Growing Up Haunted, part 1--the house
Written by Khazar-khum
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I grew up in a haunted house.
We moved from Tustin, CA to Norco, Ca to have a horse farm. We had 4 horses, Tennessee Walkers, and my dad wanted to get into breeding and showing in a big way.
The house we bought was a Modern manse. The original owner was someone from the early film industry, and he had a love for concrete & weird colors. The exterior of the house was a pepto-s=bismal pink. Inside the house that pink, a greenish aqua, and yellow fought each other in every single room. There were pink curtains with green walls and yellow carpets. Upsatirs in the bedrooms, all the furniture was built in. Every room had its own vanity and extensive closets.
Moving in meant ripping things out. Every night we worked on the house, painting, pulling carpets(they were heavy wool, and I'm allergic to wool) fixing windows, all that. From the start little things happened. But to truly understand the place, you need to have a feel for its layout.
Downstairs was the main door, its hallway which ended in a T, the living room, den, dining room and kitchen. The bathroom had a shower with a naked mermaid sandblasted on the door. Off the dining room was the carport, which we later enclosed and made into a big rec room.
As you turned to the right off the hall, you stepped down into the living room. On your right was a huge Palos verde stone fireplace, with a slate hearth and glass bricks. There was a neon light behind the glass bricks, along with a hollow chamber that no one could reach. Across for it was a big built-in shelving unit. The ceiling was barrel-vaulted, with neon indirect lighting.
Off the living room was the dining room. It had a pyramid for a ceiling. it also had a window made of glass bricks. It was in here we realized not a single corner, window, door or any other feature was square. Everything was off-centered, from anywhere from a fraction of an inch to several feet. The den was closest to being square. It had a bar & gun cabinet, and pale oak wall panelling--huge sheets of oak. We spent days restoring that wood.
Outside the den were the stairs to upstairs and the door for the basement. It wasn't much of a basement--just enough for the water heater, the regular heater and some room for storage. The stairs were very uneven, and the whole room felt odd.
The stairwell was where we first started having problems.
My Dad was painting when he heard me laughing at something on TV. Problem was, I wasn't there. I was shopping with my Mom. He put it down to somebody outside with a radio. The fact that our closest neighbors were a few hundred feet away never occurred to him. Later that weekend I was up in what would be my room, doing some detail work on the windows. I was still working on them when my Dad burst in, furious. He had heard me playing the radio and talking. Well, since I didn't have my radio and there was no one to talk to, he again figured it must be outside.
That's where matters stood until we moved in, I started school, and spent time alone in there for the first time.
But that's for later.
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