–gardinels have posting privileges! :smiley:

16

Come on in and sit a spell. :slight_smile:

17

Obtain the following items/people–
[ul]
[li]An Ascot[/li][li]A nerdy girl[/li][li]A sexy redhead[/li][li]A Stoner[/li][li]A Great Dane[/li][/ul]

Investigate.

You will discover it is Old Man Perkins, & he is trying to fool people into think the place is haunted, to hide the fact that he is looking for buried treasure.

18

Obviously the ghosts have finally become unionized.

19

There’s a light,

OVER AT THE FRANKENSTEIN PLACE.

20

The bank who owns the property has sent someone to prepare the old dump for sale. They have turned the power, and the light, back on to discourage vandalism.

Not very mysterious.