George and Sylvia Adams were a modern couple, she did not marry George till she was almost thirty and well advanced in her career, with an advertising company. Goerge had married before, in his early twenties and escpaed with his skin barely intact vowing he would not ever do that again.
George was a writer, not novels or anything exciting like that, rather he wrote manuals, guide books, descriptive literature with a punch, for respected tourist traps. Not glamorous but surprisingly lucrative. George had been raised in the city Sylvia in a small town, that could have been descriibed as hick, or at the very least, middle American.
Goerge, for reasons he could not articulate, wanted to live in the country, Sylvia was at best ambivalent, she preferred the relative anonimity of the city to the small town, in your kitchen intimacy. However she set out with George on his quest for the agrarian holy grail, hunting down various properties, visiting them on weekends, and usually dismissing them out of hand.
However after almost a year of this windmill tilting, they found THE place. It was a property within a ten minute drive of a suburban commuter station that would get a train for Sylvia, that would carry her into the heart of the city in less time than driving and probably with less cost.
The trouble was the place was on a farm, that was worked by an absentee landlord, the house was of no interest to him and had been unoccupied for years, the result being the house would have to be gutted and restored. The owner had obtained a severance from the township along with a half acre of ground around the house, his price which was reasonable by George and Sylvia's standards, was actully quite high by the locals.
Sylvia ever the economic opportunist went to work on the owner, walking away several times and figuring out that he had no one interested locally, managed to beat him down to half the list price, which was actually a quarter of their target price. This would enable them to restore the house, and at the same time modernize it. Eventually they bought it, though the local real estate agent felt encumbered to be honest and disclose that the house was thought to be haunted.
Sylvia was not concerned, though it was a shock to the couple when they found out no local contractor would touch the place, so they had to go further afield eventually getting a late sixties Bavarian immigrant general contractor, named Hienrich Schultz. Henry as he liked to be called was not in any way put off by the notion the place was haunted.
During the restoration of the place he had to deal with a number of incidents that were hard to explain, the final one being a paint can on a step ladder that mysteriously tipped over while the painters were at lunch. Fortunatly there was a canvas drop cloth laid down and the floor was not stained.
Henry went to the room and stood with his hands on his hips saying, "look Mr or Mrs. Ghost, I am making this place as good as when you were here, so stop bothering my workers, and let them restore your house."
It was silly perhaps but there were no other incidents after that. The house was cloaked on the outside with field stone a central dormer, and second story floor to ceiling window over the front door. When you walked into the centre of the house a large hall opened up, on one side, a parlour, on the left a dining room, behind the parlour was a library, behind the dining room was the kitchen.
The hallway was wide and there was a stairway that went halfway to the next floor, ending at a landing which opend to a large leaded glass window that admitted difused light in rainbow hues. On the second floor there was an older bathroom, and four bedrooms.
Henry suggested and Sylvia quickly agreed to take the two bedrooms on one side of the upstairs and make it into one large room with an ensuite bath, and walk in closet, this seemed to be the most contentious room for the ghost, though little was heard after the paint incident.
Sylvia was not too upset that their condo in the city was not selling fast and so decided, since they had saved so much on the house to maintian it for now at least, until the market inmproved and use it when she was working late, rather than journeying home every single night. George had no problem with this and so that was how things came down, Sylvia basically coming home on weekends and George living in splendid isolation in the country, but someone watched these events with much interest and some disdain.
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With regrets this is a closed post, for myself and Maid Of Marvels, but as always interested parties may PM with suggestions, questions or whatever they like.
George was a writer, not novels or anything exciting like that, rather he wrote manuals, guide books, descriptive literature with a punch, for respected tourist traps. Not glamorous but surprisingly lucrative. George had been raised in the city Sylvia in a small town, that could have been descriibed as hick, or at the very least, middle American.
Goerge, for reasons he could not articulate, wanted to live in the country, Sylvia was at best ambivalent, she preferred the relative anonimity of the city to the small town, in your kitchen intimacy. However she set out with George on his quest for the agrarian holy grail, hunting down various properties, visiting them on weekends, and usually dismissing them out of hand.
However after almost a year of this windmill tilting, they found THE place. It was a property within a ten minute drive of a suburban commuter station that would get a train for Sylvia, that would carry her into the heart of the city in less time than driving and probably with less cost.
The trouble was the place was on a farm, that was worked by an absentee landlord, the house was of no interest to him and had been unoccupied for years, the result being the house would have to be gutted and restored. The owner had obtained a severance from the township along with a half acre of ground around the house, his price which was reasonable by George and Sylvia's standards, was actully quite high by the locals.
Sylvia ever the economic opportunist went to work on the owner, walking away several times and figuring out that he had no one interested locally, managed to beat him down to half the list price, which was actually a quarter of their target price. This would enable them to restore the house, and at the same time modernize it. Eventually they bought it, though the local real estate agent felt encumbered to be honest and disclose that the house was thought to be haunted.
Sylvia was not concerned, though it was a shock to the couple when they found out no local contractor would touch the place, so they had to go further afield eventually getting a late sixties Bavarian immigrant general contractor, named Hienrich Schultz. Henry as he liked to be called was not in any way put off by the notion the place was haunted.
During the restoration of the place he had to deal with a number of incidents that were hard to explain, the final one being a paint can on a step ladder that mysteriously tipped over while the painters were at lunch. Fortunatly there was a canvas drop cloth laid down and the floor was not stained.
Henry went to the room and stood with his hands on his hips saying, "look Mr or Mrs. Ghost, I am making this place as good as when you were here, so stop bothering my workers, and let them restore your house."
It was silly perhaps but there were no other incidents after that. The house was cloaked on the outside with field stone a central dormer, and second story floor to ceiling window over the front door. When you walked into the centre of the house a large hall opened up, on one side, a parlour, on the left a dining room, behind the parlour was a library, behind the dining room was the kitchen.
The hallway was wide and there was a stairway that went halfway to the next floor, ending at a landing which opend to a large leaded glass window that admitted difused light in rainbow hues. On the second floor there was an older bathroom, and four bedrooms.
Henry suggested and Sylvia quickly agreed to take the two bedrooms on one side of the upstairs and make it into one large room with an ensuite bath, and walk in closet, this seemed to be the most contentious room for the ghost, though little was heard after the paint incident.
Sylvia was not too upset that their condo in the city was not selling fast and so decided, since they had saved so much on the house to maintian it for now at least, until the market inmproved and use it when she was working late, rather than journeying home every single night. George had no problem with this and so that was how things came down, Sylvia basically coming home on weekends and George living in splendid isolation in the country, but someone watched these events with much interest and some disdain.
**************************
With regrets this is a closed post, for myself and Maid Of Marvels, but as always interested parties may PM with suggestions, questions or whatever they like.
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