My House on Maple Avenue - Part 1: The Lamp

During the summer of 1984 we moved into the house my family would spend the next 10 years in. My baby sister had just been born in July and we were a growing family. I was getting ready to go into the 2nd grade.

Our house was the first house built on our street 95 years prior. It had been inhabited by a Latvian family who had moved to Michigan to farm the land and in those 95 years, 4 generations of the family had lived there. The most recent was the original builder's great grandson and his wife, who had raised seven children in this three bedroom home. When we bought the house it had been converted to electricity and running water but the wires and pipes ran on the outside of the walls.

During the 10 years we lived in our house on Maple Avenue we remodeled every room at least once. The major construction work that took place at our home included knocking down walls, putting in new wiring and plumbing, putting a whole new roof on the house, building a deck, and various manifestations of yard work. We did everything from cutting down trees to putting in a pool. Any experienced ghost-head knows that when you remodel, it brings out the spooks. I don't think the spirits enjoyed the changes--or the noise. That year and for many years following, my family experienced eerie visions, disembodied voices, apparitions, bangs on the walls and floors, footsteps, and other random odd phenomena. This is just one of those stories.

This event happened late in the summer of 1993. I was 15 years old. We had just remodeled the living room. The 90's were the age of the touch lamp; every family had at least one. For those who don't know what they are, touch lamps are lamps that operate by touch. You touch the lamp to turn it on or off and when you touch it, it creates this little buzzing sensation on your skin. It doesn't turn on and off by passing by it, breathing on it, rubbing it with your shirt or a towel, or by magnets. It requires touch of the skin to operate.

Ours was a 3-way lamp. I was home alone one evening during the summer. I had just watched Stephen King's Dark Half--alone--in the dark. I was sufficiently spooked and I said out loud to no one how spooky the movie was and how I was freaking out. I took a deep breath to calm myself down and after that I was okay... until the lamp went crazy. It started going through the 3-way lighting - dim, medium, bright, off - over and over. I was looking at it, standing alone in the middle of the room, seeing no one turn the lamp on and off. I thought maybe it had gone nuts from the wiring and I unplugged it. IT KEPT GOING!!! At that point I was a lost cause and I screamed at the top of my lungs, "Stop it, dammit!" At that moment the lamp shut off.

I slowly put the unplugged freak of a lamp on the floor and stood there. I felt exhausted and confused and very scared. I said out loud, "What was that? Why are you messing with me? What am I supposed to do now?"

I turned on the lights in my room and turned the TV off and said, "Leave my lights alone." I went to bed and laid there awake for hours until my parents got home. It was only then, after they walked into the house and saw the lamp on the floor that I got up and told them that the lamp was turning itself on and off. I didn't tell them that it did it even after I unplugged it. My mom threw the lamp away. She never bought another touch lamp.

Mom probably thought the lamp had a short in it. My dad said the ghosts in the house were messing with me and I just laughed. What else could I do?