I first became intrigued with haunted houses when I was a kid during family visits at my dad’s boss, Gene’s house. Gene, his wife Pat, and children lived in a Victorian house built in the 1800s. Pat would tell us of ghostly happenings in the house, particularly of hearing noises in the attic late at night. I recall feeling an uncomfortable energy by the stairs leading to the attic of that old house.

Fast forward to my mid-thirties when a few girlfriends and I went on a ghost tour of the old Vogue Theater in Hollywood (which is now a church). I didn’t see ghosts, but witnessed theater chair seats flipping up and down and feeling weird static energy of an unseen presence in the isles.

So of course after moving in to a vintage 1922 cottage, I wondered if the place might be hub for ghostly activity. At first, I was looking for it. One night while doing dishes I saw an eerie purple light flash by the bedroom entry, which turned out to be the headlights of a car driving by.

It was when I wasn’t looking when peculiar goings on began.

One afternoon I was sitting at my desk and saw movement from my peripheral vision coming from the bookcase. I turned to see a well defined shadow of a mouse scurrying from the bookcase to underneath the hutch. I thought it was my imagination because there was no way a mouse could have gotten into the house, but Bobcat made a beeline to the corner of the wall next to the hutch, fanatically meowing. He saw it too! I opened the front door so the mouse could get out and within a few seconds, Bobcat came out from the side of the hutch and nonchalantly sashayed back into the bedroom. And the mouse was nowhere to be found.A few years ago I was woken at 2:00 a.m. by the sound of labored breathing coming from the living room. Startled, I got up, and with my cat Samantha Jo by my side, went into the direction of the sound, which seemed to be coming from the front door then it migrated to the sofa. Samantha poked her head under the sofa as I walked around the living room, mystified. I figured the distressed breathing sound was coming from under the house. Maybe a dying animal found a place to take its last breaths. I went back to bed.

I awoke again to light filtering from the living room into my bedroom, thinking it was early morning sun, yet it was 4:00 a.m. Perplexed, I went into the living room to find the recessed lights had been turned on. Samantha and I were investigating the breathing sound only by the light of my bedside table. I got goose bumps and wondered if the noise we heard was actually something otherworldly.Later that morning, I looked under the house to find no animal. Even if it had gotten out alive, the crawl space where it would have been was not in the same location of the sound, which emanated from the location of the foundation. And what turned on the living room lights? I wondered if the enchanted cottage was a refuge for lost souls.

Since then the cottage has been devoid of phantom mice and I’ve not woken to spooky sounds and lights with a mind of their own. But on occasion, I do see phantom cats that appear briefly then dissipate into the ethers. I’d like to think the spirits of my beloved cats Bobcat and Lexington are watching over me.

Have a magical Halloween, everyone!