The Infamous Files: The House the Law Called Haunted

Mysterious Pacific Northwest · Oct 22, 2026 · 41m

In 1991, a New York appellate court issued one of the strangest real estate decisions in legal history: Stambovsky v. Ackley, better known as the “Ghostbusters ruling.” The case centered on a Victorian home in Nyack, New York, whose owner had publicly described it as haunted. When buyer Jeffrey Stambovsky learned about the house’s reputation after agreeing to purchase it, he sought to undo the deal. The court’s memorable opinion declared that, as a matter of law, the house was haunted—but the legal issue was the property’s public reputation, not proof that ghosts existed. We explore the…