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Episode Summary: Is every hotel haunted?

Imagine, if you will, checking into a hotel for a business trip. Your coworkers are in a different, newer section of the building, but you seem to be in a section full of oddly-dressed partiers who seem oblivious to the no smoking rules and the absence of a pool. As you continue toward your room, you begin to realize that those people circling around you are ghosts. And they’re hanging out in the hallways because something far worse is lurking in your room.

Let’s talk to our repeat guest, Frantz, about his experiences in haunted hotels, today, on Homespun Haints.

About the Guest: Frantz

You heard him before on the episode I Am Talking to this Motherf*ing Ghost, but oh my, does he have more stories to tell. Frantz may be retired as a medium, but, as he says, he’ll never be free of ghosts until there’s a spirit witness protection program. Because it seems like everywhere he goes, the entities know he can see them, and they all want a turn at his attention.

Haunted Hotels Across America

We’ve recently come to the conclusion that most hotels are haunted. Or at least more likely to be than houses. Liminal spaces, and all that jazz. Here are some of our past episodes in which we discuss haunted hotels.

• The Drum Circle for Haunted Brothels
• Three Frisky Dead Johns On A Boat
• The Building Full of Cowboy Ghosts
• Lucumí and the Mango Tree
• Farting in a Museum and Alien Cunnilingus
• Get Out, Satan!
• Meeting the Ghosts at the Read House in Chattanooga
• Filipino Folklore: Manananggal, Engkanto, and Duwende, Oh My!
• A Christmas Ghost Story
• Charlotte is Spookier than You Thought.
• There’s more than pine martens in these here walls.
• Ghost Hunting in the English Countryside
• The Afterlife’s a Trapper Keeper
• When Children Go Ghost Hunting

Hotel Ghost Tours

We’ve also written up reviews of several haunted hotel ghost tours we’ve taken across America. Yes, we are the kind of people who get haunted on purpose. Are you? Here are our reviews of the top haunted hotel ghost tours we’ve taken.

• Fairmont Hotel Ghost Tour Review, Deadwood, SD
• Visiting The Overlook, errr, The Stanley Hotel
• The Crescent Hotel Ghost Tour Review, Eureka Springs, Arkansas
• The Haunted Read House in Chattanooga

From the holy to the spicy, and everything in between, Frantz has a hotel haunting experience for all seasons. We’re pretty sure this won’t be the last time we hear his true ghost stories on our show. After all, Ghost Witness Protection doesn’t seem like a forthcoming program in this economy.

Have you stayed at any haunted hotels lately? Apply now to tell your story on Homespun Haints, and let’s have a spooky day!

The post You Gotta Find the Head B*tch Ghost appeared first on Homespun Haints.

Listen to this interview here, then scroll to the bottom of the page to hear the bonus content.

On this episode, we hear about the weird house in Tucson that Alisa tried to buy. Bizarrely, this house might have also injected a haunting into her own home. Is it possible for a ghost to follow you home? Because after spending some time in this clearly haunted real estate, Alisa and her roommate started being awoken at the Witching Hour by hands poking and gripping their bodies and trying to pull them off of their beds!

About the Guest: Alisa

Today’s guest Alisa is the owner of Galleria Florist in Falls Church, VA. She describes her floral artwork as “not your mother’s flower shop”. She can deck you out for any event where customized, modern, beautiful floral displays are appropriate. Seriously, they cater flower arrangements to events all over the United States! So please check her out regardless of where you live.

Arizona Haunted House

Before moving to Virginia, Alisa has lived all over the world. Originally from Uzbekistan, she’s lived in Italy and Latvia, in addition to Tucson, AZ, where her most “memorable” haunting took place.

What attracts us to crazy houses?

Don’t you just love crazy houses? By crazy houses, we mean personal dwellings where the architecture seems straight out of a dream, or even a nightmare. Of course large event centers and skyscrapers invite artful interpretations of form. But when there’s a house in the middle of a very vanilla neighborhood that just lets its freak flag fly for all to see, we are naturally ravenous to know more about it.

Crazy houses can take infinite forms. There may be stairs that lead to nowhere, like you’d find in the Winchester Mystery House in California. The structure could be octagonal and built out of scraps, like Becky’s grandpa’s house in Florida. A walk through the house could mimic a hike through the woods, like the Cave House in Tulsa.

Alisa’s crazy house love is an ex-boarding house from 1916—which turned out to be an Arizona haunted house. The house she spent weeks trying to figure out how to buy and get up to code was originally a boarding house for railroad and city development construction workers. It has also been sold off about 5 times in the past 4 years, if that tells you anything about how fun it isn’t to live there.

We refer to it as a “crazy house” because it had doorways to nowhere, staircases for no reason, and just generally senseless architecture. We’re picturing a suburban middle class version of the Winchester Mystery House. We imagine for the average house-buyer, these features would be a turnoff. But for us, they just increase the mystique. Which actually also increases the home’s value for us weirdoes.

Is it reasonable to assume that most of these crazy houses are likely to be at least sort of haunted? After all, if the living are dying to know what’s inside…

Should the first person to enter your new home be a cat?

If you subscribe to our newsletter, you already know that the first person to enter your home on New Year’s Day (aka the quaaltagh) should ideally be a tall, dark, handsome dude. Also after your wedding, you may want to carry your new spouse over the threshold for the first time. But what about the very first person to enter your new home, either after you build it or after you buy it?

Alisa taught us about the custom of letting a cat into your house before you move in. This is especially applicable, she said, if you have a cat already. Don’t get a cat just for scoping out your new house; that’s nearly as crazy as bricking one into a wall. But you could maybe borrow a highly social adventure-cat from a neighbor or local family member for this exercise. Hell, in Diana’s neighborhood, she could just leave the door ajar, open a can of tuna, and wait.

What’s with this crazy custom of letting a cat into your new house?

This isn’t just a lucky tradition, like a quaaltagh. The cat serves a very specific purpose. In fact, besides mousing, this may be the second main purpose domestic cats serve for humans. Alisa explained that you should let your cat in to explore the new empty home first. Kitty can give you a free feng-shui consult simply by meandering from room to room and reacting to energies.

Apparently, all you have to do is follow the cat and take notes. Where does she quietly groom herself, peacefully curl up, or shriek while doing hardcore parkour off the walls? For example, let’s say that the cat flops down and lounges in one spot for a bit. That might indicate a relaxing spot for your sofa. But if the cat walks into a space only to howl once and then dart out and disappear down the hallway, maybe call that the guest room.

So before you move your furniture in, let the cat in. She’ll decide the coziest place to put the love seat and the most peaceful place to put the bed.

Slavic haunting customs

Eastern Europeans and Russians view ghosts more as freeloading prankster roommates than evil or terrifying. When Alisa consulted her Russian family for advice on what to do about her scary uninvited guest, they recommended entertaining and feeding the ghost instead of trying to get rid of it. This reminds us of another Arizonan whom we’ve interviewed. Actually, multiple guests on our show espouse the belief that one should treat ghosts like roommates.

When Alisa started leaving bread and playing cards out for her ghost in her Arizona haunted house, it became significantly less annoying to her. The bread signified support and nourishment. The playing cards were just for some entertainment, since the dearly departed haven’t done a damned thing since 1782 and need viable options other than messing with the living. Leaving a glass of saltwater under her bed also seemed to help Alisa’s ghost problem. But it also may have just misplaced the ghost temporarily.

Listen to our bonus musings, Bread, Salt, and Ghosts: Traditional ways to protect against ghosts

Thank you for listening to our show!

These creepy stories from this Arizona haunted crazy house sure gave us a lot to think about! If you’ve lived in a crazy haunted house, submit to tell your story on the next episode of Homespun Haints, so we can have a spooky day together!

The post Ghosts Are Freeloading Prankster Roommates appeared first on Homespun Haints.

Listen here.

Notes From This Podcast Episode of Spooky Stories

Whereas most of our guests are pretty adamant that they don’t want to share their homes with paranormal entities (listen to Episode 45 or Episode 25, for instance), Frantz builds relationships with the entities around him. He believes that asking them to leave his various abodes and workplaces would be wrong or fruitless.

In relaying his true ghost stories to us, Frantz makes mention of a ghost he met on the Roswell Ghost Tour who followed him home! He also develops a strained rapport with an entity (perhaps a demon?) brought forth through hoodoo ritualistic magic, and helps a friend who angered the ghost of a 19th century miner.

Episode references

The Roswell Ghost Tour is particularly scary because the area of Roswell, GA, is full of ghosts, as Frantz is quick to point out in this interview. But why is Roswell, Georgia, so haunted? Many attribute the massive hauntings to the raid on the mill workers in 1864. The raids were ordered by General Sherman during the Civil War as he attempted to cross the Chattahoochee River, which Roswell (and its mills) sat upon. Troops marched over 400 women and children out of the city, and many of them died along the way.

Others point out how the rushing waters of the Chattahoochee serve as a conduit to enhance the activity of restless spirits, and the granite prevalent in the area can also increase the amount of things that go bump in the night.

As if these factors aren’t enough, there is another sinister secret in Roswell’s past, tied to the cemetery that houses the town’s founders. You see, no one really knows how far the boundaries of the cemetery extend, but what we do know is it goes under the houses built around. That’s right. The houses surrounding this tranquil cemetery are sitting on top of unmarked graves. And the spirits there are none too happy about it.

And with that lovely little nugget of scares, we wish you a very spooky day!

The post I Am Talking to this Motherf*ing Ghost appeared first on Homespun Haints.