I have had many strange things happen to me in my life, but the one that stands out the most is the experiences I had in the house I lived in when I
 was a teenager. It wasn't haunted in the usual way.....I never heard or smelled anything, and yet, I know there was something in that house. Let
 me start from the beginning.

 When I was 15, my mother remarried, and we moved into a house. From the very first, and I mean that literally, I knew there was something there.
 The moment I stepped over the threshold, I sensed a presence. I didn't know what it was, but I felt it. In particular, I sensed it in the basement, but
 tried to chalk it up to the fact that it was an old, Michigan style basement, and I have never liked unfinished basements for some reason. They
 always spook me. Anyway, let me give you the layout of the basement: As you walked down the stairs, immediately to the left was a door to
 another room, which as I recall used to be where they stored coal for the furnace. Turning right, you were at one side of the main room, which we
 used for laundry, and right across the room from the door to the coal room was another door to another room. That was used for storing things.
 The other room, the one whose door was at the foot of the stairs, had a freezer in it. There were no windows, as I recall, as it was always pitch
 black, but there was a set of doors, like those used in a root cellar, that opened onto the back yard. That room, in particular, scared the heck out
 of me, and I hated it when my mother would send me down there to get something from the freezer. I was terrified I would find anything from a rat
 to a dead body, irrational as it sounds. I don't recall ever telling anyone how I felt, as I feared they'd tell me I was being silly.

 The longer we lived there, the more I felt depressed, and so did my mother. It didn't help that my stepfather turned out to be a jerk. Years later, I
 found some pictures I had drawn while living there that shook me up...............severed hands, dripping blood. That is not the kind of thing I usually
 drew. Why I did, I don't know.

 As time went on, my mother's depression grew worse and worse. I tried to get her to talk to her friends or get help, and encouraged her to leave
 my stepfather. But she wouldn't do any of those things. Finally, a year and a half after we had moved in, just before Christmas, the worst thing
 happened: she committed suicide. My stepfather and I found her. In the basement. In the room at the foot of the stairs. She had hung herself.

 I found out later that my mother had tried to kill herself before, once when I was nine, and once in that house...........again, in the basement. I
 know there was something there. My personal feeling is that it wasn't just a ghost, it was demonic.

 For several years after, whenever I went by the house, it seemed it was up for sale or rent, though it finally seemed to settle down. But it made
 me wonder. Strangely enough, when I attended the funeral of an aunt a few years ago, my cousin told me that some friends of his now owned it. I
 asked how they liked the house, and he said they liked it a lot, and had done a lot of work on it. I have no idea if either he or they knew my mother
 died there, nor did I ask if they had had any unusual happenings there. I didn't feel comfortable saying anything. But I have worried over the years
 about the people who live there. I have no idea if whatever it was is still there. I just know the horrible feeling I had there, and the awful memories.

                                                              Sincerely,
                                                                    Jenny
 

Yes, you may use my story. I would prefer to remain anonymous, so you can either change my name or leave it off, whichever you feel is best. If my story could help anyone in any way, I hope it does. I think the most important thing I could tell anyone is that if you sense some kind of presence, don't shrug it off as imagination. Especially if it's the kind that sends a chill up your spine. I doesn't matter if it's indoors, or outdoors ( which has happened to me at another location here in Elkhart.............it was the same kind of irrational terror I had felt in the basement of the house, only this time, I didn't ignore it. I got the hell out of there fast!) , if you get that kind of feeling, the best thing to do is to get away fast. Don't mess with what you don't know and aren't equipped to deal with. Leave that kind of thing to the experts, people like you, Mike, who know better than the average person how to deal with these things.

Jenny