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A Legally Haunted House · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome
0:28
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. I'm Lauren, i am
0:31
Speaker 1: Michael Alder June, and we're not the people that you're
0:35
Speaker 1: probably used to hearing on here. Yeah, you're like, who
0:38
Speaker 1: in the hell are these people? Well, if you are
0:42
Speaker 1: listening on the day this comes out, it is International
0:44
Speaker 1: Women's Day, and a thing that I Heart likes to
0:48
Speaker 1: do for that is to have some of us lady
0:51
Speaker 1: hosts come on and do a takeover for some of
0:54
Speaker 1: the dude hosts, and so Ben and Nol invited us
0:57
Speaker 1: to come talk about some weird stuff with y'all. Yeah,
1:01
Speaker 1: and Lauren is being very nice in referring to us
1:04
Speaker 1: both as hosts. I'm you've probably only heard my name
1:10
Speaker 1: if you've heard it at all associated with the shows
1:14
Speaker 1: Where Were You in ninety two and the Fabulous Too
1:17
Speaker 1: Much Information? I cut tape on those. This is actually
1:22
Speaker 1: I think my first time on the business side of
1:24
Speaker 1: the microphone on one of these. So I'm very excited
1:28
Speaker 1: maybe on these podcasts. But you have plenty of experience
1:31
Speaker 1: you I mean, you've got you've got a long and
1:33
Speaker 1: storied career, You've done some really stellar interviews. Oh okay,
1:38
Speaker 1: So Lauren's referring to my dozen or so years in
1:42
Speaker 1: public radio before this, during which time I got to
1:46
Speaker 1: run out into traffic in the middle of Atlanta and
1:49
Speaker 1: ride shotgun in a race car. I once conducted an
1:54
Speaker 1: interview whilst climbing Stone Mountain that was fun and exhausting. Yeah,
2:00
Speaker 1: breath support. Yeah, and I've I've once interviewed Spike Lee
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Speaker 1: that was terrifying. Oh my heck. I would have not
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Speaker 1: gotten there. I would have been stuck standing in my house,
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Speaker 1: not remembering how to tie my own shoes. It was
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Speaker 1: not one of the times when I was making my
2:18
Speaker 1: job look easy. I'll we'll put it that way. Well,
2:22
Speaker 1: making both of our jobs look easy today with us,
2:25
Speaker 1: as always is a super producer Max Williams Man. Yeah,
2:31
Speaker 1: I'm still here, and I'm still here. Well, they couldn't
2:35
Speaker 1: get rid of the entire crew. We need somebody to
2:37
Speaker 1: push buttons and to look things up for us and
2:40
Speaker 1: to make us sound like we aren't a couple of
2:44
Speaker 1: bumbling fools. And I'm here and I am qualified to
2:48
Speaker 1: do it. Possibly, we trust you, We trust you. Okay,
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Speaker 1: So for today's episode, we are going to be talking
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Speaker 1: about houses, and not just any houses, but haunted houses.
3:01
Speaker 1: And not just any haunted houses, but haunted houses that
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Speaker 1: have been legislated about. Yes, there is at least one
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Speaker 1: home in America that is legally haunted, and we know
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Speaker 1: about that thanks to real estate. And I don't know
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Speaker 1: if y'all have ever tried to buy or sell a house.
3:20
Speaker 1: I'm in the process of attempting to buy a house
3:23
Speaker 1: right now, and I can speak to you from extremely
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Speaker 1: personal experience that it is arduous and complicated, and there
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Speaker 1: are all kinds of like weird plot twists that pop up,
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Speaker 1: like I don't know, man, Like is that mold in
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Speaker 1: the wall going to require me to tear down the
3:40
Speaker 1: entire house? It could? Yeah, the installation in the attic
3:43
Speaker 1: is that still? Does that still work? Or am I
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Speaker 1: going to have to take all of that disgusting fluff
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Speaker 1: out and replace it with something that was made in
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Speaker 1: this century. I was, at one time a homeowner, and
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Speaker 1: let me tell you, clambering around in your own attic
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Speaker 1: not before I went in, Before I owned a house,
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Speaker 1: I always pictured it kind of like working on a
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Speaker 1: pirate ship and being very swashbuckling and getting the you know,
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Speaker 1: climb up into the attic and clamber down into the
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Speaker 1: into the crawl space and work on things and you know,
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Speaker 1: hoist the riggings. And it is not like that at all.
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Speaker 1: It is. It is disgusting, and it is laborious and expensive.
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Speaker 1: It's it's terribly, terribly expensive. And so when you're buying
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Speaker 1: a house, there's so much to think about, and you
4:34
Speaker 1: probably aren't going to think to ask, Hey, also, is
4:38
Speaker 1: there a ghost that lives here? Right? Is it already
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Speaker 1: occupied by a dead person? Yeah, there's quite a long
4:47
Speaker 1: way to go between your kids hearing bumps in the
4:51
Speaker 1: night or seeing lights flicker on it off. And then
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Speaker 1: they're being like lawyers and courts involved, So like, let's
5:01
Speaker 1: let's dive in. What how did we get to there
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Speaker 1: being such a thing as legally haunted? All right, let's
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Speaker 1: set the scene. Yeah, so the Ackley House is this
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Speaker 1: earnestly beautiful Victorian home. It's in this wonderful place called Nayack,
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Speaker 1: New York, which sounds like the kind of thing that
5:20
Speaker 1: theater kids used to warm up. Nayak, New York, Nayak,
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Speaker 1: New York, New Nayak, New York. You know, I love Nayack,
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Speaker 1: New York. It's not too far away from the legendary
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Speaker 1: Sleepy Hollow and If Shore Shore, and it was built
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Speaker 1: in like eighteen ninety. You know, it's just one of
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Speaker 1: those beautiful, sweeping Victorian homes. You know. It's got the
5:46
Speaker 1: it's got all of the wood paneling, it's got the
5:48
Speaker 1: wrap around porch, it's got that kind of turret sort
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Speaker 1: of thing, it's got a it's got an in ground
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Speaker 1: fenced in pool, eight bedrooms, four and a half bathrooms,
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Speaker 1: like one and a half kitchens because there's one in
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Speaker 1: what I assume was the servant quarters. Lovely, you know,
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Speaker 1: it's got the stained glass in the windows and stuff
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Speaker 1: like that. It sounds like the kind of place where
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Speaker 1: like a murder mystery would take place, But has there been.
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Speaker 1: No one knows. We don't know much about the early
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Speaker 1: occupants of the house. Some people say that it was
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Speaker 1: probably owned by a family that still that still lives
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Speaker 1: in the area. There's just not a lot of documentation,
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Speaker 1: but it does stand out from the other houses on
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Speaker 1: the street. Okay, so we should note that the house
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Speaker 1: is not the site of any like infamous murder or
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Speaker 1: some kind of heartbreaking tragedy. The rumors of ghosts go
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Speaker 1: back to the mid nineteen seventies, so we're jumping way
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Speaker 1: ahead in time. And in nineteen seventy seven, Readers Digest
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Speaker 1: published this article titled Our Haunted House on the Hudson
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Speaker 1: and it was written by this woman named Helen Ackley
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Speaker 1: the Ackley House. She lived there. She was married to
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Speaker 1: a man named George Ackley, she had four kids, and
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Speaker 1: in it she wrote these flowery descriptions about the family's
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Speaker 1: many ghostly roommates that lived there. And it's funny because
7:21
Speaker 1: while it is a ghost story, it feels more like
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Speaker 1: it feels more like somebody describing like an unexpected pet
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Speaker 1: living with them, Like maybe not maybe not like an
7:33
Speaker 1: elephant in the room. Maybe like uh, like a one
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Speaker 1: of the smaller, less lethal wildcats, like a lynx. Like
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Speaker 1: if if the lynx came to live in your house unexpectedly,
7:45
Speaker 1: but you like kind of made way around it. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: it's like, oh, you know, could it hurt us? Maybe? Maybe? Oh?
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Speaker 1: How cute? Sure? Like it's just standing here enjoying the
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Speaker 1: views of the Hudson River with me. You know, I
8:00
Speaker 1: asked it if it likes my paint color. Choices and
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Speaker 1: it didn't disagree. So heck, yeah, let's keep the links
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Speaker 1: and let's write a charming Reader's Digest article about it. So, like,
8:11
Speaker 1: just to set this up, let me, I'm just gonna
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Speaker 1: read a little bit of this of this description, just
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Speaker 1: from the first couple of paragraphs. I saw our house
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Speaker 1: for the first time on a hot July day in
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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven, a bedraggled old Victorian. It had stood
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Speaker 1: vacant for seven years. Okay, red flag right away. It's
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Speaker 1: waste high lawn clutched about a sturdy stone foundation. It's
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Speaker 1: wood shingled roof was awry. But as I followed the
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Speaker 1: real estate agent and my husband George into the spacious hall,
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Speaker 1: I knew I was home. So this is the tone
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Speaker 1: that she's going for. Yeah, and so even before, like
8:55
Speaker 1: even before they get all of their boxes unpacked and
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Speaker 1: their stuff moved in, local children start wandering up, I imagine,
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Speaker 1: like kids like scooting up on like on bicycles, wearing
9:07
Speaker 1: like like those like like jug head crowns. Probably you know, local, local, local,
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Speaker 1: ne'er do well, twelve year old um who rode up
9:17
Speaker 1: and warned them that, like, hey, did you know that
9:19
Speaker 1: you just bought a hunted house. Because like this was
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Speaker 1: the talk of the neighborhood. Everybody knew it, it had
9:25
Speaker 1: been it had been vacant for seven years, everybody knew
9:27
Speaker 1: to I imagine, everybody knew to stay away from it,
9:30
Speaker 1: and the local kids probably had all sorts of like
9:33
Speaker 1: stories about what could have happened in the house. Oh sure.
9:36
Speaker 1: I mean it's also like a like a low key,
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Speaker 1: creepy old Victorian, and that's you know, there's there's there's
9:39
Speaker 1: one of these, or I mean, even if it's not
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Speaker 1: a Victorian, there's one like slightly in disrepair home on
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Speaker 1: every street that the local kids have a story about.
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Speaker 1: And this was that one, and right, the couple and
9:53
Speaker 1: the children go on to have any number of of
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Speaker 1: supernatural run ins. There's mocks in style, shoe clad feet
10:01
Speaker 1: on the stairs, there's a dude in the hallway, and
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Speaker 1: like perhaps Revolutionary War era attire, the powdered wig and everything.
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely very proper. The daughter, Cynthia, who was
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Speaker 1: in high school at the time, said that over Christmas break,
10:19
Speaker 1: every morning her bed shook her awake, and she wasn't
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Speaker 1: like scared particularly or mad about it, except like she
10:29
Speaker 1: wanted to sleep in, and so one night before she
10:32
Speaker 1: went to bed, she was like, Hey, I'm on vacation, dude,
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Speaker 1: can I sleep in? And it didn't happen that morning.
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Speaker 1: So I love how laws fair they are about this
10:41
Speaker 1: whole thing, right, I mean, I don't know. That's as
10:47
Speaker 1: long as nothing particularly frightening is happening. This this all
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Speaker 1: seems just fine. Yeah, like like yeah, like again, like
10:54
Speaker 1: having a you know, a lynx just like padding around
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Speaker 1: the house, sleeping in the sunbeams, Like just just leave
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Speaker 1: it alone and it won't claw your eyes out of here.
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Speaker 1: But so, okay, the ghosts were not the reason that
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Speaker 1: that this couple decided to eventually sell the home. You know,
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Speaker 1: they were just ready to downsize. So they imagine, you know,
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Speaker 1: they had like empty nest syndrome. They had this gigantic
11:21
Speaker 1: house on the Hudson right and they fixed it up.
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Speaker 1: You know, they were ready to make a little bit
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Speaker 1: of a profit. So it's nineteen eighty nine. They list
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Speaker 1: the property with Ellis Realty with agent Richard Ellis and
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Speaker 1: this young couple Jeffrey and Patricia Stambovsky our interest Remember
11:41
Speaker 1: that last name, Yeah, Sambovsky. Sambovsky, Yeah, yeah, yeah, they
11:45
Speaker 1: get interested and they put in down payment. So okay,
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Speaker 1: So talking to that realtor, According to Helen's daughter Cynthia,
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Speaker 1: Helen Actley did in fact disclose the haunted nature in
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Speaker 1: a you know, just bringing it up in passing, like, oh,
12:01
Speaker 1: by the way, there's also a link that blues here.
12:04
Speaker 1: By the way, this place is also kind of haunted,
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Speaker 1: you know, fun fact, you know, not not in any
12:10
Speaker 1: kind of like hey, before you build. Yeah yeah, so
12:15
Speaker 1: if you were to ask Ellis the real estate agent,
12:18
Speaker 1: he remembers even her refusing to sign her end of
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Speaker 1: the contract before having a conversation with a Stambovski's about it.
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Speaker 1: So like she did make it known that hey, places haunted,
12:31
Speaker 1: but there's like a ghostly he said. She said about
12:33
Speaker 1: this because the Stambofskis insist that they had not heard
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Speaker 1: about this, and furthermore that they don't believe in ghosts,
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Speaker 1: but that they do believe in the market and and
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Speaker 1: that ghosts can impact the market. So after they heard
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Speaker 1: about this whole ghost thing, they wanted to pull out
12:57
Speaker 1: of the deal. They in fact mild action against the
13:02
Speaker 1: acclas for and I quote, fraudulently misrepresenting a material condition
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Speaker 1: of the home by not mentioning, Yeah, it's scratching up
13:17
Speaker 1: the furniture, you guys. And with that, these ghostly specters
13:25
Speaker 1: have brought these people to court. That's it's not even
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Speaker 1: a links in the room. It's a link. It's links
13:31
Speaker 1: in the courtroom. Yeah. So okay. The idea here is that, um,
13:38
Speaker 1: whether or not ghosts are real, the fact that Helen
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Speaker 1: had told the whole neighborhood about this, had like had
13:44
Speaker 1: like written an article that was published in Readers Digest
13:47
Speaker 1: that this affected the the value of the property, and
13:53
Speaker 1: not by making it go up either. No. No, although
13:58
Speaker 1: we'll get into that a little bit later. So that
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Speaker 1: complaint was initially dismissed by the courts. The courts threw
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Speaker 1: it out said that, um, this woman, she didn't have
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Speaker 1: she didn't have to disclose anything about a haunted house
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Speaker 1: to the buyers, like y'all should have asked, don't worry
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Speaker 1: about it, not our problem, get out of here, guys. Yeah. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and that's uh. One of the legal things that the
14:25
Speaker 1: crops up in cases like this is a caveat empter,
14:29
Speaker 1: which is Latin for buyer beware. Basically, it's just it's
14:33
Speaker 1: just saying that it is the buyer's responsibility to do
14:37
Speaker 1: any due diligence in figuring out whatever's going on with
14:41
Speaker 1: a property. It's not the seller's responsibility to tell you
14:44
Speaker 1: have to figure it out as the buyer. And which
14:48
Speaker 1: like I mean, Lauren speaking to you, like you know,
14:50
Speaker 1: you're you're working from experience here. You you know, you
14:54
Speaker 1: went through all of the folder, all of buying a house,
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Speaker 1: Like what did you not think of that you should
15:02
Speaker 1: have to ask? Like if you could go back into
15:04
Speaker 1: the warm yourself, like, hey, ask about the basement or whatever.
15:08
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the process is still ongoing, so I
15:11
Speaker 1: guess we're gonna find out. But um, but that being said,
15:14
Speaker 1: like I mean, I hired I hired a contractor and electrician,
15:20
Speaker 1: um an HVAC expert, And to be honest, I did
15:25
Speaker 1: have a friend come through for like a vibe check.
15:28
Speaker 1: So okay, So you you were you were more much
15:33
Speaker 1: more proactive than the Stumbrovskis apparently okay, But at any rate,
15:40
Speaker 1: they appealed the decision and it went all the way
15:45
Speaker 1: to the New York State Supreme Court. That's bonkers, okay.
15:51
Speaker 1: So once it got to the court, once it got
15:54
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court of New York. Let me make
15:57
Speaker 1: sure that I'm getting this judge's name correct, Justice Ruben.
16:02
Speaker 1: Do we have his first name? Hey, Max, do we
16:04
Speaker 1: have Justice Ruben's first name? That speaking? And he's Fallen
16:13
Speaker 1: Millege just for you right now. So we've got like
16:20
Speaker 1: a whole Jackson five situation going on in the Supreme
16:25
Speaker 1: Court in New York. All right, I think I'm pretty
16:28
Speaker 1: certain I have the right one. The right justice I
16:31
Speaker 1: think is Israel Ruben. He was the Associate Justice from
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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine to two thousand. Tune born December fourteenth,
16:39
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty six and died May twenty third, twenty fourteen.
16:43
Speaker 1: But as June was joking, there are multiple Justice Rubens
16:48
Speaker 1: in New York around this time. So let's call this
16:52
Speaker 1: Max with the partial facts right here and go with it.
16:56
Speaker 1: Phone get back. So Justice Ruben, who was quite a
17:10
Speaker 1: spring chicken at that point, Um, he disagreed with the
17:17
Speaker 1: former courts ruling that you know, basically said get out
17:20
Speaker 1: of here. And he was joined by two other judges.
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Speaker 1: Whether they were the other two Rubens, we don't know.
17:26
Speaker 1: He was joined by two other judges to form the
17:28
Speaker 1: majority opinion that the caveat of buyer beware caveat ter
17:33
Speaker 1: should be set aside in this case because the defect
17:37
Speaker 1: is not a physical one. Again, it's ectoplasmic now. Because
17:45
Speaker 1: the judges were not you know, tarot readers, they weren't
17:49
Speaker 1: wuiji bored enthusiasts. Um. Instead, they argued that things like
17:55
Speaker 1: a crime, a violent crime happening in the house, a
17:58
Speaker 1: reputation based on and past occurrences in a location, can
18:03
Speaker 1: devalue the market value of a property, and so as
18:07
Speaker 1: a result, the seller should have have to disclose this
18:10
Speaker 1: to the buyers. So he was kind of wagging his
18:13
Speaker 1: finger at um at acclee there. Yeah, yeah, the court wrote,
18:20
Speaker 1: having reported the ghost's presence in both a national publication
18:25
Speaker 1: i e. Reader's Digest and the local press, defendant is
18:30
Speaker 1: a stopped to deny their existence. And as a matter
18:33
Speaker 1: of law, the house is haunted. Yeah, as a matter
18:37
Speaker 1: of law, legally haunted house. Where is that movie by
18:41
Speaker 1: the way, like I will I want to see, like
18:45
Speaker 1: you know coming this fall from Miramax Pictures. Elwoods is
18:51
Speaker 1: back from the dead, legally haunted harmonium. Cyclocally, I think
18:59
Speaker 1: I think that we we could have multiple movies in
19:01
Speaker 1: a year the same you know that that once upon
19:03
Speaker 1: a time we had like multiple Tornado films in a year,
19:06
Speaker 1: Like like a one can be a really tense court
19:08
Speaker 1: drama and one can be way more fabulous. You get
19:11
Speaker 1: like fashion tips from the ghosts, so you like really
19:13
Speaker 1: start bringing back some revolutionary era of fashions. I think
19:17
Speaker 1: it would be really cool. A buddy comedy with a kid. Yes,
19:22
Speaker 1: we need more of those. Yeah, all right, I agree.
19:26
Speaker 1: So but yeah, so the judge was basically like Helen,
19:29
Speaker 1: you went and told everybody, yeah in Reader's Digest, Yeah,
19:33
Speaker 1: in great detail. Okay, so just I'm sorry, but to
19:38
Speaker 1: return to this Reader's Digest article because it's so it's
19:41
Speaker 1: so flowery and fascinating, like it's it's as if she's
19:44
Speaker 1: writing about like just an old friend who stopped through town.
19:48
Speaker 1: So at one point she's writing about how she she's
19:51
Speaker 1: alone in the house and she's painting a room and
19:55
Speaker 1: she feels eyes on her and I'm reading here. I
20:01
Speaker 1: turned my head. The room was empty. I started working again,
20:05
Speaker 1: but the eerie feeling persisted, so I spoke out loud,
20:09
Speaker 1: I hope you like the color, hope you pleased with
20:12
Speaker 1: what we're doing to the house. It certainly must have
20:15
Speaker 1: been lovely when it was built. And as I talked,
20:18
Speaker 1: I kept painting, but I felt the energy of those
20:21
Speaker 1: eyes focused on the nape of my neck. I looked
20:24
Speaker 1: over my shoulder again. Quote. He sat there in midair,
20:29
Speaker 1: smiling at me from in front of the old fireplace.
20:32
Speaker 1: Hands clasped around his cross knees. He was nodding and rocking.
20:38
Speaker 1: He faded slowly, still smiling, and was gone. But I
20:41
Speaker 1: knew that he approved of the work our family had
20:45
Speaker 1: lavished on our mutual home. This is it's very Norah Roberts.
20:51
Speaker 1: I feel I love everything about this story. Oh my goodness,
20:59
Speaker 1: it's like it's it's not it's not a ghost story.
21:02
Speaker 1: It's like a it's like it's like a ghost story,
21:04
Speaker 1: but for HGTV. Right, Okay, so this house. The decision
21:16
Speaker 1: is known as the nineteen ninety one Stanbovski Versus Acte ruling,
21:21
Speaker 1: or or right by its way cooler street name the
21:26
Speaker 1: Ghostbusters Ruling. Who are you gonna call a lawyer? You're
21:31
Speaker 1: gonna call a lawyer? Okay, speaking of where does the
21:37
Speaker 1: law stand today on haunting disclosures? Okay, So the acte verdict.
21:43
Speaker 1: Of course, as court cases do, created a precedent. It's
21:48
Speaker 1: not official state law in New York, but it did
21:52
Speaker 1: set this precedent for the question of whether or not
21:54
Speaker 1: to disclose paranormal activity. And people have come out of
21:58
Speaker 1: the woodwork or the grave work to capitalize on this,
22:04
Speaker 1: Folks like Cindy Hagley, who is a real estate agent
22:09
Speaker 1: I think in the Bay Area, Max, can I get
22:12
Speaker 1: a fact check on that? Is she in the Bay Area?
22:14
Speaker 1: I will get on it. Thank you. Um. She runs
22:18
Speaker 1: the Hagley Group Hagley pardon me, and is the president
22:22
Speaker 1: of and I love this Past Life Homes, which is
22:26
Speaker 1: a consultancy that helps haunted homeowners sell their properties. Yeah,
22:31
Speaker 1: and shout out to HowStuffWorks dot com who interviewed her
22:35
Speaker 1: back in twenty twenty about all this and that phrase
22:38
Speaker 1: haunted homeowners sell their bedeviled properties is straight from them. Thanks. Thanks.
22:44
Speaker 1: So I got Cindy Hagley's Zillo page up well first
22:49
Speaker 1: and foremost she her hers are pronouns perfect five stars
22:53
Speaker 1: on fourteen reviews. That's most important, specially these buyer's agent
22:56
Speaker 1: listing agents foreclosure short sales. She is located on the
23:00
Speaker 1: Francisco esque area Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, that kind of
23:04
Speaker 1: area all we out of Stockton phone and drops inegeh
23:15
Speaker 1: for you. And we should note she's also a podcast host.
23:25
Speaker 1: She has she's the co host of a show called
23:27
Speaker 1: Grave Misunderstandings, which, oh my god, I love this so much. Okay,
23:34
Speaker 1: this is wonderful. Um, if it wasn't clear to everyone,
23:39
Speaker 1: June and I are kind of like spooky bitches and
23:42
Speaker 1: so like I think that this is this is this
23:45
Speaker 1: whole thing is perfect. I'm so glad. I'm gonterally do
23:47
Speaker 1: it right now literally wearing a skull necklace. That's why
23:54
Speaker 1: they asked me to do this. But okay, so a
23:59
Speaker 1: core to Hagley, who is an expert in this kind
24:03
Speaker 1: of thing. She will disclose hauntings if they are open
24:07
Speaker 1: and notorious, like if there have been multiple sidings the neighbors. No,
24:13
Speaker 1: maybe you've written a Florid Reader's Digest article about it
24:19
Speaker 1: and you know, but because right, but like like along
24:21
Speaker 1: the lines of the fact that that this could be
24:24
Speaker 1: stigmatizing for the home and like state law is difficult,
24:31
Speaker 1: like like to be honest, I did not dig through
24:33
Speaker 1: the legal code for home buyers for every state. But
24:37
Speaker 1: I have read on legal blogs, lawblogs. Um that, lawblogs,
24:44
Speaker 1: thank you, that three states do mention hauntings in their
24:48
Speaker 1: disclosure law. Minnesota and Massachusetts actually both free sellers from
24:53
Speaker 1: having to disclose such a non material fact as haunted.
24:58
Speaker 1: Unim the material is great, all right, UMU, and Minnesota
25:05
Speaker 1: specifically calls them perceived paranormal activities. Yeah, um, y'all keep
25:12
Speaker 1: your your free roaming vapors tears. Yeah, don't have to.
25:17
Speaker 1: New Jersey specifies that a seller does have to disclose
25:20
Speaker 1: hauntings if asked. If asked is the important part, so
25:24
Speaker 1: I or beware exactly, yeah, like like generally you don't
25:28
Speaker 1: have to proactively tell anyone about this. But if you
25:34
Speaker 1: live in California, if you live in California, South Dakota,
25:38
Speaker 1: or if we have any listeners in Alaska, which I
25:40
Speaker 1: know that we do, there are exceptions to this rule
25:43
Speaker 1: and I love this. So in California, for example, any
25:46
Speaker 1: death on a property, peaceful or otherwise it states needs
25:52
Speaker 1: to be disclosed if it occurred within the last three years. Um.
25:56
Speaker 1: In Alaska and in South Dakota, they're a little less
26:00
Speaker 1: concerned with death. H it's any death within the past year. Okay, yeah,
26:06
Speaker 1: so that that that person who got accidentally murdered to
26:10
Speaker 1: death in your fourier U five years ago. Don't worry
26:14
Speaker 1: about it. Oh yeah, that one's fine. Yeah, she's okay,
26:18
Speaker 1: she's just chilling. Um. But other states it's uh, it's
26:23
Speaker 1: going by it's going by the good old guacamole rule. Uh.
26:27
Speaker 1: It's available on request. It's gonna cost you extra. But
26:34
Speaker 1: you know, if if you're if you are particularly if
26:36
Speaker 1: you're particularly there, we need to come up with another
26:39
Speaker 1: phrase for like afraid of ghosts or like having a
26:43
Speaker 1: prejudice against like deadest ghost ISTT Yeah, spiritist. Are you
26:50
Speaker 1: a spirit It's like being agist. Like no, it's like
26:53
Speaker 1: being agist to an extreme degree. So if if you're spiritist,
27:00
Speaker 1: just know that you should probably ask sure. Yeah, because
27:05
Speaker 1: generally speaking, like if a potential buyer asks any question
27:09
Speaker 1: about the property to the seller or the agent that
27:12
Speaker 1: they have to answer truthfully to the best of their knowledge.
27:16
Speaker 1: The rules do change if the death in question was violent, um,
27:21
Speaker 1: like like a like a murder, a suicide, especially anything
27:24
Speaker 1: that's been publicized. UM is floridest I don't know in
27:34
Speaker 1: a true crime podcast something like that. Um where where
27:38
Speaker 1: where would we hear something like that? Though, Oh, I
27:41
Speaker 1: have literally no idea. Um, that's considered something that would
27:45
Speaker 1: stigmatize the property to the same extent that like that
27:48
Speaker 1: like fiscal damage, like like water damage or you know,
27:51
Speaker 1: lead paint in the walls, which is a form that
27:53
Speaker 1: I had to sign off on, knowing about my house having.
27:56
Speaker 1: They're like, yeah, don't eat the paint chips. I was like, gotcha, cool,
27:59
Speaker 1: no problem, stated Georgia. Um. Yeah, no, they're They're like, yeah,
28:03
Speaker 1: I love Like the checklist is like, you know, make
28:05
Speaker 1: sure that the rufous stable, make sure that the foundation
28:07
Speaker 1: isn't cracked, make sure that it's not haunted, and there's
28:10
Speaker 1: no murders that happened here. Yeah, although I will say
28:14
Speaker 1: that there are some situations in which, yeah, hauntings can
28:17
Speaker 1: be considered a bonus. Ooh okay, this is okay, this
28:20
Speaker 1: is what I'm here for. Okay. So, just for example,
28:24
Speaker 1: some agents who sell homes in New Orleans hang special
28:29
Speaker 1: placards from the street level signage. You know, like you've
28:32
Speaker 1: seen these placards on real estate signs. It's like open house,
28:35
Speaker 1: swimming pool, contract pending haunted or not haunted. They have
28:42
Speaker 1: both of those specified. What I want is like a
28:45
Speaker 1: motel sign that has like a kneon like like like
28:50
Speaker 1: no vacancy, haunted, not haunted, like oh yeah, depending on
28:55
Speaker 1: when the ghosts are coming and going. Um, I like
28:59
Speaker 1: the crisp crispy cream, hot hot fresh now ghosts. I'm
29:07
Speaker 1: very into this. I have to admit to y'all that,
29:11
Speaker 1: um that if I ever hang a sign like upon
29:14
Speaker 1: my person that says in large caps, lock block letters,
29:18
Speaker 1: not haunted, it's a lie that is absolutely over compensation
29:22
Speaker 1: and you should oh we can see it in your eyes.
29:28
Speaker 1: I don't think you need. Okay. So, having said all
29:36
Speaker 1: of that, what is the Actley House doing now? I mean,
29:41
Speaker 1: apart from standing by the Hudson handsomely. Sure, sure it
29:46
Speaker 1: has actually changed hands like relatively frequently. The aforementioned real
29:51
Speaker 1: estate agent Ellis said, maybe it's because of the energy there,
29:56
Speaker 1: but but right, like, it does have this history of
29:58
Speaker 1: perceived haunting. None of the subsequent owners have just have
30:03
Speaker 1: reported any ghosts themselves, and a bunch of them have
30:06
Speaker 1: been like really pretty public figures. I believe the guy
30:10
Speaker 1: who bought it after the accles were trying to sell it,
30:13
Speaker 1: and they went through this whole Stembowski case. Was filmmaker
30:19
Speaker 1: Adam Brooks who lived there for like twenty years. That
30:22
Speaker 1: was his residence if you're unfamiliar with the name off
30:25
Speaker 1: the top of your head, while he co wrote the
30:27
Speaker 1: screenplay for Practical Magic. How freaking perfect does that? I
30:30
Speaker 1: love that? And then after him and Grid Michaelson, the
30:35
Speaker 1: you know, lightened Bubbly Ukulele Whielder lived in it, and
30:41
Speaker 1: then she sold it in twenty fifteen. So in nineteen
30:44
Speaker 1: eighty nine it sold for how much eight hundred thousand? Okay,
30:49
Speaker 1: so by the time Ingrid Michaelson is unloading it in
30:53
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, it was listed for one point nine million
30:57
Speaker 1: dollars an old victorian on the Hudson because of course,
31:02
Speaker 1: but she didn't blame ghosts for leaving. I can't imagine
31:06
Speaker 1: that Ingrid Michaelson would like would see ghosts like she
31:09
Speaker 1: she would like living with that Lynx. I would impress, sure, yeah,
31:12
Speaker 1: she'd be like, hey, what do you think of this briff?
31:14
Speaker 1: And you know, I don't know if ghosts would have
31:16
Speaker 1: an opinion. I'm sure that that old powdered wig would
31:19
Speaker 1: probably have a word or two to say, try going
31:24
Speaker 1: to a minor chord. See, maybe maybe this is why
31:27
Speaker 1: she left. Maybe she was like yeah, but but um
31:34
Speaker 1: it was. In fact, another musician who bought the home.
31:38
Speaker 1: Modest Yahoo bought the homes and lived there for four years.
31:44
Speaker 1: Who knew until until twenty nineteen, and then the home
31:47
Speaker 1: went up for sale in twenty twenty for one point
31:51
Speaker 1: nine million and last sold in twenty twenty one for
31:54
Speaker 1: one million, seven hundred and ninety five thousand dollars. So
32:00
Speaker 1: not quite the asking price. But you know, real estate's
32:03
Speaker 1: weird right now. Yeah, okay, so maybe the most important
32:09
Speaker 1: question that we haven't really touched on. I'm surprised that
32:11
Speaker 1: we've gone this entire time without talking about it, Lauren.
32:15
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen a ghost? You know? I can't
32:19
Speaker 1: say it was necessarily a ghost I have. I don't
32:22
Speaker 1: believe in ghosts, but I have experienced phenomena that I
32:26
Speaker 1: cannot say that I can explain. That's a pretty big butt, Laura.
32:30
Speaker 1: It is a it's a that's a large that's like
32:32
Speaker 1: a baby got back like sis, but right there, I
32:36
Speaker 1: mean like like I brought that friend over, our friend Cody,
32:39
Speaker 1: you know, Cody. Uh oh, yes, Cody, of oh, but perfect,
32:43
Speaker 1: not specifically because I wanted them to do a vibe check,
32:46
Speaker 1: like they're one of my best friends. Like I wanted
32:47
Speaker 1: them to check to see the house. In general, it's
32:49
Speaker 1: a thing that I'm excited about. Come check out this
32:52
Speaker 1: very expensive thing I might embark on. But right, like,
32:56
Speaker 1: the fact that they did a vibe check was welcome,
32:58
Speaker 1: partially because the house that I buying is an estate sale,
33:03
Speaker 1: and you know the former owner. I'm not sure where
33:09
Speaker 1: she passed. It might have been in the house. Oh
33:13
Speaker 1: that's from the nineteen sixties. Any number of things could
33:16
Speaker 1: have happened there. Oh well, of course, nineteen sixties Atlanta.
33:20
Speaker 1: Come on, right, come on, I have seen I'm fairly, no,
33:27
Speaker 1: not fairly. I am absolutely a thousand percent certain I've
33:31
Speaker 1: seen a ghost. Yeah. Yeah. So I was staying with
33:36
Speaker 1: my I was a young child. I was staying at
33:38
Speaker 1: my grandmother's house, and my great grandmother at that time
33:45
Speaker 1: was in a nursing home which was almost literally just
33:48
Speaker 1: across the street from the oh oh wow. Uh. And
33:53
Speaker 1: I was sleeping in her old room, and I recall
34:00
Speaker 1: one night waking up because the light in the bathroom
34:05
Speaker 1: next to that bedroom was turned on and like light
34:08
Speaker 1: was flooding into the room in the middle of the night,
34:10
Speaker 1: and I, you know, kind of sat up with a start.
34:16
Speaker 1: I didn't have my glasses on because I had been asleep.
34:21
Speaker 1: But there was a figure, a shadowed figure in the
34:24
Speaker 1: doorway sort of poking its head into the room, and
34:28
Speaker 1: it made it made a surprised noise, like they did,
34:32
Speaker 1: like they pup their head into the room, not expecting
34:34
Speaker 1: to see somebody lying in the bed and went huh
34:38
Speaker 1: and withdrew really quickly, and for some reason in my
34:42
Speaker 1: like nine year old brain, I was like, oh, my
34:47
Speaker 1: Lola is asking me to get up. So I got up.
34:50
Speaker 1: So I woke up, and I went to the bathroom
34:52
Speaker 1: and I brushed my teeth, and then I was I
34:56
Speaker 1: walked into the living room. It's the middle of the night,
34:58
Speaker 1: and finally I'm wearing my glasses at this point. And
35:02
Speaker 1: in the living room, my great grandmother, my Nana, I
35:06
Speaker 1: was sitting in the chair she normally sat in right
35:11
Speaker 1: by the front window, just looking out onto the lawn.
35:17
Speaker 1: And it freaked me the hell out, and I ran
35:20
Speaker 1: to my Lola's bed and I like dove under the
35:22
Speaker 1: cover and slept between her and Lolo like for the
35:25
Speaker 1: rest of the night, and then nobody believed me in
35:28
Speaker 1: the morning until until Okay, they got news that in
35:34
Speaker 1: the middle of the night Nana I had suffered some
35:38
Speaker 1: internal bleeding and had to be emergency rushed to the
35:42
Speaker 1: hospital in the middle of the night, probably right around
35:45
Speaker 1: the time that I saw her in the living room.
35:48
Speaker 1: So I've had close personal experience with um, with the supernatural.
35:55
Speaker 1: So I am like, I am so on board with
35:57
Speaker 1: this whole lake, Like, let me at this. Somebody, somebody
36:01
Speaker 1: give me, somebody give me a couple million dollars so
36:04
Speaker 1: I can move into this house on the Hudson in
36:06
Speaker 1: New York and and just live out, live out my
36:12
Speaker 1: my ghostly dreams, my my links, my my my Lynxy fantasies. Yeah,
36:19
Speaker 1: I see, all of mine are much more easily explainable
36:23
Speaker 1: than that. Like, like I don't know, like like one
36:25
Speaker 1: of the theaters that I volunteer out around town sometimes, um,
36:29
Speaker 1: you know, like like I would be there after hours
36:31
Speaker 1: at weird times when when no one else was around,
36:33
Speaker 1: and you know, I would hear weird, weird sounds coming
36:36
Speaker 1: from places where I mean, old building, you know, things
36:39
Speaker 1: happen in old buildings, but but sounds that I couldn't
36:41
Speaker 1: quite explain, um, in places that I couldn't quite explain
36:44
Speaker 1: them having come from uh kind of hot and cold
36:48
Speaker 1: areas stuff like that. Somebody right, yeah, yeah, that kind
36:53
Speaker 1: of thing. And um, and there was this one specific
36:56
Speaker 1: like like really like really rhythmic knocking that would happen
37:03
Speaker 1: that was that was just like really almost inquisitive. It
37:05
Speaker 1: was just like a kind of thing happening. I don't
37:09
Speaker 1: know if that picked up on Mike at all. But
37:12
Speaker 1: this went on for a number of weeks, and then
37:16
Speaker 1: we found out that there were raccoons living in the
37:17
Speaker 1: air vents. So um, speaking speaking of of furry rodents
37:30
Speaker 1: moving into your house, where's this transition going going back
37:37
Speaker 1: to the links? Great? Great, I'm about with you. Cool
37:39
Speaker 1: all right, So what have we learned? What have we learned? One?
37:43
Speaker 1: Old houses are awesome and should all all of them
37:46
Speaker 1: should come with ghosts In my opinion, yes, absolutely. But
37:51
Speaker 1: if if, if living with a ghost is not your jam,
37:53
Speaker 1: and you're buying a house, just ask, because they have
37:56
Speaker 1: to tell you it's it's it's ghostly, it's it's it's
38:02
Speaker 1: entrapman and containment. It's the great oh dear. Okay, yeah,
38:08
Speaker 1: so buyer beware is like the biggest thing. And also
38:10
Speaker 1: like if you live in Alaska, you know you got
38:14
Speaker 1: a year, you got you got three hundred and sixty
38:16
Speaker 1: five days and that's all that they're going to give you.
38:18
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, um oh hark so uh June, if people
38:26
Speaker 1: want to hear more from you, where can they find you? Well,
38:29
Speaker 1: you can find me. I have a website, Michael June
38:33
Speaker 1: dot com that's m y k a L because I
38:36
Speaker 1: have to be extra m y k a l j
38:39
Speaker 1: u n e like the month Michael June dot com
38:42
Speaker 1: for all your Michael June dot com needs um. That
38:45
Speaker 1: has linked all my socials. If you follow me on Twitter,
38:49
Speaker 1: just know that it's a mess um um. But I
38:54
Speaker 1: I have linked you know, shows that I've worked on.
38:57
Speaker 1: I'm a writer, so you know articles that I have written,
39:00
Speaker 1: music that I make that kind of thing of you know,
39:06
Speaker 1: you know, spooky bit just gotta bang on guitars. It's necessary,
39:09
Speaker 1: it's in our contract. Actually yeah, um, you died. You
39:13
Speaker 1: don't want to cross the spooky bitch legal department and
39:16
Speaker 1: that's terrible. Um. Yeah, my full name I don't think
39:21
Speaker 1: I said it at the top. Was is not? Was? Oh? Gosh,
39:24
Speaker 1: am I a ghost? Is Lauren vogel Bomb. Um. You
39:27
Speaker 1: can find me around the internet on Instagram. I am
39:31
Speaker 1: at vogel Bomb like vog e l Bomb because I
39:35
Speaker 1: was really feeling myself that day. On Twitter, Oh, thank you,
39:39
Speaker 1: no you, oh both of us, Yeah, you two Max
39:43
Speaker 1: on Twitter, I'm grammar monkey because that happened in like
39:46
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine and it's very very aol instant messenger,
39:51
Speaker 1: a kind of kind of handle. Yeah, all right, well,
39:55
Speaker 1: Lauren June, thank y'all so much for being here. Oh,
39:58
Speaker 1: thank you for having us. You know, it was much
40:01
Speaker 1: better than the normal. Two fools I am with all
40:06
Speaker 1: are much more enjoyable. But you know, Ben Noel, they
40:09
Speaker 1: are both very spooky. Bit just too they are they
40:12
Speaker 1: are it's what brings us together, right. But also we
40:16
Speaker 1: want to give us special thanks to Christopher Haspiotis and
40:19
Speaker 1: Eaves Jeff Coat, who are you know here with us
40:22
Speaker 1: in spirit obviously, in spirits obviously, Ben Boland, Noel Brown
40:29
Speaker 1: of the normal host who will be back next week.
40:32
Speaker 1: Of course, special thanks to Alex Williams who composed this
40:36
Speaker 1: theme right here our research associates, Jeff Bartlett and Zach Williams.
40:42
Speaker 1: Thanks Jeff's, Thanks Zach, and of course the haunted spirit
40:46
Speaker 1: of our show, mister Jonathan's Stricklin, whose ghosts will be
40:53
Speaker 1: around to haunt us someday soon, but hopefully that day
40:56
Speaker 1: is not today. Just just don't stay his name two
40:58
Speaker 1: more times it is Beel rules, oh you, And in
41:03
Speaker 1: the words of our fast and furious leader, Noel Brown,
41:08
Speaker 1: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
41:19
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
41:22
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.