The Day I Discovered My Home Was Haunted

Editor's note: This article was first published in November last year.

During the four years I'd lived alone in my ground floor apartment in bayside Melbourne, I'd always felt safe. The building was secure behind a high fence and locked gates, and I had deadlocks on the doors and windows. Not only did I feel protected and comfortable there, but I also had an affection for my little nook away from the world. I loved reading the papers at the dining table as the sun streamed in through the windows; pottering in the garden; and soaking away the stresses of the day in my deep, cast-iron bath. But towards the end of 2008, without any warning, frightening things started happening in my home. The lights would come on without explanation, light globes would explode in showers of glass, ceiling fans would be spinning when I'd returned from a day out, and my two favourite rings vanished from my bedside table. I began to feel uneasy when undressing, and on two extreme occasions that summer, I felt so uncomfortable that I slept in my clothes.

This was completely out of character for me, and during fleeting moments, I questioned my sanity. Where did this paranoia come from? Was I really being watched? I felt strangely reassured when a friend dropped by in the midst of it all and suddenly – for no reason – she burst into tears. I confided in her what had been taking place in my flat. The energy, she agreed, was overpoweringly negative.

The final straw came one week in early December when I was woken on three separate nights by the horrifying feeling of someone leaping on the bed, pummelling me, and yelling in my ear. Although the event was slightly different on each occasion, the common thread was of a male presence on top of me, preventing me from moving.

The first time it happened, I felt as though I was being tossed around and my left leg was raised into the air. I dismissed it as a strangely real nightmare. The next night the same thing happened, but this time I heard an unmistakable roar, as if someone was screaming right in my ear. My bedroom light – attached to a ceiling fan and operated by remote control – came on three times. Aghast,

I leapt out of bed, switched off the power at the wall and shouted with fury to be left in peace. It didn't happen again that night, but I didn't get much sleep.

The next day, my sister begged me to go and stay with her, but in the harsh light of day, my nocturnal terrors seemed too ridiculous to consider. There must be an explanation, I thought.

As a journalist, I deal in facts. Ambitious and driven, in 1994, aged 24, I was named NSW Young Journalist of the Year, and I've since held senior editorial positions at major metropolitan newspapers in Australia and Asia. I've made it my life's work to sort fact from fiction, and I have a streak of cynicism some might consider unhealthy. I'm also agnostic.

After a few weeks of night terrors and the unsettling feeling of being watched, I asked a psychologist if she could offer an explanation. She assured me I wasn't going mad and pointed to the study of parapsychology. Later, when an electrician suggested I remove the batteries from the remote control (he couldn't explain the exploding light bulbs or spinning fan), I called a priest. "Good triumphs over evil," he told me. He didn't mention exorcism, and I felt too silly to ask.

Tentatively, I confided in a few close friends – fellow journalists who knew my rising paranoia was out of place. I don't take drugs and I'm a light social drinker. I saw sceptical minds open to the possibilities. "I wouldn't believe it if I heard it from anyone but you," one said. Then someone mentioned Maria Last.

A professional psychic and medium, Maria is a 30-something Irish woman whose marriage to an Australian man brought her to Melbourne seven years ago. "Hello, I know this sounds insane, but there's something strange going on

in my flat," I told Maria over the phone.

In her soft lilt, she asked me a series of questions: Had I experienced electrical faults? Had anything gone missing? Did I hear or feel things that didn't seem real? Any unexplained draughts or aromas? Had I had trouble sleeping, strong dreams, recurring headaches, or a sense of not being alone? For the first time in weeks, I felt someone understood. "OK, well, it sounds like you're right, but you really must know that there is no need to worry," she assured me.

For as long as she can remember, Maria has seen dead people. And the day she came to my apartment, she saw several. "The deceased mostly look like people ... sometimes they're like watermarks, sometimes black and white, sometimes colour photos, sometimes just like a coloured movie," she explained. As a baby, she remembers the ethereal form of a "crystalline, bluey-white" woman watching lovingly over her cot. A few years later, while travelling with her family to visit a dying relative, she announced they were too late after seeing his spirit float past. They arrived to discover he'd just died.

By the time Maria visited me on a warm summer's day, I was at my wit's end. It had been two months since I'd felt comfortable at home. My sleep had been repeatedly disturbed. I was on edge, anxious and reluctant to go to bed.

In the two days since our phone conversation, I'd followed Maria's advice, applying the standard "energy clearing" techniques, including burning sage "smudge" sticks and placing black obsidian crystals beside my bed. "Try these," she'd instructed me, "and call back if it doesn't work." Then, for the third time in a week, I'd experienced the horror of a night-time "visitor" and decided to ask Maria to come to my flat.

Petite and conservatively dressed, she looked more like her mainly professional, female clientele than the velvet-clad cliché associated with New Age beliefs. She explained that she avoids using the word "spiritual" for the stereotype it conjures up. She again assured me everything would be OK, before asking where in the flat I felt least at ease. Was there anywhere that was inexplicably cold? Particular rooms where I'd experienced the most electrical disturbance? Without hesitation, I directed her to the master bedroom, where the ceiling fan had spun and the lights flashed at night; and my home office, which was uncomfortably chilly that day despite the direct, late-afternoon sun.

Stepping into the office, Maria stopped dead. "Well, we've found our culprit," she announced, before turning towards the antique iron day bed beside my desk. "Hello, what are you doing here?" she enquired of the seemingly empty room. "You know you can't stay."

Maria said he was a young man named Jim who had been crippled by a medical problem that left him with limited use of his legs. He told Maria he'd taken a shine to me during an open-house party I'd held a few summers previously, and had been with me ever since. Over the next half-hour, Jim told Maria details about my life she could never have known: the way I read aloud as I'm writing, and my frustration about a health complaint that had curbed my ability to run. He said his admiration for my strength in overcoming the ailment was one of the things that drew him to me, Maria claimed. Jim smoked, she said, and it was possible I'd smelt it. Bizarrely, I'd often griped about a waft of tobacco from the upstairs apartment. Later, I'd discovered my neighbours don't smoke.

I listened to Maria's banter and she passed on Jim's replies. Once or twice they didn't resonate and doubt crept in – but not for long. I'd moved in during July, for example, but Maria was resolute – Jim insisted my house-warming had taken place in summer. It wasn't until later that I remembered I'd waited until my birthday in November to hold a combined celebration. Overwhelmed by the accuracy, I found it hard not to believe.

After about 30 minutes of chat, Maria convinced Jim that life would be better if he went "into the light", the entrance to a higher plane. He was joined by a favourite uncle of his who appeared to escort him. Helping a spirit to "cross over" is similar to the way it's shown in the Channel Seven show Ghost Whisperer, she said, but with significantly less drama, fewer heaving bosoms, and no banging doors and billowing curtains.

But there was more to come. Maria doubted that Jim's jovial energy was responsible for the creepy presence I'd felt, particularly since he'd been with me for so long. Using a crystal pendulum suspended on a chain, she entered the master bedroom and walked around slowly. We watched as the pendulum swung clockwise then, as Maria neared the corner of the room, whip violently the other way. Suddenly, she started speaking again – this time without lightness or charm. This guy, she said, is a creep; a stalker in life and no different in death. Maria's language was rude and aggressive. He told her he'd followed me home after seeing me out a couple of months earlier, and bragged about groping me in bed.

After a few minutes of conversation, in which details emerged about him watching me in bed and in the bathroom, I decided I didn't want to hear anymore. I didn't ask questions. I just wanted him gone. I hovered at the back of the room, feeling violated and anxious.

Looking back, I have no idea how long it took, although it felt like forever. Maria explained that she forced the man into the light with the help of bouncer-like spirit "helpers". Minutes later, she again circled the room with the pendulum and we watched as it first hung still, then slowly turned clockwise, indicating the negative energy had passed. The atmosphere might feel tense for a couple of days, she said, but he was gone and he couldn't come back. I burst into tears.

Emotional and spent, I sat on the sofa nursing a Scotch as Maria talked about "visitors" who'd gathered around us – my recently deceased grandfather; his long-dead former wife; and a much-loved mentor who'd died of lung cancer and identified himself by flicking a cigarette lighter. The evening grew lighter as he offered amusing advice on subjects known only to me – typically paternal remarks about my taste in men and a bossy appraisal of a career change that he believed would waste my talent. I got so absorbed in the "conversation", I found myself raising my voice as I told him he had no idea. Just like the old days.

Perhaps I'm a cynic, but my job brings with it a questioning mind and a desire to know the truth. The events of that night changed my understanding of "reality" and sent me on a quest to learn more. After reading books on spirituality, I enrolled in a program run by Maria designed to teach people to harness their "sixth sense" and connect with the spirit world. During the first session, she taught me to disconnect from the moods of others, seek advice in my dreams by asking questions I want answered before I go to sleep, and how to recognise signs of spirit presence. For me, they include subtle sensations such as tingling, shivers, touch and sounds.

I was surprised to discover I could relate to what she taught, and opened my mind to a world beyond my comprehension. There was no going back. Unexpectedly, I started to feel a connection with the long-deceased grandmother I had never wished to know, a stranger named Pat who had left my mother as a toddler after a brief marriage to my grandfather during World War II.

Several times during my life I had set out to learn more about Pat, but had been discouraged by the pain her abandonment caused my mother. When I met Maria, I'd just learnt Pat was dead and had seen her photograph for the first time, having finally traced a living sister.

Maria told me my grandmother is with me frequently, finding atonement for the lack of maternal instinct in her life by guiding and supporting me in mine. Do I believe it? It seems absurd, but there's no denying the presence I feel; I can detect her love, amusement and interest in what I'm doing. Sometimes I feel her pride. She has a mischievous streak – not at all grandmotherly – and I catch myself talking to her when I sense her pleasure in behaviours my mother might not approve of. It turns out we're quite alike, and not just in appearance.

The most tangible physical sign associated with Pat is a shiver in my right leg accompanied by a sensation best described as a "knowing"; a feeling of absolute certainty planted in my head at random moments. Occasionally, I hear a voice, internal and barely discernible – and sometimes the warmth of an embrace.

So, what have I learnt? There's no question I still feel doubt, and there are times when it all seems too crazy to be real. Am I looking for reinforcement for things I want to believe? I don't think that's the case, although I wonder if I'll ever be sure. In talking about the experience, I've encountered others who have had similar journeys. I see frequent references to it in the media. Sometimes it feels like belonging to a society for those in the know. Whatever the answer, to me it doesn't matter. My life has changed for the better. I'm happier, gratified and feel more in touch with my spirit.