Private Residence Longboat Avenue

I lived in a relatively new townhouse on Longboat Avenue. The townhouse was built in the 1970s, however, it was built on land that was located south of Berkeley Castle and the original Parliament Buildings, and we had heard had been the site of executions and graves. My roommates and I believed this because it seems a lonely spirit occupied our newish townhouse.

When we first moved in, we noticed strange things going on with lights. Often, particularly when we were in the upper bathroom, the light would go off by themselves. The lights consisted of a panel of a dozen light bulbs, so it wasn’t like they all burned out at once. Lights would also turn themselves off on other floors also.

The spirit was relatively harmless until sometime near Christmas. I was sleeping in the basement bedroom, and suddenly a little yellow flashlight hit me on the head, waking me up in a panic. The little flashlight had been on a shelf behind my bed, logged behind several stacks of books and cds…The room felt insanely cold and I had the sensation that someone was watching. My closed my eyes and willed whatever it was to go away.

One of my roommates mom’s visited at Christmas, and on her way down to my bedroom (she slept there while I was away) she saw a ghostly woman in white floating at the bottom of the stairs. She approached and the figure disappeared.

The three of us living in the house were convinced that a spirit occupied our home. The lights continued to go off by themselves for the remained of our time there, and when the lease expired, I decided to leave the spooky place.

 

“Rented an apartment at Birchmount and St. Clair for 3 yrs. On several occasions myself, my husband and 2 young children experienced lights turned off and on after one of us had just adjusted them, as well as having random electronic toys move independently when no one was in the room.

Once I was home alone and I saw my sons electric toy car come across the floor in front of me. The remote was no where to be seen. It moved back and forth a number of times before I finally turned it off. I searched for the remote and finally found it in the kids room, in the closet on the floor, with no battery power.
The final incident and most disturbing was the night the propane plant blew up in North York. I awoke to a bang against the outside balcony door from the pressure of the blast. I wasn’t sure what was going on at that time. My husband was away that night so I was sleeping on the couch in the living room with the kids on the pullout futon. After I got my bearings, I suddenly noticed CLEARLY a dark shadow-like outline of a human figure, a tall, male with a short top hat on pass by the outside of our balcony. The shadow moved slowly and was outlined against our curtain. I thought someone had climbed over our balcony and I panicked. I went over to the balcony immediately with a hockey stick in hand. Opened up the curtain and no one was there. I opened the door with caution and went outside and no one was in the parking lot or anywhere in the area. I was very disturbed at this point. I moved the hockey stick across the outside of the curtain on the balcony to try and determine how close the person must have been for me to see the shadow so clearly. The stick did not make any shadow outline at all on the inside of the unit. I was dumbfounded. Finally, I walked across the curtain from the inside of my unit myself fairly close to the window/curtain and that is when I saw my own shadow outline on the curtain. THAT TERRIFIED me. The shadow came from within the unit. We moved out 2 months later.”

My mother lived on Sumach St. in Cabbagetown about 40 years ago.

There were many strange happenings in the home, such as the front door opening on its own in the winter time and a man was seen standing in the hall way and then he had seemed to of vanished. My grandmother looked out the front door to see if she could see him there and she could not. She was also disturbed that there were not any footprints in the deep snow that the man would have made going up to the door.

Another time, my mom and her siblings were running in a circle through their living and dining room doorways when my mom ran through what she said was the apparition of a man standing in the doorway.

My mother also remembers that when they first moved into the house that they always heard a baby crying in the back room located off of the kitchen.

Later, my grandfather removed that room, making the kitchen larger and the baby was not heard again. I would be interested to hear if anyone else experienced strange happenings in this house.

In the early 70’s I leased a house on Huntley Street. The property is located on the south east corner of Huntley & Selby.

There are two large semi-detached houses with an adjacent cottage. Ours was the second semi-south of the corner. The houses had been purportedly constructed by a captain of the Cutty Sark.

In the living room of the first house was a map painted on the plaster & lath above the fireplace with red dots marking owned plantations. This map was painted over when that house was renovated.

My bedroom was located on the second floor of the second house. One night I woke up and immediately was gripped by fear, I felt that there was someone in the room with me, although it was summer – it was artic cold.

When I finally summoned the courage to get up and turn on the lights, there was no one there.

A few nights later a strange event occurred – a large wooden metal strapped trunk (which had not come with the house) turned upside down on its own. As it was full of heavy storage items, this should not have been possible.

Although I and a group of friends kept vigil for a week, no further events happened, but there was always a strange feeling in that house.

“I am not “ghost friendly,” as you put it. Regardless, I live in a house on 529A Birchmount Rd, Scarborough went through something about twelve years ago that I can only call “a haunting.”

Our bedroom is on the second floor of solid old semi-detached home that dates from the 1940s. I work nights, and my wife would often complain to me about footsteps coming up the stairs to our bedroom during nights I was at work. I never took her particularly seriously. Old houses make funny noises, and ours wasn’t any different.

Then of course one night it happened to me. The footsteps were so clear, so solid, that I jumped out of bed and grabbed a lamp to coldcock the intruder.

When I stepped out into the narrow landing, no one was there.

Even that didn’t convince me. Then the breathing started.

My wife and I would lie in bed together, listening as the room filled with the sound of steady breathing. It went on for months, almost nightly. It would come from different parts of our small room, one corner, then the other. Winter and summer. I checked for branches scraping against the side of the house. Wires gently soughing in the breeze. We listened with the windows open, and the with the windows closed. Five years later, I still have no reasonable explanation for this.

The breathing would continue, sometimes for an hour, and then stop. It became so routine, eventually we could both fall asleep, even as the ghostly breathing continued.

Our next door neighbours were always complaining about hearing voices and the sound of children playing. They sold their house to an asian family later, we didn’t hear anything from those people.

Then it stopped. I can’t say when, exactly, but it was around the same time as we got our first cat.

 

 

It was the spring of 1990(not sure of the exact date). I was asked to cover as security guard for Toronto’s Massey hall just for one night.This meant that I would be locked in the hall all night. At around 4:00am as I was sitting on the stage watching a little tv.I noticed two elderly people (man and a woman dressed in old attire)walking through the front entrance of the auditorium. They proceeded to walk across the front of the auditorium to the left side of seating area and then started walking towards a closed door to the left of the stage. The door led to the kitchen,office area It was at that time that I called out to them. Hey!! I said to them. At that point ‘still walking towards the door’ the woman turned to me and smiled while the man just kept looking forward with a blank look on his face. I started walking towards them from the stage but when they reached the door they both disappeared. I walked to the spot where I last saw them but found nothing, heard nothing, they had just vanished without a trace. I looked everywhere for them but found nothing.The hall doors were locked and chained, there was no way anyone could have got in without making a lot of noise, and I know I was the only one there. I remained there for the rest of my shift frightened but excited by my experience. The janitor started his shift at about 7:oo am.that is when I left.I have been telling people about this experience ever since it happened. I never thought about submitting my story until I found a story on the internet telling of a old man and women dressed in old attire had been seen by others. I know I didn’t imagine this.”

On March 4th 2007 Matthew Didier, Sue Demeter- St Clair, along with a spirit medium and a neutral non-member investigated on-site reports of a very energetic haunting in a private home in Toronto’s west end.

We were first contacted by the witnesses a couple of weeks prior to the on-site investigation. They were fed-up, and terrified with what was perceived to be a malevolent ghost. Through counselling over the phone we were able to ascertain the following:

The house is close to 100 years of age. There has been on lengthy habitation by a single family, and two very short ones (haunting related?) and presently the witnesses who contacted us.

When the witnesses first moved in they became aware of mild poltergeist activity, sounds of running when no one was inside, mysterious shadows of human figures playing off the walls where there should not have been, missing items, electrical disturbances (unexplained by an electrician’s inspection), appliances opening, and closing, starting, and stopping seemingly of their own volition.

The above continued to escalate over a six month period, until they began to include touching by “unseen” hands, “disembodied” voices, and the appearance of a female apparition described as fairly young, attractive, solid (the witness thought that it was a live woman in his kitchen until she vanished before his eyes) female dressed in the period of the 1940s – 1950s.

Naturally, the witnesses were quite frightened. Over the phone they expressed a desire to be rid of the haunting, and were VERY adamant about it. We made an appointment to visit within two weeks with *Elsie Lynn (please see note below) on house clearing or spirit removal (Lynn charges no fees, and has decades of experience in this as a Pastor of the Spiritualist Church, and through her consultation work with the Anglican Church of Canada).

When the four of us arrived we were greeted by an upwardly mobile couple, in an absolutely beautiful older home. We made mental notes of how otherwise normal this family is despite their actively haunted house. We did note that their demeanour had changed from our telephone conversations.

Rather sheepishly and within minutes of our arrival the witnesses said they had a change of heart, and they wanted to try to live with their ghost. I was personally pleasantly surprised as I have serious ethical questions in regards to spirit removal, but I will save those for a future editorial. It turns out the male of the household who seemed the focus of the poltergeist activity had communicated verbally with this “female entity.” Following our advice he had asked her to leave, and immediately felt a strong sense of overwhelming sadness. He also received a message from the visual apparition that she was never a resident of this house, but visited frequently in her youth because this is where her friends were. He was very moved by this…..

The witness also received a name, that I have been attempting to follow up on. For privacy sake we will not list it here.

We remained at the house for a six-hour period. During this time Lynn counselled the family, and taught them some grounding techniques. Lynn confirmed the presence of the spirit, and her name. She also stated that the house was experiencing a second female spirit, but that this one was a historical repeater. We cannot verify Lynn’s information in regards.

Of note all six people in attendance watched as the shadow of what appeared to be a woman materialized, and disappeared on a specific wall throughout our entire visit. This was incredibly fascinating as attempts by Matthew, and myself to replicate this shadow, find it’s source or uncover potential hoaxery were fruitless. Again we all witnessed this simultaneously, including our neutral observer!

We are on a very strict non-disclosure on this case, meaning unfortunately no photos, tapes etc may be shared with our readers or the general public at this time. Due to their standing within the community the witnesses desire complete privacy, and anonymity. This of course is completely understandable.

We will continue to monitor, and follow-up on this case, and post any relevant updates to this page. Normally when people decide to make peace with their haunting things settle down rather rapidly, and/or end all together in a short time-frame.

When we last touched base with the witnesses they were much more relaxed, and at ease with their situation.

Our thanks to the witnesses for reporting their experiences to us, and opening up their stunning home for us to investigate. This was one of the more interesting investigations I have personally been a part of!