Greg and I travelled out to the Catskills and met up with Malcolm and Natasha to investigate some alleged activity in a rental home. Malcolm coordinated this investigation through a friend named Kristjan, who lives in a neighboring house on the same property.
History
This house is a large vacation rental property located in Hunter, NY. Built in the 1950’s, it has been used mainly as a rental for skiers and summer tourists for the past 30 years. Our primary source of information on the house was our friend Kristjan. He informed us that over the last three years the house has been rented infrequently for parties. The front of the house is a large room used as a bar and meeting place. The back of the house is a maze of poorly renovated rooms. It appeared that one of the owners converted what was once a private home into a building more suitable for rentals.
Investigation
The House was in terrible condition. Signs of disrepair and neglect were obvious throughout the building. Neither the heat nor the hot water were functional. Walking around, it was easy to see why people would subscribe to stories of a haunting. Kristjan relayed several stories from people who rented the house. There was a room upstairs that no one wanted to sleep in, because it gave people an uneasy feeling. There were also claims that lights would turn on by themselves, and doors would open and close by themselves. The house had seen many people come and go over the years so residual activity was possible. There were no stories or evidence of death, criminal activity, or other negative circumstances that are typically associated with paranormal activity.
We started the evening out by setting up equipment. We only used two infrared dvr cameras, and one handheld sony handicam. We had the digital, analog, and K-II EMF meters and also employed a Trifield Natural EM Meter. Both Greg and I used digital voice recorders and digital stillshot cameras.
We spent the entire evening walking around and trying to debunk the feelings of discomfort and the stories of lights going on and off and doors opening and closing. The house is very old, and most of the doors are nor plumb. They have decent swing to them and could very well move on there own when it is drafty or there is a vacuum from another door opening or closing. We didn’t believe the doors to be caused by paranormal activity. There were way too many other possibilities for the doors to move. The lights seemed pretty sound. The electrical was sketchy in some places but while we were there, nothing turned on or went off by itself. We couldn’t recreate the lights going on and off, but we believe if this phenomena was witnessed at parties, the drunken witnesses would not make the best evidence. Their perceptions would be altered. We believe this as an explanation for feeling uneasy in parts of the house. It is quite easy to make yourself feel uneasy anywhere, especially when your surroundings aren’t kept up in the best manner. There were no anomalous EMF readings to explain some of theses feelings although absolutely nothing paranormal happened during our investigation.
Greg and I even spent the night there the first night of the investigation and the only sounds I heard was Greg sawing wood and random animals and critters running around inside the walls and under the floorboards.
Results
In reviewing the evidence, we found nothing on camera nor on digital voice recorders. We believe the stories about this place to be just that, stories. We don’t believe the place to be haunted at all, just an under-kept decrepit building.
