Most of us have grown up on scary stories. First, the spooky tales at slumber parties, then the grit and gore of Freddy and Jason flicks. So, it was only natural when we moved into a historic neighborhood with its very own Elm Street, to imagine that we might have supernatural occurances. Our 1922 bungalow hasn't offered up too much excitement in that vein. There's one corner of the bedroom where every piece of furniture that sits there, creaks at night. The noises that come from the armoire are especially curious. But, this can be explained by the fact that this room connects to the bathroom, which is an area that tends to have unlevel floors in houses this age. At the end of the day, I guess the wood contracts and the furniture on top of it reacts.
One night I was reading in bed and heard a small noise which caused me to look at a ball that one of the dogs had left on the rug. I stared at the ball and it moved about four inches by itself. I watched it for another five minutes and it never moved again. Now, I'm sure there's a logical explanation for that, but for awhile afterwards I kept a close eye on that spot. A neighbor of mine has a threshold that her dogs find alarming. One dog jumps over it and the other bulks at crossing it at all.
Tampa Theater has its resident ghost. What about Seminole Heights? Any eerie tales out there for Halloween.
Rumor has it that there are ghosts on Nebraska Avenue. It's hard to make them out but if you shine a spot light in the right spot, you can see that they are the ghosts of transvestite prostitutes. It is very sad because all they want is $20 to buy some crack, and when the flag down the Johns, it is all in vein. No matter how hard they try, the Johns just cannot see them. This is their "hell" pay back their Seminole Heights-polutting sins.
ReplyDeleteAccording to a story in then Weekly Planet (August 30, 2001), there is a haunted house at 4305 N. Central Avenue, at the then home of Tara Schroeder and Bernie Middendorf. The house was thought to be haunted by the ghost of a friend Mike Hampton, who died in the house. He had moved into the house 3 weeks earlier to help renovate it and died of a heart attack.
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"Two electricians were working on the house, and one's mother visited the house on a Wednesday and was dead by Sunday.
"And the second one had to leave the job and go to Georgia because his mother had taken ill suddenly,"
I spent a year in exile in West Tampa, sharing my house with an angry little Cuban man who sat in the corner and screamed invectives anyone who could hear. My Spanish isn't so good, but it was obvious that he took exception to me, my wife, my dogs, and my cats being there.
ReplyDeleteHe sat next to what was, at one point, a babies room. I don't know how the baby ever got any peace. He was harmless, but really loud and annoying.
TBO.com has a halloween section and a couple people have written about haunted tampa bay areas. Some of the people say they see ghosts all the time.
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