Of course, you can still access the audio-only version through your podcast player, should that be your preference.

Today’s guest got fast-tracked to an interview because she’s a Patron of HH! If you feel moved to help support our show, you too can become a patron at patreon.com/homespunhaints. There are even benefits at the free level of membership.

Haunted Bars in The French Quarter

Jennifer told us a story about her experience at The Morgue Bar in the French Quarter. The Morgue Bar used to be located at 626 St. Philip Street in New Orleans. The building served as a morgue during the yellow fever epidemic in the 1850s. In the Summer of 1853, nearly 1/5th of the city’s population suffered and died from the disease.

The Morgue Bar

The same building later became The Morgue Bar & Lounge. Not just named for it’s previous use, the bar was wholly morgue-themed, embracing its macabre history, as New Orleans tends to do. During its operation as a bar, patrons and staff often reported strange occurrences, such as refrigerators mysteriously unplugging, and toilets overflowing for no apparent reason.

The Crow Bar

The Morgue Bar was unfortunately more of a tourist spot than a fun place to hang out, although it wasn’t not fun, being surrounded by spooky stuff. At the time, Diana preferred another goth bar just a couple blocks over on Decatur, called The Crow Bar. That one was an actual goth club. A legacy goth club, dating back to the 1980’s. A New Orleans legend, in its own right. So goth, in fact, that when they offered free admission on Halloween night to patrons in costume, Diana’s costume (as the character Death from The Sandman comic) was deemed too pedestrian, so she had to pay a cover.

In an interesting bit of French Quarter goth trivia, the former owner of The Morgue actually purchased The Crow Bar, and renamed it The Whirling Dervish.

Haunted Nottoway Plantation

Today’s guest also had a personal story from when she visited Nottoway Plantation in her youth. Nottoway, the largest antebellum plantation mansion in the South, is notably haunted. The most well-known ghost is called Miss Josephine. She’s suspected to be one of the daughters of the original owner, John Randolph. In life, Josephine never married, and remained at Nottoway until her death. Visitors and staff hear her footsteps, and catch glimpses of a figure in a white gown.

The Louisiana plantation is so haunted, it was featured on Discovery Channel’s “Ghost Lab.” Fortunately, most of the property’s spirits are friendly. Well, friendly to adults, at least. Perhaps young Jennifer’s admittedly bratty behavior was just enough to send Miss Josephine over the edge.

Ghost Tour in Galveston, TX

After leaving insanely haunted New Orleans to end up in slightly less haunted Texas, for the first time Jennifer didn’t feel constantly haunted. She must’ve missed that feeling, as she sought out local ghostly tourism opportunities. She wanted to share that Eddy Specter’s Ghost Tour really is the #1 haunted afterdark activity in Galveston, TX. Find out more at facebook.com/eddyspecter.

Video Episodes of Homespun Haints

Well Hainted Loves, what did you think of Homespun Haints’ first video episode? Did you enjoy getting to watch our shocked reactions to our guest’s spooky Southern ghost stories? We’d love if you left us a comment on YouTube about what you thought. While you’re there, you might want to subscribe to our YouTube channel, because we are working behind the scenes to bring you more video content soon. Stay tuned, and hopefully you’re already having a spooky day!

The post Ghosts Taught Me to Cuss in French appeared first on Homespun Haints.

Are you ready to stay at a real haunted house? Well now is your chance, unless you’re deterred by what co-host of the Travel Channel’s “Portals To Hell” Jack Osbourne said about the Haunted Hill House in Mineral Wells, Texas: “it’s probably the one place that I would say, if there was a demonic presence it would be [there].”

The Real Haunted Hill House

You’ve probably heard of a haunted Hill House popping up in various films and literature. The original inspiration for these fictional haunted Hill Houses comes from the novel The Haunting of Hill House, written in 1959 by the great literary horror novelist Shirley Jackson. This novel inspired the 1963 film The Haunting starring Julie Harris, and a more fantasized 1999 adaptation of The Haunting starring Lili Taylor and Liam Neeson. And, of course, the Netflix series, “The Haunting of Hill House.” The Netflix series really doesn’t have much to do with the original novel at all (other than character names) but you should still watch anyway.

But Shirley Jackson’s Hill House, which inspired all of these offshoots, was not inspired by the haunted Hill House in Texas. In fact, according to Jackson’s biographer Ruth Franklin, Jackson drew inspiration for her fictional Hill House from the Winchester Mystery House. So, while both the fictional Hill House and real Hill House are obscenely haunted, they’re completely different places.

Haunted Hill House History

125 feet away from the (also haunted) Baker Hotel sits the looming Haunted Hill House. This house is a Victorian mansion that takes up 3800 square feet. The famous East Mountain, where Native Americans and Outlaws battled over a century ago secludes the mansion from the main thoroughfare. The house was built during the Civil War as an A-frame home and belonged to the First Founding Families of Mineral Wells. During the late 1800s to the early 1900s the home was used as a makeshift hospital and then later became a retreat for illegal activity. It once hosted prostitutes, bootleggers, and gambling for those that wanted to be discreet and imbibe these illicit activities in secret.

How did this house become so famous for having the most paranormal activity?

Some say, if you die on the property, you never leave.

During the years that the house was shrouded in illegal and illicit activity, several deaths happened there. Some say that the spirits wander the halls as if they’re still living there. Investigators have detected nine different spirits haunting the home. The most dominant spirit is one of a little boy that inhabits the upstairs area. The little boy may have been a disfigured child born to one of the working girls. He only made it to the age of six. One of the owners who fell into a well also haunts the property. Also, all those that died on the property due to the flu outbreak. 

Anyone that visits or even dares to stay overnight could be in for the fright of their lifetime due to high levels of reported paranormal activity. The home has 18 areas where you can investigate, 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, and a kitchen. People that do overnight investigations have access to the entire property.  

At the time of this writing, the home is owned by Edward and Katherine Estes. Katherine offers to anoint her departing guests with Holy Water or another cleansing item to make sure they stay protected.

Ready to stay the night or take a tour? 

Beware of the haunted experiences some visitors to Hill House have had:

• Nausea
• Headache
• Immediately feeling ill upon entering the grounds
• A malevolent spirit visitation the next day after visiting the house
• Groups have had balls moved by the little boy spirit
• Several have had things thrown at them
• Over 70 people have been scratched and 2 have been bitten
• Seen green orbs

If you’re still feeling brave, visit their website to book an overnight investigation!

The house is located at 501 NE 1st St, Mineral Wells, TX 76067, just over an hour West of Fort Worth, Texas.

Haunted Hill House Trivia

• Previously visited by members of Ghost Adventures, Haunted Collector, Deep South Paranormal, Taps, Paranormal Files, Portals To Hell, Strangetown, and Christopher Saint Booth.
• Katherine said the house ranks #1 as the most haunted house in Texas (and third most haunted in the nation) by Good Day America. 
• Big Seven Travel listed it as the spookiest home in the state by
• Caves known as the East Mountain are located on the property.
• You can have your wedding at the house, but beware you may have some non-human guests!

Mineral Wells, TX

The town of Mineral Wells, TX, was first populated by settlers around the turn of the 19th century due to the discovery of purportedly miraculous curative mineral water. Remind you of any other famously haunted locations we’ve written about? The mineral water was dubbed “Crazy Water” because of a local legend of a woman recovering from some ridiculous 19th century mental disorder after drinking it. By 1900, Mineral Wells was the spa resort destination in the Southern US, drawing over 150,000 visitors that year alone. The tiny town boasted 46 hotels and boarding houses by 1909, and most visitors were only there because of the water. Visitors indulged in the four bathing houses, chugged at the seven water pavilions, or booked more intensive treatment at the two local sanitariums.

But the most hilariously cruel tourist attraction was the “Fat Man’s Reducer”. Tourists would gorge themselves on miraculous, healing, unfiltered, un-sanitized mineral water (a known laxative). Then they would take attempt to climb the “Fat Man’s Reducer”: a thousand-foot staircase built on the side of East Mountain. According to legendary66.com, the locals amused themselves by watching the tourists get halfway up, and then realize that they had to use the bathroom quite urgently, due to the water hitting their unprepared system. Hill House, at the foot of East Mountain, might have been a prime location to view these follies.

Have you visited the Haunted Hill House?

This house is on our long, long list of most haunted places to visit. If you’ve visited the location, please submit any findings you’d like us to share on this page!

https://hauntedhillhouse.com/

The post The Haunted Hill House appeared first on Homespun Haints.

Listen right here.

Real Life Ghosts and Monsters

Do monsters eat negative energy? We know many children are able to see ghosts, but Michele and her sister held onto that ability well into adulthood. Which is why it’s so apropos that she lived in a house where a recently deceased former resident made her presence known through bizarre plumbing glitches. One night, after an angry, unresolved fight with her then partner, Michele’s sister went to bed in the guest room with Michele for solidarity. And it’s a good thing they were sharing that bed and not alone that night, considering there was suddenly, terrifyingly, something else in the room. Something that thought her sister smelled…tasty?

Episode Promotions

Our episode promo is from Lady Teal’s Curios. You might remember Lady Teal from several of our live séances, including the first, where we talked with tarot to haunted objects.

Other links to check out

The Pink House

Check out The Pink House, a touching memoir of triumph and sisterhood written by Michele’s mother.

A winery you should look into

Michele mentioned Hidden Hangar Vineyards, one of her favorite wineries in Texas. Check it out if you’re a Lone-Star oenophile.

About the Guest: Michele

Michele is a pilot, a writer and a sommelier. A sommelier, as far as we understand it, is a professional drinker who helps us philistines figure out how to wine. Not like in a course for credit, but usually on-the-fly, tableside. Michele tells us that the North-Central Texas climate is perfect for growing Tempranillo, a Spanish varietal red wine grape. As a sommelier, she might might tell us that Tempranillo grapes make “medium- to full-bodied reds of moderate to high levels of tannins and acidity,” taste like “a mix of red and dark fruits, including cherry and plum, as well as earth and herbal notes;” that “its acidity can sometimes be citrusy and orange peel–like,” and that its traditional oak aging is what causes the vanilla and cocoa flavors in the final product.

We, as novices, had to get that info from Wine Spectator. It would be too embarrassing to try to look this up on our phones while we’re trying to choose a wine to pair with our red meat and roasted root veggies. The sommelier saves the day and saves our face by educating us in a way that we could nod along to. “Yes, orange-peely, that’s exactly what I was thinking.”

Could the filled-in pool in the backyard cause occurrences of real life ghosts?

Would filling an in-ground pool with cement cause the type of weird plumbing issues Michele experienced in the bathrooms of her sister’s haunted house? There is actually a wikiHow for the appropriate way to fill in your unwanted in-ground concrete pool. Note that filling it with cement is not the advisable way. Recommendations include busting holes in the bottom of the concrete pool for drainage (otherwise the empty pool might float up out of the ground when the water table rises) and filling it with dirt, sand, or crushed rocks.

Even with proper drainage and filled with dirt, the structure may continue to settle for a long time. This makes it against building code to build a structure on top of the filled-in pool. We’re guessing that means if you neglected poking drainage holes and filled the pool with concrete, it’s going to settle quite a bit more, just due to the massive weight of a solid block of concrete buried in dirt. That type of settling might cause some havoc with the pipes buried under the yard. Although you would think that whoever put the pool there in the first place would have avoided putting it directly over plumbing, you never know.

But some of the plumbing issues at Michele’s sister’s house feel completely inexplicable by citing damage to the outside plumbing. For example, how did those wet footprints get up the stairs? How did the water suddenly turn colder than the tap water gets in a Texas Summer? The argument that the tragedy that occurred in this pool caused some paranormal activity to ensue seems equally worth entertaining. Especially considering how it all culminated.

Of course, then again, this podcast is no stranger to haunted pipes. Check out It Came up the Drain for more haunted bathroom action!

We hope this monster mashup got you in the spirit of Halloween!

Have you ever seen anything as weird as what Michele saw? What on earth could that have been? Join us on social to weigh in on these important questions. And, if you do have your own haunted bathroom, it’s pretty guaranteed you’ll have a spooky day!

The post What Do We Smell Like To Monsters? appeared first on Homespun Haints.