Here’s the story of how living in a real haunted house changed my marriage, started me on my spiritual journey, and taught me to trust my intuition.

It started in August 2013, right before my younger son’s first birthday when we decided to move into a less expensive house in the small town of Issaquah, Washington.

We we're looking to save a little money (which eventually backfired on us!) and found a quaint rambler on the banks of Issaquah Creek. It was sort of dingy and a little smelly, but the rental market was very, very competitive then and we were running out of time to find a place.

As we toured the house with the leasing agent, she mentioned the previous owner had recently passed away from a long battle with cancer and her son had hired them to rent the house out. I always knew I was sensitive to energy so I immediately asked if the lady had died in the house. She reassured me three separate times in that showing that the lady had died in a hospice facility and not in that house.

Against my better judgement, I believed her. Plus, the price was right and I figured dingy and smelly were two things we could handle with a little elbow grease. We moved in a few days later.

From the first night we slept in that house, I knew something was wrong.

It felt bad.

Oh, and the smell...I will never forget the smell. It seemed as though as soon as we moved in, it got worse. It became more and more pungent on an almost daily basis Always looking on the bright side, we chalked it up to the house being old and just needing a little TLC.

Over the next few days, we scrubbed. We washed windows, steam cleaned carpets, wiped down walls, cleaned every nook and cranny we could find. I even pulled up the carpeting in the master bedroom and rented an ozone machine (which apparently kills any smell). It didn’t help. I bought every type of air freshener you could find. It seeped into our hair; our clothes. It was disgusting but there was nothing we could do.

My next move was to decorate. I think I thought that if I could just make it homey that it might feel like home and maybe the smell would eventually go away. I unpacked every box, hung every picture, mounted the curtains, and organized every drawer.

This is when things started to really go bad.

I first noticed my personality changing when the depression started to kick in. It went from feeling like there was a weight on my shoulders and an overall sense of sadness to me crying from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep. All day long I would cry. The only way the crying would stop is if I left the house, so that’s what I did.

Every morning, I would wake up, pack my son in the stroller, and escape that house.

For hours, I would camp out in local restaurants, hang out at the library, or sit by myself on a park bench...anything to avoid the house. I would hide out in town until 6:00 pm when my husband returned from work. Even then, we would eat dinner away from the house and only return when we had to.

People who knew me did not recognize me.

The light was gone from my eyes and heaviness had been planted on my shoulders. I knew there had to be more to the story of the house, so I started asking around. Much to my dismay, I learned that the previous owner had passed away in my living room less than three weeks before we moved in. No wonder I was feeling so sad! This depression didn’t seem to affect anyone else in our house. It was attached to only me.

My next step was to clear the energy in the house, hoping she might move on and we could go back to living the normal happy life we had previously been living.

I burned sage.

I lit white candles.

I begged her to leave.

I demanded that she leave.

I prayed.

I even had a Medium come over to clear the house and cross the spirit over.

None of it worked and before long, things escalated.

One night my husband, older son, his friend, and I were sitting in the living room. I look up and all of the bricks surrounding the fireplace started vibrating. They were moving and shaking and humming with energy. I yelled, “Oh my God! Look at the bricks!” They all thought I was crazy. No one else could see it, but it was happening right before my eyes.

A few days later, around 11:00 pm my husband and I were preparing to head to bed. Out of nowhere, a foggy white mist started filling the house. It started back in our bedroom and filled the living room. I shrieked out in fear, but again, no one else saw it.

I started to think I was crazy. My husband didn’t understand what I was experiencing. He wasn’t seeing or feeling any of the things I was and began to think I was a little crazy, too.

Not only had I been seeing and feeling things that nobody else had, but I started having conversations that I had no recollection of.  I was yelling at my older son for no reason (without remembering it), and felt that something was starting to take over my body.

Then, our cat was attacked.