|
|
|
|
|
If you own a haunted house in New York State and you want to sell it, you are required by law not to keep your ghosts a secret. Potential buyers must be informed before they make the purchase that the house, in the legal terminology, is "stigmatised." Otherwise, the vendor can be taken to court.
Six years ago a couple put down a $32,000 (20,000 pounds sterling) deposit on an old Victorian mansion on the Hudson River. Then they learned that the house was haunted by ghosts of men who fought in America's War of Independence. They sued the owner and won back most of their deposit. The judge declared that "as a matter of law" the house was haunted. Eventually the owner managed to sell the property, but at a somewhat reduced price.
George Pataki, New York's recently elected Republican governer, has decided that the law - 26 other American states have similar ones - stands in the way of free enterprise. He has promised to repeal it before the end of the year. To the delight of New York estate agents, house-sellers will no longer be legally obliged to disclose the apparent existence of ghosts on their properties. "It's good news for everyone," said Kevin LaPoint, a spokesman for the New York State Association of Realtors. "It'll open up the market."
America's ghostbusters are also pleased. Gordon Hoener of Haunt Hunters, a non-profit ghost-investigating agency based in St. Louis, hopes that if other states follow New York's lead, the number of crank calls he receives will be reduced. "It's become a gimmick to institute lawsuits," Mr. Hoener said. "It's just an escape clause to get out of making your house payments. Besides, having a haunted house is nothing to be upset about. Our motto is: ' We've never met a ghost we didn't like.' "
Mr. Hoener, a retired stockbroker, founded Haunt Hunters with Phil Goodwilling, a retired accountant, 31 years ago. They are ghost-hunters of the old school who believe in making contact with ghosts through the use of psychics and what they call "classical seances". In contrast to some of the younger practitioners in the field, they do not believe in getting machines to do the work for them. "Look," Mr. Hoener said, "sometimes when we go on a call we find that's what people want - what they believe in - so we'll bring along zappers like in the movie, but it really makes no difference."
As Mr. Goodwilling explained, the key is to
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
build up a historical profile of the haunted house and a psychological profile of the family that inhabits it. "Ghosts are often a psychic imprint. For example, people will hear a baby crying in a house when they have no baby. You do the research and you find, as we did in one place, that a few years back a baby had died by suffocation after he fell asleep on his mother's breast."
Dale Kaczmarek, the president of a nationwide organization based in Illinois called the Ghost Research Society, believes in using the psychic-historical approach - but in a more proactive role and only after first coming up with electronically tested evidence that a house is haunted.
"Often a ghost doesn't realize he or she has died," Mr. Kaczmarek said. "The role of the psychic is basically to explain the situation to the ghost, who often wants to retain an attachment to the home or the people there. What the psychic does is convince him to move into the spirit world. Sometimes the ghost is bull-headed and won't move until he's tired or bored or just wants to move on."
Police sergeant Randy Liebeck is the official representative of the Ghost Research Society in the state of New Jersey. Unlike the president, who has been in the business since 1978, he considers himself more of a novice who has yet to experience the excitement of actually communicating with a ghost. But he loves what he calls "the thrill of the pursuit". With electronic devices either owned by himself or loaned by law enforcement agencies, he holds what he calls "ghost stake-outs".
"I'll use sound surveillance equipment that can pick up a whisper a mile away, infra-red & thermal surveillance equipment which detect heat anomalies in a room, an electromagnetic device to test for unusual variations in the magnetic field, a geiger counter for radiation detection, a video camera and a regular photographic camera."
Just recently, in May, he was called in to do an investigation at Bernardsville public library, where staff complained that a ghost was interfering with the computers and phones. The building was old, apparently once used by George Washington's revolutionary troops. Sgt. Liebeck and three colleagues, armed with their ghost-detecting paraphernalia, staked out the library from eight at night until five in the morning.
Throughout the night he picked up "thermal alerts", although the electro-magnetic device, on which he had placed high hopes, yielded no signs
|
|
|
|
|
|
