# Haunted house question
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haunted-house-question/847157
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [January 29, 2020, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haunted-house-question/847157 "2020-01-29T10:54:23Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2020, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haunted-house-question/847157/21 "2020-01-30T13:40:51Z")
> [@Declanium](#):
>
> Ghosts aren’t real.
Is this a religious view? Some assumed truth? It’s certainly not a statement is not based on facts.
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### Author:  [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2020, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haunted-house-question/847157/22 "2020-01-30T13:44:58Z")
> [@kanicbird](#):
>
> Is this a religious view? Some assumed truth? It’s certainly not a statement is not based on facts.
You could say the same about leprechauns and invisible pink unicorns.
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### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2020, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haunted-house-question/847157/23 "2020-01-30T13:53:32Z")
> [@Grrr](#):
>
> You could say the same about leprechauns and invisible pink unicorns.
Either of which could make the property more desirable.
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### Author:  [@Declanium](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declanium)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2020, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haunted-house-question/847157/24 "2020-01-30T13:54:43Z")
Not a religious view but a somewhat scientific view. Maybe I should amend to “I do not believe ghosts are real.” Cuz I don’t. I’m approaching retirement age and have never seen/heard one, and neither has any one of my family or friends. Phenomena people suspect as related to the supernatural can be attributed to completely natural explanation.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2020, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haunted-house-question/847157/25 "2020-01-30T14:35:28Z")
> [@kanicbird](#):
>
> Is this a religious view? Some assumed truth? It’s certainly not a statement is not based on facts.
By all means, present one, maybe in a mason jar, for evaluation by a scientist and we can study the phenomenon.
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### Author:  [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2020, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haunted-house-question/847157/26 "2020-01-30T14:54:34Z")
If a house has a reputation, even if it’s something silly like ghosts, that could impact property value.
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### Author:  [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2020, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haunted-house-question/847157/27 "2020-01-30T15:35:38Z")
Depends where you are. In New Orleans, it’s often a selling point.
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### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2020, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haunted-house-question/847157/28 "2020-01-30T15:45:05Z")
> [@kanicbird](#):
>
> Is this a religious view? Some assumed truth? It’s certainly not a statement is not based on facts.
Ghost are not accepted as real by any peer reviewed science are they?
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2020, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haunted-house-question/847157/29 "2020-01-30T15:54:10Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#):
>
> Ghost are not accepted as real by any peer reviewed science are they?
How are we defining “ghosts,” or “real” for that matter?
I’m not sure what facts would suffice to establish definitively that “ghosts aren’t real,” so I’m at least sympathetic to **kanicbird** ’s point of view on this.
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### Author:  [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2020, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haunted-house-question/847157/30 "2020-01-30T16:03:44Z")
Hells bells, I lived in a haunted house - have mentioned it on the boards here more than once as I recall.
I think it would make me more inclined to buy it than less inclined. I would even live in that stalker house [um, Pennsylvania I believe - family buying it got very _creepy_ letters saying something along the lines that he is the second or third generation to watch the house and something bad would happen, not sure if my google-fu is good enough to find it.]
[Found it](https://www.mcall.com/news/pennsylvania/mc-nws-pa--20190809-gpi2rvrqqjhk5j5yfihhlhihwm-story.html). Hell, I _knew_ I had a stalker who actively wished to harm me [and did harm me before I moved out of our house, and actively harassed me until I moved out of state, and randomly harassed me until he died] so someone just letter-writing? Psh. I might go slightly overboard and replace the windows with break resistant and burglar resistant windows, and more secure doors, and just double check all the walls in the basement and upper floors for secret access, and scope it out regularly for monitoring devices, but I would live there. Sort of like deciding to live in an embassy in some place like Soviet Russia or Mao vintage China …
[and speaking as someone who had to be paranoid at times, people live in amazingly insecure manners - as my paranoid gun running Uncle Charlie once told me to always keep aware and have an exit strategy in mind no matter how safe you feel. Kept him alive in the cold war =) and worked for me in the worst years of the stalking.]
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### Author:  [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2020, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haunted-house-question/847157/31 "2020-01-30T17:11:30Z")
How would one go about proving a house was haunted?
Seems like an open and shut case if someone wanted to sue you for not disclosing that a house was haunted. You simply say “prove it” and they provide evidence in the form of ???
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### Author:  [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2020, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haunted-house-question/847157/32 "2020-01-30T17:23:32Z")
> [@Shodan](#):
>
> How about if they told you in the library, with a candlestick?
Thanks for making me smile!
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### Author:  [@VOW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VOW)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2020, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haunted-house-question/847157/33 "2020-01-30T17:40:16Z")
> [@Shodan](#):
>
> How about if they told you in the library, with a candlestick?
>
> Regards,
> Shodan
Just where was **Mean Mister Mustard** when this happened?
~VOW
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### Author:  [@VOW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VOW)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2020, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haunted-house-question/847157/34 "2020-01-30T17:45:49Z")
> [@aruvqan](#):
>
> Any structure used as a residence prior to WW2 [as a general date to divide the century into portions] is pretty much a positive on someone dying there - people in general didn’t go to hospitals unless something was highly serious - you tended to dwindle and die of old age, die of diseases like influenza or pneumonia. Realistically, without antibiotics there wasn’t much a hospital could do that couldn’t be done at home other than IV feeding and 24 hour nurses to change diapers and trot bedpans and dispense what meds were available that you didn’t tend to get and keep at home. I can think of offhand at least 4 people that passed in the house my parents had when I was born [we didn’t move there til I was 5, he was duty stationed in Germany my first 5 years] My grandfather passed in hospital in 1974 and my grandmother in hospital in 79 - my grandfather had had a heart attack, and grandmother had fallen and broken her hip, and passed on the table having a pin put in. Conversation in family was that pretty much everybody previous passed either in combat or in bed.
Our particular community is a bedroom community, filled with tract homes built for the families popping out the Boomer generation. Most of these residents are the type to use hospitals. I donknow if the question by the Realtor was age-specific for the home. She just said “by law” the information had to be disclosed. At that time, I didn’t care enough to see if her information was accurate.
~VOW
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### Author:  [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2020, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haunted-house-question/847157/35 "2020-01-30T18:44:43Z")
> [@VOW](#):
>
> Just where was **Mean Mister Mustard** when this happened?
> ~VOW
Hey now. “Mister”? His honorable discharge as a Colonel demands respect!
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### Author:  [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2020, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haunted-house-question/847157/36 "2020-01-30T20:27:54Z")
When I went house hunting, one house I looked at could have been haunted. It was a ranch style one-story, a distant drive from civilization in a cul-de-sac. One of the bedrooms had a single prison-style mattress and a miniature black & white TV. The previous occupants had lined the hall and living room with strip lighting. The work shed had a concrete table that had been painted industrial green, and the top had been scratched off, as if somebody had been cutting up cattle-sized carcasses. There was a little sliding door on the back wall that opened outside. It must have been how the harvested organs were discretely picked up.
I didn’t buy the house.
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### Author:  [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2020, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haunted-house-question/847157/37 "2020-01-30T20:50:32Z")
To me its kind of like having to disclose (or not) that you have crazy neighbors.
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### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2020, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haunted-house-question/847157/38 "2020-01-30T21:26:05Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#):
>
> How are we defining “ghosts,” or “real” for that matter?
>
> I’m not sure what facts would suffice to establish definitively that “ghosts aren’t real,” so I’m at least sympathetic to **kanicbird** ’s point of view on this.
If you like, please provide proof they do exist and stop playing silly semantic games. Ghosts are not an accepted scientific theory. Absolutely not a fact as of now. They are fringe at best.
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### Author:  [@Limmin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Limmin)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2020, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haunted-house-question/847157/39 "2020-01-30T21:50:42Z")
> [@Biotop](#):
>
> In the summer you can keep AC costs down in a haunted house by installing window shades.
That’s unnecessary, according to my Japanese friends. I asked them, “Why do you watch so many horror movies in the summer?” Answer: “The movie sends chills up and down your spine, which make you feel cool!”
Ergo, feeling spooky in a haunted house is all you need to feel cool; no AC required.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2020, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/haunted-house-question/847157/40 "2020-01-30T23:02:12Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#):
>
> Ghosts are not an accepted scientific theory. Absolutely not a fact as of now. They are fringe at best.
No dispute about that.
This whole sub-discussion started when **Declanium** dropped in to provide the information that “Ghosts aren’t real.” Which is totally unhelpful, because anyone who agrees with that statement doesn’t need to be told, and anyone who disagrees, or has doubts, isn’t going to have their mind changed by it.
And I’m not sure what would change their mind. I don’t know what positive evidence there is, or could be, that ghosts aren’t real—although there are natural explanations for some specific “hauntings.” So I’m not trying to claim that ghosts _are_ real, just that there’s a lot of middle ground between “Ghosts are for-sure demonstrably real” and “Ghosts are for-sure demonstrably not real.”
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