WASHINGTON, Iowa (KCRG) – Sandy Bacon thought nothing of it when she first heard doors slam in her Victorian home on West Second Street near the City Square.
“When I’m sitting downstairs working and stuff, I can hear doors slamming and things like that,” she explained
Bacon’s family moved into the 1895 home two years ago. The house, just two blocks from the downtown square, was perfect for her family.
She just didn’t expect visitors.
“When my kids were here I could explain it away. I just assumed my kids were doing the noises, my kids, they had kids too, I don’t have any idea why it would be happening now.”
Sandy’s children have moved but she keeps what she’s named the Victorian View as a bed and breakfast, bridal dress rental, and wedding venue business.
Oh, and a place that seems to attract paranormal activity.
“It’s not scary.”
But it is persistent.
“I just think they want you to know that they are here,” said Midwest Shadow Chasers founder Sean Tritle.
Tritle is just one of the paranormal investigators who has searched the house from basement to attic.
He says this door slammed behind him once and later left its mark.
“There was a handprint. Up, right around here on the door, of a thermal, of a heat signature of a handprint.”
And they’ve captured an energy source in the basement that, when illustrated by stickmen on a screen, appears to be two dancing figures.
“There was no music playing. They were just dancing to their own tune.”
And they have video showing a camera in the garage being jostled just as the sound of a voice saying “watch it” is heard.
“No explanation why. It just happened,” said Tritle.
Sandy says there’s no history of the mansion being haunted but it has created interest in the venue she now rents out as a bed and breakfast and event venue.
And she says it fits in with historic Washington.
“We’re just far enough away that we aren’t smack dab in the middle of it but it’s so easy to get to it.”
Even if you must share it with things that go bump in the night.
“A lot of unexplained activity happens here,” said Tritle.
“ I don’t think there’s any malicious intent whatever.”
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