I'm a skeptic but my house was haunted.

I’m a skeptic and don’t believe in the paranormal. But many have told me that this story is supernatural.

I have had several unexplained experiences and I thought I would pass along another and get your opinion of this story and your opinion of practical vs paranormal.

I grew up in the small town of Crockett California. This town of 3000 people is nestled in the hills above the Carquinez Strait, a part of the San Francisco Bay. As a young kid, I often spent time at my cousin’s house across town from my house. We would often hang out in a driveway of the house of a few doors down from his. The house was owned by a little old Italian lady who spent her days tending a rose garden that filled her backyard. She seemed content and obsessed with roses’ and I guess it made sense, her first name was Rose.

Fast forward my life 20 years. I was 30, had left Long Beach several years before and met the woman I would marry while working in San Francisco. Tired of living in the city, my bride to be wanted to move to a small town. We looked for houses for several months and one day I was driving by the house of the driveway I had played in so many years before. As luck would have it, the house was for sale. It was vacant at the time and my fiancé and I went into the back yard and looked in the window. She fell in love with the place immediately and within two days we made an offer to buy it. We learned that Rose was still alive and VERY old and was in a rest home and her daughter was selling the property. I had never known she had children they had long been grown and gone when I was a little kid so I can only think Rose was in her mid 90’s at this point.

We moved in a few weeks later and learned many things about this interesting house. It was built buy her son in law for her. She was small in stature so upper cabinets were hung low for her to reach and some electrical plugs in the house were waist high so she would not have to lean over to plug in vacuum cleaners and other appliances.

The most interesting thing in the house was a small Alter type diorama that was built into the hallway wall. It was about 1 foot by 2 feet in size and was positioned at eye level. Behind the glass, the blood stained body of Jesus was in the grieving arms of Mary after having been taken down from the cross. The figure’s appeared to be porcelain and very dramatic in their repose. At the bottom of the diorama a small door opened and inside there was Latin writing and small vials of Holy Water, we learned that Rose had in fact brought this artifact home from a visit to the Vatican.

My fiancé and I moved into the house and were married a month later. The hallway that housed the diorama leads to the two bedrooms of the house. I had noticed a breeze that came down the hallway several times while walking through. I took it for cross ventilation from open windows and never gave it much thought. One day after coming home from work I was alone in the house and I knew all doors and windows were closed. I took two steps down the hallway and felt the breeze. It was not a continuous movement of air as happens with open windows, but a short burst of air that seemed to pass THROUGH me. I mentioned it to my wife when she got home she said she also felt breezes in the hall at times. Outside and behind the wall of this hallway was a row of rose plants.

A few weeks later we started working on the backyard to make it our own. The first thing we did was tear out all the rose plants in the backyard. According to paranormal thought processes, this was probably a trigger. Right? I don’t think so. But you tell me.

Shortly after this yard clearing party, I was walking down the hall toward the bedroom and at the end of the hall. The door to the bedroom was open. There was some luggage standing up as we were preparing to go on a trip the following week. As I walked down the hall I saw the large suitcase tip over on its face. That can happen right? But then the fallen suitcase slid across the hardwood floor the width of the room. Cat? Dog? Rat? We had none of these. I walked in the room to see if my wife had kicked it or pushed it across the room. The room was empty and a moment later she was calling me to come to dinner. The windows of this room face the former rose garden.

We lived in that house for 13 years and had two kids. I would occasionally feel that strange breeze but never again did I see anything move on it’s own. Paranormal? Jenny, Tony what do you think? There has to be a real world explanation. But yet again I don’t have one.

I continue to be a skeptic. If you like this story I have another that is harder to explain than this one.