The Mad House

With the area's rich and somewhat gory history, how could the house bot be haunted? When Mrs. Croft was out one day, Mr. Croft heard the faucet in the bathroom turn on. Wondering how that could have happened, he went to take a look at it. The water was flowing at full blast, and when he tried to turn it off, it took some effort because the knob had been pushed too far to the right. It was impossible that this could have been some mechanical mistake. The faucet could not have shoved itself so far. Once when they were about to go to sleep, they heard a loud thud come from their basement downstairs. Taking his wife and rushing her out of the house as he called the police, they waited outside for a good ten minutes before they arrived.

Naturally they had thought that someone had been inside the house. But when the police officer had told them to come and take a look for themselves they were shocked. A ham, which they had purchased the night before, had managed to find its way out of the fridge and into the basement all by itself. It had managed to roll its way to the door, open it and roll down the stairs without any assistance whatsoever. When Mrs. Croft tried to argue with the officer about how it would not have happened unless someone else was there, he went on to reiterate the fact that there was no sign of forced entry or robbery. Nor had they seen anyone come out of the house while they waited outside for the police to come. When their only son, Terence, was born, whatever was in the house continued to haunt them. Once when Mrs. Croft was downstairs watching television all by herself, the television knob began to turn itself. She turned it back, but it kept happening over and over until she was just so frustrated that she gave up.

Footsteps in the hallway when no one was around became a frequent occurrence, as was the shaking and rattling of the China cabinet while the couple was in the living room. Whatever was in their house seemed to dwell very potently in the barn. Once when Mrs. Croft went in, she began to feel sad. Within the five minutes she could stand to be in there, her heart had filled up with such an extreme sorrow that she had to leave. She was almost in tears when she stepped out, but the moment she did, the feeling left just as suddenly as it had come. The couple and their son eventually sold the house. It was a long and tedious process, since they were a sweet couple who did not want to con people into something they would regret. They told everyone who came about what happened to them, and so went through twenty three possible buyers before they eventually ended up selling it to a man who wanted to convert the place into an office. The cynical man had laughed their story off, saying that 'he did not believe in ghosts'.

Mr. and Mrs. Croft have not seen him since, but they wished him well before they left. Mr. and Mrs. Croft then moved into their house in Snow Creek, Franklin county, VA without even the idea that it could be haunted in mind. The house, though they were ignorant of this at the time, had formerly been built on what had been a mental health institution, and next to what had been a cemetery. it had been said that many of the patients of the mental institution can be heard screaming every night, as they received their daily torture.