Ghostly riddle haunts Joseph.
‘Help me’ appeal on the house that goes bump in the night.
A Council is ready to investigate ghostly goings-on at a Nottinghamshire man’s home. He says that over recent weeks: Pictures have fallen off walls; Lights have come on mysteriously; Kettles have boiled without being switched on; And objects have appeared – and disappeared – from the house.
Gedling Borough Council tenant Mr Joseph Lees, of Wollaton Avenue, Gedling, said: “It started all of a sudden a few weeks ago. I went into the kitchen to put the kettle on and it was already boiling.” Since then Mr Lees has been woken up twice in the early hours of the morning – once by the noise of someone coughing. He lives alone with his alsatian Tessa. He was also woken by a bang when a picture suddenly fell off a downstairs wall.
“Another time, I went into the bathroom and there was a bottle of talc there which I have never seen before – I never use it,” he said. “My toothbrush and toothpaste were not on the window ledge and had just disappeared. They turned up in my dressing gown pocket.”
Outside the house, the headlights of Mr Lees’ car came on in the driveway. “I turned them off and two hours later they came on again,” he said. “It did that three nights running. Mr Lees, 47, was so unnerved he has been to stay with his daughter Susan. Now he has returned to the house for Tessa’s sake. “It is getting me down,” he said. “I just start crying.”
Mr Lees intends to approach Gedling Borough Council for help. Mr Paul Randall, assistant community services officer at the authority, said: “We know nothing of the incident. If Mr Lees approaches us, the matter will be investigated.”
Nottingham Evening Post, 12th January 1987.
Family flees from ‘ghosts’.
Council probe claim that house is haunted.
A Gedling familmy say that they are being driven out of their home by destructive ghosts. Joseph Lees, who lived with wife, Kathleen, and nine-year-old son Graham in the council house at Wollaton Avenue until last week, claim to have experienced all manner of terrifying goings-on. A ghostly hand on the shoulder was the final straw for Mrs Lees, who fled with her son to her mother’s home in Liverpool. She says she is staying there until they are rehoused by Gedling Borough Council. Mr Lees is staying at their daughter’s home in Bulwell.But there is not room for all the family there, and Mr Lees is having to return to the Gedling house regularly to look after the dog and spend the odd night there.
The family moved into th ehouse last March, but the bumps in the night began just after Christmas. “Pictures have been falling off the walls, ornaments have been broken, the kettle boils on its own and things have been moved from room to room,” said Mrs Lees. “We have heard babies crying and seen strange shadows moving about. Then, last week, Kathleen was upstairs in the bathroom and something went past and touched her on the shoulder.”
Mr Lees added that the weirdest thing he had experienced so far was when he saw a shadow of a man wearing a top hat go downstairs, returning seconds later holding what appeared to be a baby. And a baby could be heard crying on and off for the remainder of the night.”
“It’s just getting worse,” he added. “It’s like someone is trying to tell you something. I’m going to see the council this week. I have spoken to a sister of the people that had the house before us and apparently they left because they thought it was haunted.”
Mr Lees said he had invited a clergyman to the house, who had said a few words for them. But it only seemed to have made it worse. “I didn’t believe in ghosts until I experienced this,” he declared. “It’s heartbreaking and it really gets you down. Our dog sits up and barks at something right through the night.”
A spokesman for Gedling Borough council confirmed that Mr Lees had been in touch and that they were investigating his problems.
Nottingham Recorder, 5th February 1987.