If you have searched this, something in your home has been bothering you for a while, and you have probably already talked yourself out of it twice.
This site covers ghost stories for a living and takes them seriously as stories. This particular page is going to be practical instead, because the honest answer to your question is that almost everything people report has an ordinary cause, one of those causes can kill you, and it is worth ruling that one out before anything else.
The short answer
There is no test for determining whether or not a person’s house is haunted, since there is no clear definition of haunting, nor has any aspect of it ever been scientifically verified. However, there is a set of steps that can be taken to explore the possible explanations that are verifiable. Cold spots, footsteps, door movement, voices, dread and figures at one’s bed are all phenomena with clearly understood causes, and following this list in order would explain the great majority of cases.
First of all, exclude the possibility of carbon monoxide poisoning
It should be noted that this is not a mere caution about safety issue. In fact, carbon monoxide poisoning is capable of generating a whole series of experiences reported as a result of a haunting and has done so for more than a hundred years now.
As early as 1921, an American doctor named William Wilmer published an account of a family who had moved into a house and began hearing sounds of dragging furniture, footsteps and voices. They felt being watched. They were seeing figures. They were tired and sick. The source of all this was a malfunctioning heating unit emitting carbon monoxide. After it was repaired, everything ended.
Almost all the symptoms coincide: headaches, dizziness, nausea, confusion, constant feeling of dread, movement at the corner of one’s eye, hallucinations and a feeling of pressure in one’s chest during the night. Two factors distinguish this experience from anything supernatural, and these should be checked.
- It affects everyone in the building, including pets, though not always equally
- It gets better when you leave the house and worse when you come back
If any of that sounds familiar, do this now.
Open the windows, get everyone outside, and call your emergency services or gas emergency line from outdoors. Do not go back in to investigate. A carbon monoxide alarm costs less than a takeaway and should be on every floor of every home regardless of anything on this page.
The ordinary causes that explain nearly everything
Once carbon monoxide is ruled out, work down this list. It is roughly ordered by how often each one turns out to be the answer.
Your house is breathing
Timber, plaster and brick expand during the day and contract at night. The contracting causes sharp cracks and thuds that sound exactly like feet stamping above your head and occur during evenings as the heating comes down. Your feet stomping at the same time every evening is your own heating, not a ghostly schedule.
There is movement where there shouldn’t be
A cold spot is very nearly always caused by a draft, which could come from chimneys, loft hatchways, cavity walls, poorly-fitted windows, or even gaps under skirtings. Doors swinging open by themselves are often caused by uneven floors and a worn latch, or changes in air pressure caused by opening another door somewhere else. These can both be tested in less than a minute.
There is something alive in the walls
Scratching, scurrying, dragging noises – mice, rats, squirrels, birds and wasps all produce such noises, and rodents tend to be more active at dawn and dusk, when people are half-asleep and most suggestible. Evidence of droppings in the loft puts that to rest.
Your electrics are old
Flickering lights, household appliances turning off suddenly and bulbs failing constantly in one socket. This is the only problem on this list that you absolutely should act upon, since a loose electrical connection is a fire hazard. Not supernatural and certainly not a myth.
There is a noise coming from somewhere it shouldn’t be
In 1998 an engineer named Vic Tandy was working late in a lab when he felt the presence of someone in the room and saw a grey shadow at the edges of his vision. What he later traced the source to was a new extractor fan producing a standing wave sound at just under 19 Hz – too low for humans to hear. At the same time, this frequency is near to the resonance frequency of the human eye, which explains why he was seeing a blur that was not there.
Infrasound is created by extractor fans, boilers, ventilation, traffic and wind passing over openings. It reliably produces feelings of unease, chest pressure and the sensation of being watched in someone who cannot hear anything at all. If you feel the most dread in one room, check what is humming there.
What people report, and what it usually turns out to be
| What you notice | The usual cause | How to check it |
| Cold spots in one room | Draughts from a chimney, hatch or window | Hold a lit incense stick and watch the smoke |
| Doors opening or closing | Uneven floors, worn latch, air pressure | Put a marble on the floor and watch it |
| Footsteps overhead | Timber contracting as the house cools | Note the time. Compare with the heating cycle |
| Scratching inside walls | Rodents, birds or squirrels | Listen at dawn, check the loft for droppings |
| Feeling watched, dread | Infrasound, or carbon monoxide | Alarm first, then find the fan or boiler |
| A figure by the bed at night | Sleep paralysis | Does it only happen as you wake or drift off |
| Lights flickering | Loose connection or ageing wiring | Call an electrician. This is a fire risk |
| Objects moved or missing | Other people, vibration, ordinary memory | Photograph the room before you leave it |
| Muffled voices or talking | Pipes, neighbours, radio, pareidolia | Record it, listen back in daylight |
| Pets staring or refusing a room | Hearing range well beyond ours | Vet check, and a carbon monoxide alarm |
The night-time ones, and why they feel so real
If it happens to you and it happens in your bed, then there is a particular cause of that phenomenon, and it is important to know it because it is scary and extremely common.
It is called sleep paralysis, and it is what happens when you awaken while your body is still under the influence of a state which prevents you from acting out your dreams. You are awake, but you cannot move; your brain, half asleep, makes up an environment for you. People describe a figure in the doorway or on the chest of the bed, feeling of pressure and fear of the presence which menaces you. It usually lasts only a few seconds or a couple of minutes, after which you are released.
Around one in five people experience it at least once in their life. It is more likely with interrupted sleep, stress, irregular schedule and lying on your back in bed. It is not dangerous and it is nothing to worry about.
This phenomenon lies behind many cases which get reported as haunting across all cultures and centuries. Old Hag, night visitor or a figure in the doorway – it is all about the same experience with various names. Knowing the cause of it may not prevent you from experiencing it, but it will change its impact.
The signs worth considering
They don’t suggest any supernatural phenomenon, but rather point to the problems with the structure or its inhabitants.
- Appearing and disappearing after you’ve spent a few days outside
- Being reported independently by several people, who haven’t been talking about it before
- Any kind of fire, be it an unpleasant smell, visible scorching or gas smell
- Black or dark green stains on the walls, constant musty smell or unexplained condensation
- Moving objects or missing items when the doors were locked, it is rather a problem with security
- Feeling of fear that disrupts your sleep or makes you avoid some rooms of your home
How to really investigate the haunted house
It takes a week. Not as exciting as a search for ghosts, but much more efficient.
Write a daily record. Date, time, room, details, the presence of the other people, the temperature of heating and outside – it will be surprising how quickly a pattern emerges once it is recorded, and patterns are the enemies of hauntings. Events at 11 pm on cold nights are definitely controlled by a thermostat.
After that, do the simple tests. Smoke from incense for drafts. Marble for checking the level of the floor. Record a phone in the room overnight and listen to it in the morning, since your hearing becomes more reliable when you are not scared. Photograph any room where things get moved before leaving.
The one thing to exclude. Don’t buy an EMF meter. It is marketed for ghost hunting and detects the things you’d expect a device measuring electromagnetic fields to detect, which is electricity and your phone. There is no known connection between hauntings and EMFs, and it will make you believe in the ghosts you won’t find.
When to call someone, and who
| What you are dealing with | Who to call | How soon |
| Headaches or nausea that ease when you leave | Emergency or gas emergency line | Immediately, from outside |
| Flickering lights, burning smell, hot sockets | A qualified electrician | Same day |
| Scratching, droppings, gnawed material | Pest control | This week |
| Damp patches, musty smell, spreading mould | A damp or building surveyor | This month |
| Signs someone has been in the house | The police | Straight away |
| Fear that is affecting your sleep or daily life | Your doctor | Do not sit on it |
What if nothing explains it
Sometimes you will do all of this and still be left with something. That happens, and it deserves a straight answer rather than a wink.
No haunting has ever produced evidence that survives controlled conditions. What has been demonstrated, repeatedly, is how reliably expectation, low light, poor sleep, infrasound and old buildings generate exactly these experiences in people who are not imagining anything and are not unwell. Once you have been told a house has a history, your brain starts auditing it for confirmation, and it will find some, because houses make noise.
That is also the mechanism behind the famous cases. It is why thousands of people write apology letters to a doll in a museum in Key West, and why the most reputedly haunted buildings in the world are almost always places where a great many people genuinely suffered. The history comes first and the reports follow it.
Here is the part that matters more than whether how to know if your house is haunted has a satisfying answer. If you are frightened in your own home, that is a real problem whatever is causing it, and it does not become less real if the cause turns out to be a boiler. Being scared where you sleep wears people down. Deal with it as a thing worth solving rather than a thing to be embarrassed about, and talk to your doctor if it is costing you sleep.
Frequently asked questions
Can a house be haunted without anyone having died in it?
In folklore, yes, and plenty of famous cases involve buildings where nothing notable happened. In practice this is worth knowing for the opposite reason: people often discover a death in the property history afterwards and treat it as confirmation. Almost every house older than a century has had someone die in it, so it confirms very little.
Do animals really sense things people cannot?
They sense plenty that people cannot, but it is sound and smell rather than spirits. Dogs and cats hear well above and below our range, which covers rodents in cavities, ultrasonic devices and the same infrasound you are not consciously hearing. A pet that suddenly avoids one room is telling you something is in that room.
What does a cold spot actually mean?
Moving air, in the overwhelming majority of cases. A genuine cold spot with no airflow and no cold surface nearby is unusual, which is exactly why the smoke test is worth doing before drawing any conclusions from one.
Should I get the house blessed or cleansed?
That is a personal decision and this page is not going to talk anyone out of their beliefs. What is worth saying is that people often feel better afterwards, and that this holds regardless of what was causing the problem, which tells you something useful about where a lot of the distress lives. Do the boiler check as well.
Is it worth calling a paranormal investigation group?
Some are thoughtful and some sell equipment readings as evidence. If you contact one, ask whether they check for carbon monoxide, draughts and infrasound before they reach for anything else. A group that rules out the boring explanations first is worth talking to. A group that does not is going to confirm what you came to them with.
My children say they see someone. What should I do?
Take it seriously without confirming it, which is a difficult balance. Children describe imaginary companions in exactly the same language they use for real people, and that is a normal developmental stage. Run the same checks on their bedroom that you would run anywhere else, particularly for carbon monoxide and draughts, and mention it to your doctor if the child seems genuinely distressed rather than matter of fact about it.