If someone had died in your house?

Question

How would you feel if you found out that a previous occupant of your house had died there? Would you instantly take a dislike to your house or would it not bother you?
- I found out that a past occupant of my house comitted suicide there, I felt as if I had read my homes diary and discovered one of its personal secrets.

Answer 1

Wow. Quite a toughie, this question.
If the person had just died of natural causes/ illness etc, I wouldn't be bothered. My neighbour died at home and I know that he was happy there; my feelings about his house would be connected with his life rather than his death, so I certainly wouldn't mind living there.

But suicide or murder are very different. I'd think long and hard before I bought a house if I found out something like that when I was going through with the sale.
Having said that, if I discovered now that the home that I've lived in for the past 10 years had been the place where someone died violently I wouldn't want to leave... our happy family memories (two kids etc) would outweigh the house's sad past. I'd be far more likely to get our vicar to bless the house than to move out.

Answer 2

I work in an estate agents and often have to show people around empty houses that have very dated decor - it's obvious that the last occupant was an elderly person.
They always ask if the person has died or gone into a home. Then they want to know if the person died in the house (I wouldn't know that!).
A year or so ago we had a sale going through where the owner, an elderly man, was going into sheltered accommodation and the future owners called in to ask why the front door was boarded up. We assumed the old guy had forgotten his keys and had to break in, but it turned out he was so depressed at leaving his life-long home that he had hung himself from the banisters! It was the police and his worried family that had broken in.
Luckily, the truth about how the man died didn't come out until after the sale completed, otherwise I think the purchasers would have pulled out.
Spookily, over the weeks following the man's death, we would find windows open at the house and a colleague driving past late one night saw a light on! We went in to turn the light off but all the switches were in the "off" position. We took the bulb out!

Answer 3

the way u mention it, it sounds creepy. But if i were to know that, then i would just move into the house, if i found it to be spacious, in a nice locality, neat, and no grafiti and bills on the walls outside. So what if someone died, or commited suicide or consumed drugs in that house, u r a new person, it's a new occupant, move on! it's called life.

Answer 4

As another of the answers sates - unless you live in a new build home, and know the history of the sight, somebody at sometime will probably have died in your home. I lived in a very old detached house once, and heard footsteps upstairs a few times (there was only myself and my husband in the house, and in the same downstairs room) and that was spooky!
If it unnerves you - I don't know what religion, if any you are, but have you thought about getting your house blessed, this is something thought about doing with my old home.

Answer 5

Actually, the first house I lived in with my parents had someone that died in the front room. Of course, my dad failed to tell us all until we'd moved out!
I was too young to really 'feel' anything... If I was still living there I would be chilled by being in the room alone, but it's just something you live with; if you've lived there for as long as you have and haven't really noticed anything then why should your thought-track change?

Answer 6

Most people die at home in their bed . If you buy a house that was occupied before , most probably someone had died in that house. No big deal, we all have to get there one day .
Look at your case a good conversation subject when you have guests. North Americans love those kinds of stories.

Answer 7

It wouldn't bother me, I mean everybody has to die sometime and to die in your own home is surely better than in a hospital or in an accident somewhere.

However, the case you mentioned of someone committing suicide might make me feel a bit odd - I suppose it depends how long ago it was.

Answer 8

I knew when i got my house that an old man died in the bedroom and his son found him. He was an alcoholic. it bugged me at first but when i redocrated it it felt like mine and it never bothers me . How ever i feel sorry for the person who now lives in my dads flat as he died in there under susipious circumstances and they know that . That would really freek me out

Answer 9

At my old house the owner before us died there....and I ended up with her room. She died of old age though, so I tried not to think about it too much.

Answer 10

Uneasy