Spare Bedroom in the Basement

#10) The Spare Bedroom in the Basement

My parents own a modest ranch style home in Dodgeville Wisconsin. The home itself is fairly new, built in the 1960's. We all moved in as a family around 1995 or 1996. of the four of us children, only one still lives at that residence with my parents now. Upon recent discussion, my siblings and I were comparing notes on the basement/garage. It is a furnished basement with a bar, fireplace, laundry/utility room, spare room, and a door that leads to the garage. There has always been an "off" feeling to the garage area, particularly in one corner. Most notably is a feeling that when entering the basement Thur the garage, something is following you (i get a distinctly middle to older age male feeling from this "presence"). often we feel that the presence follows us into the house, but will not go up the stairs to the upper portion of the house, therefore we are not safe until we reach the stairs (creating a ritual in which we run Thur the basement to get to the stairs).

We have always had dogs in the house, and they often have odd, scared or protective reactions to being in the basement. a common occurrence is when the current dog, a very protective black lab, will be laying peacefully on the floor, then raise his head and look at the entrance door from the garage, growl, then quickly get up and go upstairs alone, despite his being a social dog that HAS to be where the family is. I was still skeptical about all of this. It can all be debunked to an overstimulated imagination. However, what sealed my belief was a particular incident. I had returned after college to stay with my parents for a few months before moving across the country. My bedroom and been given to my younger sister, who had until i left for college shared a room with our other sister. my only recourse was to sleep in the "spare" bedroom in the basement, which had once belonged to my brother. On one particular night, I was in a dead sleep, when all of a sudden I woke with the feeling that someone had either sat heavily or thrown something on to the edge of my bed. I actually woke up while i was rebounding from the "bounce". I was lifted a few inches up from the bed by the force of it. After speaking to my brother, whose bedroom it had been while living at home, I discovered that he had the same experience a few times as well. Upon investigating the cause of the "bounce", he could find no object that had "fallen" and landed on the bed, nor loose spring or board on the frame (even though we had the same experience with different beds, I could also not find a suitable explanation for the "bounce"). I also find it interesting that even the "non-believers" in our family will rarely stay in the basement alone. It is perhaps one of the most unused rooms in the house, despite the comfort of the fireplace, surround sound, big screen TV, and comfy couches.