Speak out or stay quiet?

No-one lived in our house before us but I'm sure the ground it was built on has a rich history. The Romans probably trekked across what is now our garden.

I'd stay quiet I think. Most houses have had someone die or something unhappy happen in them over the years.

They are lucky they don't live on Coronation Street - I'm pretty sure there isn't a house on that street that hasn't been either home to a murderer or the scene of a killing!

If they have already heard noises in the night they must have moved in already!

I would have thought that they would have already known. When I was moving I checked out everything about the area etc

Good advice from Delila.
The "feel" of a house can change. A house can get tired when its occupants get old and sad, not keeping it up too well.
But if there has been a happy family living there recently, the house in good order both structurally and decoratively, that must produce a good atmosphere.

Nannashirlz

I would have thought that they would have already known. When I was moving I checked out everything about the area etc

Years ago living in a military flat over in Germany I said to my husband ahh one of the kids must be up just saw them go past door he went and looked both still a sleep. It happened a few times in the years we were there after talking to one of the locals who had lived there all their life we got chatting about ghosts etc and she was saying our homes were built on a old nuns home and many of the other families had said they had seen something didn’t do anything just walked through the corridor.

Best to let the past remain in the past.

If you have to declare anything untoward when buying a property I am willing to bet that your friends already know and just aren't saying anything!

I do believe in both ghosts & poltergeists having had direct experience of both.
I’ve cleared several properties of these entities. Most ‘ghosts’ are lost Souls who need some help to get to a lighter sphere. Show compassion not fear& ask the Angelic realms to help them move on

A friend of mine is a retired estate agent. She remembered one occasion showing a family round one house that they specifically asked if anyone had died there and didn’t want to view any houses where somebody had. Only new houses for them then!

Whether ghosts exist or not is not really relevant to the turn this discussion has taken.

Now one of the dwellers in the house in question has been made uncomfortalbe by "noises in the night".

In your place OP I would suggest she/he checks all the mundane things that could cause this - a branch of a tree or bush brushing against a window, a draught causing and inside door to blow shut or open, a bubble of air in the central heating system or faulty plumbing, a bird trapped in a chimney or attic if the house has either of these features, rats (just as scary as ghosts and unlike ghosts definitely known to exist.) Or an ancient fridge that needs replacing making odd noises.

I have known most of this list to be the cause of "things that go bump in the night", If none of these suggestions proves to be the cause, then the person who has heard the sounds will either conclude that the house is haunted or that she/he imagined the sounds or dreamed them.

If that person believes the house to be haunted, you can suggest the options listed in these answers for getting rid of ghosts - they presumably work, whether or not one actually believes in ghosts, if one has convinced oneself that that is what one is dealing with.

I have been considerably surprised to learn that in the UK one is supposed to declare any violent happenings that occured in a house. When did this become customary?

A couple of years ago, the person who bought my childhood home from my parents in 1980 contacted me to ask if it was true that a friend of my parents' had died in the house while we lived there.

I told him it was not, but suggested that rumours of a death in the house, that had been built in 1860, might be attributed to the fact that my parents bought the house from the estate of a deceased owner, that my grandmother's funeral took place from the house and her coffin had stood in our sitting-room, or from the fact that my parents before moving to the house in 1951 had lost a new-born premature son in a completely different part of Britain.

Any house older than around 1980 will have witnessed births and deaths, so to me it is sheer nonsense to expect house owners to know about all of these and be able to list them,

I once lived in a flat that was haunted (I am not kidding, people I had never told of the ghost saw it as well as I) by a little black cat - the sweetest apparition you could ever hope to meet and no, I did not tell the family I sold that flat to about that cat, as I did not want them to think I was crazy.

Thanks for your sensible suggestions, grandtanteJE65. I will certainly pass them on if there are any more unexplained events.

I've always lived in old houses. They creak, bump, moan and tick, depending on the time of year, the weather and the heating. The one I'm in now is the newest, and it's 100 years old. There will have been deaths, misery, joy, violence and kindness in all of them. But that's just the history of the house, not my history, not my story. It wouldn't cross my mind to say anything. Hopefully your new neighbours will create their own joy and happy memories in their new home.

So sorry to hear your experience of domestic violence. So many have too I hope you are living your BEST life now. Good luck ! 💕.

That’s like saying dying of whatever is better than being. Lunatic
So called because they had little knowledge of mental illness in those days
Some of those so called lunatics would have been women going through menopause depression following childbirth and the list goes on
Non of them would ever hurt you

Cannot understand the relevance of this history of the house. Surely, many if not most older properties would have had peple die and suffer in them. But what has that to do with the present day?

Hard enough moving these days, do not try to make it even more complicated

Or an ancient fridge that needs replacing making odd noises.
Our fridge has always made odd noises from when it was new.
We were reassured that it was normal although no other fridge or freezer has ever made similar noises.
It's a very strange noise.

Franbern

Cannot understand the relevance of this history of the house. Surely, many if not most older properties would have had peple die and suffer in them. But what has that to do with the present day?

Hard enough moving these days, do not try to make it even more complicated

I haven't made it any more complicated, because I haven't said a word.

However, assuming that you read my follow-up post partway down the first page, I am still surprised that you can't see the relevance of the (relatively recent) history of the house in this instance, even if you personally are totally sceptical about the existance of ghosts, spirits, the paranormal or whatever some might call it, and think that it is a load of b******t.

I don't think it is necessary to believe in something to see its relevance.

I’ve always wanted to live in an old cottage but I don’t think I’d be able to: I get very scared when I’m staying in old houses sometimes. I don’t like houses that have corridors. My daughter had an extension built onto an old house they lived in and I felt very uncomfortable when I babysat. There’s a house in my village where someone committed suicide and I often wonder if the current inhabitants know about it. My friends parents bungalow was built on the site of a gibbet and the first time her husband stayed there, without even knowing about the gibbet, he couldn’t leave his room during the night because he was gripped with fear!

I don't think you did the wrong thing. I think it is best for everybody if you never tell them that you knew about this event. If they continue to feel disturbed in the house or find out about its history, and you want to be a support, in my experience the best way to cope with experiences like this is not to deny ghosts can exist but to encourage people to feel they are stronger than whatever forces real or imagined may be distressing them and to take ownership of the house as their home now psychologically and spiritually.

Chaitriona

I don't think you did the wrong thing. I think it is best for everybody if you never tell them that you knew about this event. If they continue to feel disturbed in the house or find out about its history, and you want to be a support, in my experience the best way to cope with experiences like this is not to deny ghosts can exist but to encourage people to feel they are stronger than whatever forces real or imagined may be distressing them and to take ownership of the house as their home now psychologically and spiritually.

Thank you. That approach makes a lot of sense to me.

I would tell them, because the issue of whether it matters or not is theirs to make not yours. There are more things in this world than we can see, so I would pass on this info, most people who commit suicide are probably most unlikely to cause anyone any problems I just think its their right to know

Romola

Good advice from Delila.
The "feel" of a house can change. A house can get tired when its occupants get old and sad, not keeping it up too well.
But if there has been a happy family living there recently, the house in good order both structurally and decoratively, that must produce a good atmosphere.

Both my dds’ houses were terribly dated when they bought them. One was a probate sale, owners had been there for 60 years, and the house had even more incredibly dated decor than the other, where the retired man was moving on about a year after his wife had died there.

But both houses had lovely warm atmospheres from the moment of the first viewing. You could tell they’d been happy family homes.
A couple of much more up to date houses we viewed with dds didn’t have the same atmosphere at all.

My mother died in our house in France. That was 25 years ago. So much has happened since, that, even though I sleep in that room on occasion and DD always sleeps there, I rarely remember that my mother died in the room and I do not think she does either. The beds were replaced some years later because they were getting old and uncomfortable.

Living in old houses a lot, and, when my DH was working often being in the house alone. Any strange noises were more likely to make me think of intruders rather than ghosts.

I’d say nothing.
I got the feeling when we moved into one of our old houses that it had been a very unhappy place.
Older people in the neighbourhood denied knowing the last family even though they’d lived there for more than 30 years.
We had a number of parties,family events etc and even though we lived there for more than30 years the feeling never fully left me.I don’t believe in stuff like this!
We’ve moved,and this is much calmer place.
I’ve heard the family we sold our old house are on the move soon but say the house is lovely, just can’t settle.