Marlborough Park
Thursday March 23, 2006
Investigators present: Ryan, Chris, Tom
Length of visit: 4hours 30minutes
At every investigation in a private home, we go over our Private Residence Questionnaire. We find that much of the information gathered either directly relates to the reported activity or helps us determine if it can be logically explained. Due to privacy legislation and CAPI's commitment to client confidentiality, most of this information can never and will never be released to the public. However, under normal circumstances, we draw from that information to write our reports but never directly use any collected information. Because of the extremely sensitive nature of the information in this case, we found it very difficult to write a complete, publicly accessible report of this investigation.
The First Two Hours
The team arrived at 19:30. We were greeted by the tenant, the daughter of the homeowner, who showed us into her basement apartment. The other tenants in the house living on the main floor were not part of the investigation. We sat in the living room and met the mother (homeowner) and the tenant's friend. All three were smoking and Ryan asked if he would be allowed as well. Tom and Chris do not smoke and cautioned Ryan to limit his smoking to eliminate collecting inaccurate data.
The homeowner had contacted Tom because she was frightened for her daughter's safety. About one week prior to the initial contact, the daughter had been physically attacked by an unseen entity. The daughter's boyfriend heard her scream and came rushing out of the bathroom. He found her held against a wall by an unseen force and hardly breathing. As he moved closer, the daughter slumped as though she had been let go, and began to breath freely. Both quickly dressed and left. The daughter had not been back to the basement apartment to stay since, but had come to collect various items, always bringing a friend with her.
Our client told us she always felt uncomfortable in the hallway between the kitchen and storage area (the bathroom is also accessed through this hallway). The other area she felt most uncomfortable in was her bedroom, which she said was always very cold. Since the attack, she felt uncomfortable in every part of the basement suite.
Ryan asked if we could place a thermometer in the bedroom to check for temperature fluctuations during our visit. As he placed the thermometer on the bed, he noticed that there was a heating duct on the wall next to the bed. The furnace was running at this time, but only cold air was blowing out of the vent. A quick check of the other heating vents produced expected results - hot air flowed from these other vents. The bedroom vent was properly connected to the hot air ducts from the furnace. The team found this very peculiar. Over the course of our visit, the temperature fluctuated slightly, but remained almost 5 degrees cooler than the rest of the basement.
Next, the team checked the hallway for any compass variations. There were minor fluctuations (less than 5 degrees) recorded. However, each team member felt very closed in while in the hallway. Upon closer examination, this feeling was directly related to the narrowness of the hallway. Following the compass readings, Chris and Tom took the EMF detector through the passageway. This showed a high level of electromagnetic energy, especially close to the wall separating the hallway from the living room. This high EM reading was quickly attributed to the electronic equipment against the wall in the living room (TV, stereo, etc).
Instrumentation in the bathroom showed nothing, but each team member felt as though they were being watched. An EM anomaly was discovered above the toilet and summarily investigated. The other side of this wall is the kitchen and the light above the stove turned out to be the source of the electromagnetic field. The shower stall is very dark and foreboding as there is no natural or artificial light source. Each team member felt quite uncomfortable in the shower stall and uneasy in the rest of the bathroom. This may have been due to the darkness in the shower and the closeness of the bathroom itself. In this shower stall, Ryan felt "very uneasy" and kept getting "visions of a young man inappropriately touching a young girl". This was a very disturbing feeling that he continues to struggle with.
The other side of the wall opposite the sink and toilet is the storage area/furnace room. This area currently holds the belongings of the previous tenant, who is related to the homeowner and her daughter. These belongings seemed to have a negative energy connected to them. While most items carry some amount of residual energy from the people who own them, there are those specific items that are assigned special status by the owner. Because we could not legally search through these stored belongings, we were unable to determine if any had more or less energy attributed to them. However, this room had a definite energy that affected other parts of the basement suite. One of those areas was below the stairs.
Most of the area below the stairs was not being used. To each team member, this area seemed to be quite large and we all wondered why there were no large items stored there. When we reviewed the photos of the area, they showed a very small space that could not hold much in the way of storage. Also under the stairs is a small closet. Our client said she did not like this closet because she always felt someone was watching her from it whenever she was in the hallway. We looked in the closet and found that it felt uncomfortable. Then we noticed the writing on the door.
The Next Two Hours: All The Interesting Stuff Happens
The team was considering leaving because nothing truly paranormal had happened. This is more the norm than the exception. Often during initial investigations, very little activity is recorded. Our hypothesis: the client may be too focused on wanting something to happen, thereby blocking any paranormal activity (energy is interesting in the way people can manipulate it subconsciously). Many clients think we may consider them unbalanced because they have experienced activity in their home or place of work and we have not been able to record anything during our visit. Our answer is sometimes we are unable to record anything, but that does not mean the client has not experienced activity. Rather, it means that during our visit, any energy that may be causing paranormal activity (spiritual, etc) was not evident to the CAPI team. This is why we try to schedule two (or more) investigations in an attempt to capture activity and/or confirm our findings.
As we were beginning to say our goodbyes and discussing a second visit, Tom noticed movement behind his head in a mirror reflection. He asked both Ryan and Chris if they had noticed anything, but they had not. Tom asked Chris to take a few photos of him when Tom noticed the movement again. While Chris was unable to capture anything with his digital camera specific to Tom's requests, the camera itself began to function erratically. The batteries (which Chris had replaced just before the investigation) had drained completely. Tom gave him a fresh set that, within minutes, had been used up. Chris went through four sets of batteries in an hour.
Then the client, who had been uncomfortable just being in her soon-to-be former apartment, began hearing someone talking right next to her and seeing a black figure moving around the kitchen, hallway and storage areas. Ryan placed a digital recorder next to her, attempting to capture what was being said. Upon review, nothing unusual could be heard. Also, whenever the client would see this figure, Chris and Tom would take photos in the direction she saw it. Both captured orbs. It was also during these times that Chris's camera would malfunction (it would not take a picture or became extremely slow to reset) and shortly after would need new batteries. Chris also became annoyed with Tom because Tom kept taking pictures of Chris during the camera malfunctions in an attempt to capture the black figure.
Then the whole apartment became oppressive. Each team member, the mother, our client and her friend all started to become very uncomfortable and unwanted. However, we were unable to record any instrument readings different from our initial sweep. This was puzzling because increased activity is usually reflected in anomalous instrument readings. The client then told us she saw a small child, possibly under five, standing in the storage area doorway. She said the child seemed very scared as though she needed to hide from someone and then went into the closet.
Tom and Ryan decided to check the closet again. Chris, unexpectedly and urgently, needed to go to the bathroom. When the team looked in the closet earlier, they had photo-documented the writing on the door. This time, Ryan noticed there were, what appeared to be, hand prints near the bottom. They were small (like those of a child) and seemed to be greasy, as if whomever they belonged to had food on their hands. Ryan was crouched examining the door and Tom was standing in the storage area doorway when suddenly Tom felt something move through him into the storage area. He immediately turned toward the storage area and snapped a picture. About two seconds later, Chris felt someone come to standstill right behind him as he was finishing his bathroom sojourn. He turned around, saw nothing, but felt a dark presence that wanted to suffocate him. It was shortly after this encounter that all parties decided it was best to leave.
Epilogue
After each investigation, the team usually finds a place to debrief. It is always somewhere we can sit and talk mostly uninterrupted for as long as necessary. This particular foggy night, the team chose a Tim Horton's in the local strip mall. As we were discussing the evening's events, our client came in to get coffee to go. She was almost completely different from earlier. She smiled and waved at us and appeared to have a huge weight lifted from her.
Since our investigation, our client has moved to a "paranormal free" home. We wish her well in her new life. Most of the previous tenant's belongings have been placed into a storage facility and the apartment has been rented out. There has been no word from the new tenants about any paranormal goings-on. Our suggestion of a second, more intense investigative visit has been placed on-hold indefinitely.
