The Historic Hudson Haunting - A True Hauntings Podcast

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True hauntings is a frightfully good production.

There's a house that sits right on the Hudson River in the small village of Nyak that

actually has legal proof that it's haunted.

Thanks to the Ghostbusters ruling, this home has been declared legally haunted by the state

of New York.

This beautiful home doesn't look like your typical Hollywood haunted mansion.

It's not scary in the least.

Instead, it's a beautifully elegant and well-maintained 130-year-old mansion that has been bought

and sold many times over since the story about the haunted building first appeared in the

Readers Digest 30 years ago.

Hi, I'm Renata, and I'm Anne, and in this episode of the True hauntings podcast, we are

torn between which part of this story is the most interesting.

The hauntings, or the legal case that has made this home famous.

Anne and Renata have been investigating paranormal occurrences for the past 20 years.

They have been at the center of various unexplained phenomena and have witnessed countless ghostly

experiences.

The duo now turned to high-profile cases that have attracted the eyes of the world.

Between the dimensions we see and the dimensions we don't, supernatural forces are at play.

Evil works within the shadows of our homes, and in the darkest corners of our minds, it

follows us like a shadow.

Forever.

This is where nightmares become reality.

This is true hauntings.

I saw our house for the first time on a hot July day in 1967, a bedraggled old Victorian,

and had stood vacant for seven years.

Its waste high lawn clutched about a sturdy stone foundation.

Its wood shingled roof was a rye, but as I followed the real estate agent and my husband

George into the spacious hall, I knew I was home.

George already working in New York City moved into the house as soon as the final papers

were signed.

My job was to shuttle between our Maryland farm and our new home, closing one while renovating

the other.

One afternoon, the neighborhood children broke up a lively ballgame to question me.

Yes, we had bought the house.

Yes, we did have children for, although they wouldn't arrive for another week.

When I told them they could look through the house, two of the kids hung back.

The others giggled.

They think there's ghosts in there.

They're scared.

Did you know you bought a haunted house?

Welcome back to the studio, Miss Anne.

Thank you very much, Renault.

That's very musical of yours.

Yes, it is.

That's up to 15th coffee.

It's just kicked in.

Yeah.

Great stuff.

This was an interesting case.

Oh, you know you killed me with this case.

I had a mental breakdown over this case.

Thank you very much.

Especially when we changed things.

Oh, I dug my heels and I went, nope, I can't do this today.

I cannot wrap my head around this.

Because normally you do the history.

I do the hauntings.

That's the way it goes.

Little darling.

No, you told me that you're doing the hauntings.

No.

And I have to do the court case which means I had big words to deal with.

No, dear.

Oh, well.

We hope you enjoyed this one.

It's been a challenge.

It was a challenge for the real people.

But we all got over it.

We all got over it.

I got over it.

I'm getting over it now.

I'm doing it finally.

OK, let's get into this story.

OK.

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I stumbled upon this story as I was going through the Internet looking for interesting places to

do a podcast episode.

I just like to say, you stumble on things a lot.

I do.

You stumble on things because I'm continually looking for great stories to tell.

You normally fall over stuff.

Oh, shut up.

And you don't have great night vision.

And what do you do?

You walk around without any flashlight.

I know.

But I need one of those torches that, um...

If you put one on your head, I will have work.

I hate those ones I put on your head because they blind every other bug apart from you.

That's true.

Why does everyone see our merch?

Our T-shirts?

On T public?

T-E-E-P-U-B-L-I-C?

Finally got a true hauntings podcast T-shirt.

Oh, I'll put a link on it.

Oh, fabulous.

I'll do a link.

So proud.

In the meantime.

Sorry.

I'm scrolling.

In the meantime.

We are looking at a place that is allegedly haunted.

But that might not be the most sensational thing about this particular story.

The most sensational thing about this particular story is that it led to a story in the Reader's Digest

30 years ago now.

Do people remember what the Reader's Digest is?

Yes, or was?

Yes.

My mother subscribed to it.

And there used to be word games and improved your vocab in there.

And she used to make me do them because I was not great at English at school.

I was more of a creative, like chasing people around as a horse.

And that's true story.

It actually helped me.

It was really good because they had multiple choices and they made it sort of like a game.

And they had the interesting little stories in there that were condensed down and easy to read.

And it was probably one of the first, especially here in Australia, one of the first sort of magazines that you bought into as a subscription.

It was ahead of its time.

And then you'd get absolutely just completely inundated with stuff that kept coming with it.

That's right.

It was the first Sheen, Shine, T-Moo thing of its nature where you would get ads about the clocks and the figurines.

The figurines.

Limited release.

And you would be bombarded.

You sign up for those as well.

And do you think you can cancel those bargains now?

There's no way to cancel.

There's always somebody to ring to sign up and never anywhere where you can cancel it.

So this might be bringing back some memories for people who are old enough to understand the greatest digest and what it entailed.

And the word that I was searching for was bombardment.

You were bombarded with different ways to subscribe and to make a subscription even better every single time.

But it was good.

It was a good magazine.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Now, we go back to the story.

This is about one levita place in NIAC, which is a suburb of New York.

And it is about a three story colonial house built on that property that dates back to 1890.

Now, if you look at the house, there are some beautiful photographs of it.

And like I always said in the opening, this does not look like a haunted house at all.

It's this beautiful mansion surrounded by glorious trees.

It's set off from the river.

It's elevated.

It has these beautiful large, wraparound porches all over the place.

All verand?

Don't get the Australia.

Yep.

The house shares a side yard with the neighbour.

And the family here lived in that house from the 1960s to the 1990s.

Is the Ackley family we're talking about?

I have to ask you.

Did you get amateurville vibes off this occasionally?

No.

Well, I did.

I don't know why, maybe it's just because it was a husband and wife with kids in a big old house by the water.

Yeah, that's about maybe that was the closest it got for the neighbour.

Now, the neighbours were pretty good with the family.

You know, the children played in the yard that was the yard that the houses shared.

They did have a grandfather though that was no longer alive.

And the neighbours did tell the Ackley's about him because he actually built the house.

Oh, wow.

They're back in the days.

Didn't your husband build your house?

Yes.

It's still upright.

Yes.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, we're still building it.

Let's not go there.

Let's just not go there.

No.

No.

Yes.

And he was a bit of a containerous sort.

So even though the grandfather built this beautiful house and everything that was in it,

he did have a few things that were quite unusual about him.

He didn't live in it continuously but would have, if he could have,

they built the house next door for his family as well.

So it was like...

That's industrious, isn't it?

Yeah.

I think so.

You can't get one house finished, they built two.

Yeah.

He built it more for a meeting place for the family.

So family came from outside of the New York area.

They had somewhere to stay.

They had lots of bedrooms.

Yes.

Loads of them.

So, you know, he did a wonderful thing for the family.

Yeah.

But he was a cranky old bastard.

So nobody wanted to come and hang out with him.

Yeah.

So Scott, the name of the neighbour, Malnabe next door, he told a bit of a strange story

about something that his father had done or grandfather had done.

There was a top floor and it did have a sort of an area where you could stand out

like a balcony.

Oh, balcony.

A balcony.

Words are hard to tell.

But he never...

Yes, he never built a railing on the balcony.

They did this at the jail.

Yeah.

They don't do railings.

What is wrong with those people?

They never built a...

They're just weird.

It's a safety hazard.

And the weird reasoning behind that was that he said that if anyone got too close

to the edge and fell over or slipped, they deserved it.

What?

If they were that stupid.

That's a selection.

They deserved it.

Now, was he kind of just making it a joke because he never got to that bit?

Or did he really mean it?

Nobody will ever know.

Well, Scott reconsidered he was probably just joking.

But in the actual fact was that this railing got never built.

Now, is one of the ghosts that...

Is he the demon?

Is he the demon in the house?

Yes.

Is he?

Is he?

That's the story.

That's the thing about it.

I'll give him a go away.

No, there's my car.

Now, the family moved in and there were four kids, two parents.

And it was really because the Achilles dad, the father figure in the story, had moved jobs.

So they looked around and they finally found this wonderful home.

They moved in.

And then like there was a period of time, probably a couple of months where there were some renovations

and things done ready for the family to move in.

And then they did.

It had been vacant for seven years.

And that's why they needed to be a little bit of time spent just on getting the house prepared

for the family and everything.

The children stayed with mum while dad renovated.

Yeah.

Because I think she was saying she was going to and from whilst renovating.

Yes.

And yeah.

Yeah.

One of the things that's really interesting about this is that the house was vacant between the 1950s and 1960s.

And in all of those years, it was never vandalised.

It was never broken into.

There was a public walkway that kind of ran past the house.

So was that because it was a nice suburb or was it because the demon grandfather was keeping them away?

Well, you would think that people would note that a house was vacant for a really long time.

And that occasionally some nosy person would go in and try and look inside it.

And so the kids had to do a run a knock.

They probably did.

Yeah.

Little, so-and-so's.

One of the oldest daughters who talked about all of this, Cynthia, felt that the ghosts were actually looking after the house.

Well, that's nice.

Well, they've granddad built the house.

They'd look after it.

Yeah.

So mum's name was Helen and dad's name was George.

And when Helen moved, she kind of really got a little bit bored and needed to sort of have things to do for herself that were important.

Something to keep her occupied.

And I wish more women would do this or the partners who are dragged into a new location.

They need to find something for themselves.

So she actually signed up for writing classes.

Oh yeah.

And she was doing pretty well.

Yeah.

And the teacher suggested to all of the students that they should write an article and send it in somewhere to see if it would be published.

And then they would look over it and just scrutinise it and talk about it.

And it'd be really excited that one of the class members actually got rejected and why?

What could be improved and so on and so forth.

So this is where Helen's little article in the reader's Digest in the 1970s appeared.

And the article was called our haunted house on the Hudson.

Now, this started everything because this is where she alleged that the house was haunted by ghosts.

Oh.

Okay.

So this was all from an exercise in her writing class.

Yeah, but she was reporting on what was really happening in the house, wasn't she?

Well, theoretically.

Now, they say that both of the parents did experience hauntings.

Notably, George swears he saw a pair of disembodied mox and clad feet walk by him from the hallway above the staircase.

Tick, we've got the Native American reference.

Do we have the lady in the white dress?

No, hold on.

Helen also witnessed a man who was in colonial or revolutionary war attire.

She was repainting the entryway.

Daughter Cynthia seemed to be kind of the one that got the most.

She was in high school at the time and she kept on being awakened every day

with the bed rattling or shaking.

We had that happen in New Orleans without people.

Yeah.

As if someone was waking her up, she was really scared to begin with obviously.

And then she got to a point where it was like it was kept on happening at such a repetitive rate that it was like someone's trying to wake me up to get up from school to get up to school or to get out of bed.

And now my inquisitive mind is now saying maybe that is something in the house.

That if it's happening at a certain time, it might be like the hot water service switching on or the heater turning off at a certain time or something.

My logical brain is going there.

I'm sorry.

That one is grandpa demon.

Could be.

She felt it was like someone was asking her to get out of bed and it stopped when she politely...

Turned off the furnace.

No, went into the middle of the room and said can you please stop doing this to me because it would happen on the weekend as well.

And so she said look, I don't want to wake up early on the weekends.

Let me sleep in.

Can you stop shaking the bed?

Oh, I like that.

And it did.

So sometimes you just have to ask nicely instead of getting ghost adventures in there.

Big shout out to Sam and Colby.

I hope you're going to come and meet us in Australia.

We'd love to see you.

Everyone send a message to Sam and Colby and say come and hang out with the ghost crannies.

The people from across the street and the neighbours would say to the family that there were ghosts in the house and that they had moved into a haunted home.

But maybe they did think that her old granddad was still living in the place where the door was.

They also had a ghost manifest one night and it was a blonde woman that was brushing her hair sitting down at a table in the bedroom.

And apparently the ghost looked at Cynthia.

Cynthia is the target person.

Yes, this is the daughter.

Yep.

And Cynthia just nodded again politely, the ghost nodded back and then disappeared and she never saw the ghost again.

So that's not grandad either?

No.

Oh.

I'm waiting for the proof of grandad here, demon grandad.

Yes.

We're not getting to demon grandad.

Oh, okay.

So all of this stuff is swirling around.

There's little ghost stories and things are coming out and of course people are always getting interested in ghost stories.

Oh yes, it's always a fascination with them.

Helen then gets a phone call from a man in Portland, Oregon.

This is after the story gets published and his name is Bill Merrill.

And he says that he was contacted by a gentleman called Glen Johnson.

Glen Johnson.

Hello Mr. Johnson.

And Mr. Johnson was contacted by Sir George and Margaret.

Do you know what Johnson is?

Let's look at that.

No, no, no, no.

Sir George and Margaret.

Yeah, Sir George.

From the house.

From the house.

These are allegedly the ghosts of the house.

So the ghosts of the house has contacted this guy because they want to give their side of the story.

What?

Of why they're haunting the house.

So they've read the article in the Redest Digest and all of a sudden they've made contact with these ghosts on another state.

Yes.

And now they're special because they need to speak to them.

Yes, yes.

And they've written a book.

Of course they have.

Of course they have.

And the book is called Sir George the Ghost of Nyak.

Now this book does come out after Helen writes articles for many different magazines because her story's got a little bit viral.

Whatever viral was in the 1970s.

And apparently this book was written in the 1970s and as well.

And so it's it's fresh.

And you can't seem to get it anywhere online.

Funny about this.

Now I want you all to remember that little story Renault has just told because I'm going to refer to that as well.

Oh, okay.

So maybe slightly different way.

This is what's their name again?

The book is called Sir George the Ghost of Nyak.

And they were contacted by Bill Merrill and Glen Joanne Johnson.

Oh, these are different ones.

I've got different ones.

Oh, okay.

Anyway, life goes on.

Yes, life is going on.

Yeah, the kids have gone and Helen decides it's time to downsize.

Yep.

And her husband dies.

And her husband dies.

Yes.

Her husband dies.

And she remarries.

She marries.

Yep.

I've read my notes.

I'm up to date now.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Now this is 1989.

It's about 25 years after the Atlas moved in.

And 15 years after the article was printed.

Right.

So everyone knows that it's haunted allegedly.

Now, Helen decides to list the house with Richard Ellis of Ellis Realty.

And the home is listed.

And she turns a page.

Yes.

Just one jewel to hear that.

And it is listed for just under $800,000.

That's a lot.

That's a lot.

A lot of money back there.

Holy hell.

And Helen is thrilled that a young couple, Jeffrey and Patricia Stambovsky,

eager to get in and sign that contract.

Give it to me.

Now, this is where things go a little bit loopy.

Goes awry.

Yeah.

So they have had discussions with Helen.

So Jeffrey and Patricia, Stambovsky, they have had discussions with Helen.

They have talked about the place.

And what they want to do with it and how interesting it might be to live there.

And how their life is going to change coming into this particular place

and enjoying the rest of their lives.

Then the shite hits the fan.

The poop.

The shite hits the fan.

Like the flinging poop is from Timu.

I'm going to turn over to you.

Now, if anybody wants to read Helen's story,

it is widely available on the internet.

And all you have to do is go in and literally type in the reader's digest story.

My haunted house on the Hudson End.

You will read what she writes about that and the full description of the ghosts

and everything that they have seen.

Well, that was your job.

You were meant to tell the ghost stories.

Yeah.

I'm going to leave it because I think actually the most interesting.

And the most interesting bit about this is that we theoretically,

maybe, maybe not slash, maybe not, has a legally haunted house.

Or do we?

Or do we?

Or do we?

But before we go any further.

It's awesome.

You're going to love it.

I am going to give it to you.

Thank you.

All right, thanks for being here.

Thank you.

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That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N.

Thanks, Ashley, for being here.

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The big arch, the most McDonald's McDonald's burger yet for limited time.

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In the stillness of a quaint New York town that lies a Victorian house,

it's peacefully perched beside the Hudson River.

I'm already vomiting.

Oh, shut up.

There's too many adverbs.

Yes.

Benefits can't have too many adverbs.

You'll lose people.

Well, lose people because you're talking.

You're ruining my ambiance.

Sorry.

Yet beneath is strangling.

I'll get a cough.

Thanks for that.

Benefits tranquil exterior.

The Ackley House harbors are haunting secret.

A whisper of the supernatural veiled within its walls.

As night falls.

The House seems to come alive with the subtle Greeks of age-old floorboards

echoing through the empty halls.

A soft eerie melody plays.

As if the House itself is recounting tales from a mysterious past.

This is the setting of a strange legal battle

where the realms of the living and the ethereal intertwine.

In the side the House, the past clings to every corner.

Those who have dwelled within its walls.

It's brave for that.

For breeze.

Those who have dwelled within its wall speak of inexplicable happening.

Sights, sounds, and sensations that defy explanation.

A woman's laugh to echoes.

Distant and fleeting through the corridors.

Leaving a lingering sense of something unseen.

These tales straddle the line between reality and imagination.

Became the crux of a case that questioned the existence of ghosts.

Wasn't that just von it worthy?

Anyone.

So this is the Stambovsky versus Ackley case of 1991.

Hered by the New York Supreme Court,

Appalate Division in which the court ruled something,

which I'm going to tell you shortly.

So, thanks.

Basically, these people went, you know, this house sounds perfect.

We're going to put a deposit down.

And then they found out some more information.

So in the early 90s, a 90s Helen decided to sell the house.

She entered into a contract with the buyer, Jeffrey Stambovsky,

to the price of $650,000.

With a $32,500 down payment.

Now, these people came from New York City.

However, the Stambovsky's were unaware of the folklore

and the ghost stories surrounding the house.

Now, apparently the wife of Mr. Stambovsky was pregnant.

And Mr. Stambovsky was worried

that his pregnant wife would not feel comfortable in the home

once he found out it was haunted.

Now, you may ask, how did they found out it was haunted?

They find out it was haunted.

Apparently, there was a nosy neighbor who let them know.

Just like they did when they moved in.

The nosy neighbor said, do you know you've moved into a haunted house?

My grandfather built that house.

I was there at the time.

Oh!

So, yeah, it was a local architect,

or the nosy neighbor, who basically dropped them in.

So, with this, the Stambovsky's then went,

well, we don't want to buy this house anymore

because nobody told us it was haunted.

And that's where they enter into this thing where they say,

it's the caveat emptor.

Now, I'm not a lawyer, and I've really struggled to wrap my head around some of these things.

But the caveat emptor basically means buyer beware.

It's up to the buyer to research the house

and find out whether there was any nefarious things that happened.

Any debts that I'd be going on the house.

Anything like that, they're meant to do a background check.

But because they weren't from the area,

they didn't know the local gossiping and things that were going on.

And the other aspect of it,

which they think might have something to do with it,

is that they were worried of the resale value

of the house if people knew it was haunted.

So, they thought it was going to lose money.

Yeah, I kind of reckon that that was the biggest thing.

So, I have a quote here from Stambovsky.

Mr. Stambovsky said in court,

my feeling is that Mrs. Ackley is a very neat old lady

who likes to spin tails.

But if my wife is influenced enough by that stuff to feel uncomfortable,

that's a good enough reason not to sink her life savings into the place.

He concluded that they had been the victims of ectoplasmic fraud.

Isn't that great?

Wow.

Just wow.

Can we get a t-shirt with that ectoplasmic fraud?

So, what the Stambovsky's did

is they said,

we're not going to pay any more money,

so they're taken to court.

And they did not appear at the house closing,

making the agreement null and void.

It says here.

However, that also meant that Helen could keep the money.

So, she could keep the deposit.

Why?

She refused to return the money to the Stambovsky's

and that's why they took her to court.

Sorry, I got that wrong.

So, it wasn't because they refused to pay,

because she refused to give back the deposit.

Right.

And that's where Ackley was saying,

it's the caveat empty buyer,

but where you didn't do your research,

you should have known about it.

And that was their fault.

So, they took them to court.

The decision was made in favor of Helen.

It says here,

a narrow three to two decisions cited.

Well, the first off I remember,

they said it went to Helen.

And Helen was allowed to keep the deposit,

but then they made an appeal.

And in the appeal,

Justice Israel Ruben,

it was presiding over that and declared

that Helen Ackley had promised the Stambovsky's

that the property would be vacant when they took possession.

I looked at lawyers, I think,

and the judges involved in this were looking for anything

that wasn't of the ghostly side of things

to try and make this work,

because they thought that this was absolutely ridiculous.

Yes.

So, because there were ghosts in the house,

that meant the house was not vacant.

That wasn't empty. Oh my God.

So, that the caveat Emter did not apply,

because there was still residents within the house.

Oh wow.

That's amazing.

So, I've got a quote here.

A very practical problem arises

with respect to the discovery of paranormal phenomena.

Who are you going to call as the title song

to the movie Ghostbusters' Us?

Applying the strict rule of caveat Emter

to a contract involving a house possessed by poltergeists,

conjures up visions of a psychic

or medium routinely accompanying the structural engineers

and the terminics man

from an inspection

for the contract to sale.

In the interest of avoiding such untenable consequences,

the notion that our haunting is a condition

which can and should be ascertained

upon reasonable inspection of the premises,

is a hob goblin

which should be exercised

from the body of legal precedent

and laid quietly to rest.

In other words, what a light of crap.

It's really interesting this whole thing.

So, really this whole case is about

whether the house was haunted or not,

but it sort of wasn't.

I used a couple of articles for this

and there were some really good ones.

I'll just see if I can spot

what the paranormal catalogue.net

and there was one from, I think it was Delaware

Paranormal Research Group.

The Delaware article was really good.

They did a fabulous job on that.

So, the court

said that the seller

had created a public nuisance

of herself by promoting the house

as having a haunted reputation.

And that was going to affect the value of property.

She encouraged people to tell stories of the house.

She invited people in to see the house.

I think they even had a little bit of that.

They had toys going as well.

Two of those going.

So, she declared it was a haunted house.

People believed it was a haunted house.

People came to see the haunted house.

It was going to be a public nuisance for anyone

who bought the house

because people are going to come and see the house.

And this is what was

upsetting the people

who wanted to buy it

and then wanted to back out.

Now, the question here is

why didn't the real estate agent

mention anything?

Well, there's

I've heard arguing

things different stories.

Some say that they were told

and they didn't believe in ghosts

and didn't care.

That's especially

Mr. Stembovsky.

He thought it was all a lot of rubbish.

But then they must have

thought about it.

But they're declaring that they didn't know.

But they've thought about it

and realized it's going to affect

the value of the property.

So when they want to sell it.

And she offered it to them

for almost $20,000 less

than the going price.

No, it went for $650 to $800.

Oh, $200,000.

It melts in your...

No, $150,000 less.

It was $800,000, wasn't it?

It was $600 and something.

It was $650,000 less.

Now, this is some

of the things she was claiming

that was happening in the house.

There's ghostly figures,

a lady in white and a man in grey.

Strange noises,

such as knocking, banging,

footsteps throughout the house.

There were objects in the house

that would move on their own,

including furniture and household items.

So that's poltergeist activity.

She had given several interviews

to newspapers and local magazines

and she discussed the haunting

of a home,

had published that article

in the Redis Digest,

herself published a book about the ghosts

that haunted the house.

So she was very out there.

So the court said to her,

you can't now turn around

and claim this house is not haunted.

Because you're made a bit

of a living out of claiming it is.

So don't back up now

and claim something different.

So it really came down to

it's haunted

because

she has made it haunted

or made people think it's haunted.

So what happens now?

So the decision they came up with

was because she had previously

published about the poltergeist,

Helen actually was unable

to deny their existence.

However, sticking with the bio

beware doctor in the Applied Court

held that she was not liable for damages.

Instead, due to the fact that haunted

cannot be easily ascertained

with a simple house inspection,

the court simply

rescinded the contract.

So Stanboski was no longer required

to buy the house.

But we did have an issue

with the deposit.

There are different

stories about how much

of the deposit stayed

with Helen and how much

went back to the Stanboski's.

According to this article,

the Stanboski's got most of

their deposit back,

although according to

Kavanaugh, Helen got 5,000

of the original amount

back while another source

said they got 15,000

of it back.

She did eventually find

another buyer

and she did move to Florida.

Apparently she had no problems

finding another buyer.

There's people that were quite happy

to find the haunted house.

Well, you would.

I'm actually looking for a house now.

And I have told the real estate agent

that I would like something

that's a little bit older

with a ghost and they look

at me like I'm nuts.

Yeah, so

I have to find the

little bit of interesting

bit at the end here.

So I found the

findings of the Stanboski

and it became known as the haunted

house statute.

Now, I had a little bit of a giggle here

because the beautiful

DE Paranormal Research Group

didn't do a spell check

before they

published their article.

And instead of law makers,

they had law makers

a few times

which just brought a big

smile to my face. So thank you very

much for that.

Law makers attempt to clarify

what information should be disclosed

to a prospective buyer.

While the law was called the haunted house

statute, it actually never

mentioned haunted houses.

Rather New York as did the majority

of states that also past

statutes on stigmatized properties.

So places where murders

and horrible things happened.

Determine that information about a house

is ghastly past, need not be disclosed

to potential buyers.

So in fact, it swung back the other way.

Wow.

Instead of trying to protect people,

it was protect the history of the house.

So that people didn't

suffer because of what had happened there.

The owners.

So yes, the

sellers and the agents were

under no obligation to do so.

Nor could they

have clauses of action

or lawsuits brought against some

for non-disclosure.

Now this is in New York.

Different states have different

rules. The property law made

to possible worried buyers

was that they could make inquiry

in writing which asked the seller

about a properties history.

Sellers could choose

to respond or not.

Right.

But would you want to know

if you were a

normal instead of a paranormal

person, would you want to know

that things that happened in your house?

Hmm.

It's an interesting question.

Hmm.

Probably if you were just a normal person,

no, it wouldn't worry you.

I think if you don't know,

you don't worry.

But if you do know,

then every little sound and everything

that's happening in there, you're going,

is that the souls of those people

that were tortured here or died here?

Well, let's go back to the case

and talk about right at the very beginning.

Um, the, um...

Oh, what's that place called?

Amateurville.

Amateurville.

Well, they declared there, didn't they?

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I think

nowadays it'd just be a very simple Google search,

just Google search to work out what had happened in your area.

And when we get called up

to go into people's homes,

guess what the first thing is that I do?

I Google search.

What go stories?

No, I Google search and see if there was any information

about hauntings or whatever.

Or deaths in that area.

Or deaths.

I did that for, um,

one of Hannah's friends,

her mum was having issues.

And it turned out that a young boy had been struck by lightning

and died not far from their home.

Oh, my God. And she was in child care.

So she used to have all the kids there at the house.

Oh, wow.

Oh, wow. Oh, wow.

Oh, anyway.

So the house

was sold.

It was bought and sold many times.

And it had

seemed to draw in creative people.

Yes.

There were writers, there were musicians,

there were poets.

Many, I didn't write them all down there on another bit of paper somewhere else.

But

it seems that nobody else

had any hauntings

once Helen left.

It was a famous movie director there,

as well, who did.

They based a movie, um,

on, oh, I have to find it.

Yeah, good old Renata.

She's quickly jumped on Dr. Google.

No, no, no. I had these in other notes.

Yep.

You will never guess.

You will never guess who lived here.

Filmmaker Adam Brooks

and he co-wrote the screenplay

for practical magic.

That's right.

Yes. That beautiful house.

Yes, yes.

And there was a Ingrid Michelson.

She lived there and sold it in 2015.

At that point, the house was listed for 1.9 million.

She didn't blame the ghosts for her leaving at all.

And then there was a musician, rap artist.

And I have no idea.

I'm sorry.

We're old and boring.

Meti say who?

Or something or other.

She, hey, I don't even know.

They've lived there for 4 years until 2019.

But there wasn't people who stayed there for a long period of time.

No, just a couple of years and they'd move on.

But I'm going to wrap up here.

Years after she sold the house to someone else, Helen,

died in Florida in 2003, right?

There was some paranormal researchers

and a channeler who reached out to Mark Kavanaugh,

who was the son-in-law to one of the children.

Two ghosts who called themselves Sir George and Margaret.

Not great.

So we've got the book that we created by someone else.

Yes.

Complained that life wasn't much fun since the Achilles left.

So they were moving on.

Oh.

How interesting.

Yes.

Mark also describes his own encounter with the ghost.

This is the son-in-law when he moved into the family home

before marrying Cynthia.

He said that a presence who appeared in the moonlight

as a womanly figure in a soft dress sat on the bed

to check him out as marriage material.

Oh.

But interesting that we've now got these two paranormal investigators

and a channeler who jumped on the bed.

Did all of this stem from Helen writing an article

in a creative writing class that she got published

and then had to continue

because she had created something.

She created something.

And people loved it.

And they flocked out to the house to see this.

The children were having experiences.

But if they were children,

were they reading through the eyes of what people are saying?

Oh, you're in that haunted house.

So they're thinking they're everything.

They're particularly scared.

No, they all said that the ghosts were friendly

and that they treated them as part of the family.

Yeah. Which I loved.

I thought that was great.

But is it real?

Did she create the official haunted house legally

that actually was never haunted?

Yeah. Wow.

Is it a true haunting or not, Renata?

I'm going to have to say no.

Because no one after the Achilles ever had

or reported ghosts.

Maybe they didn't.

They didn't want to.

And this is the whole thing about it.

Where does the truth stop and the lies begin?

This is the difficulty.

And this is the difficulty we have

even nowadays when people are saying that their places are haunted

or even businesses are haunted.

There is this stigma, as you said,

what happens if you want to sell?

Will you get buyers if it is mentioned?

That is why we are stopped going into a number of different places

to do paranormal investigations or ghost tours

because the owners are afraid that if that is mentioned

their property will really be valueless.

Yeah.

And valuable.

Here is the quote from the judge that finished up the case.

Also the spectral apparition seen by Ackley or Parapsychic

or Psychogenic having reported their presence in both a

national publication readers' digest

and the local press respectively.

Ackley is e-stopped to deny their existence and as a matter of law

the house is haunted.

Okay. There we go.

There we go.

So the judge says it is so it must be so.

And this is a case that is often bought up

for students who are going into law

to discuss.

And my opinion

it may have been haunted but not by the ones that she has said it is.

But we will never know.

That family is now gone and there is nobody there to actually

talk about it anymore.

They are willing to talk about it anyway.

That brings us to the end of this week's

unusual case. I hope you have enjoyed it.

Please reach out and let us know what you thought of this case.

Did you enjoy the slightly different thing that tortured me until I

the point I nearly didn't do it?

There is more coming.

There is more torturous cases in.

I love them.

But I want to give a shout out to all the paranormal 60 fans that have joined us

from Dave's Raiders show and if you haven't been

over to paranormal 60, get over there and have a listen.

Dave's got a lot of stuff that you can listen to that's fabulous.

Bye everyone. See you on the dark side.

Bye.

Thank you for listening to this episode of True Hunting's.

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