Salzburg and the Housing Problem.
Even a ghost has taken a hand in Salzburg’s housing problem. In a block of flats, where the owner of a house wants a certain family to leave it, between 12 at midnight and 2 a.m. the couple are plagued by strange noises every night. At 12 sharp knocking starts, steps and whispers are heard from the adjacent room, and suddenly a hail of pebbles pours from the ceiling. Three times the “ghost” smashed all the window panes. Occasionally he announced his appearance by throwing lumps of sugar through the bedroom window. During his last visit he smashed a looking-glass and two pictures.
The police cannot find any vestige of the invader. The other night a policeman received a pebble on his head, a soldier who thought that he saw the fugitive ghost on the roof hurried after him, but fell and was injured. The flat-dwellers hold that the “ghost” has been engaged by the house-owner to make the family vacate the place, since he can let it to other lodgers on more favourable terms.
Derry Journal, 19th December 1928.