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Hate ghosts? Love ghosts? Indifferent towards ghosts? There is no right answer. If you live with a ghost, it doesn’t care how you feel about it. It just knows that it’ll hate you for the rest of your life and then continue hating you even when you’re a ghost and you’re both hanging out in ghost bars. The only thing that you can really do is try your best to avoid living in a ghost-infested house. If you already live in one, get out of it as soon as physically possible.
Fortunately for you, I have spent every minute of my life being haunted by various ghosts. So in addition to never knowing what not being scared feels like, I have an excellent understanding of how to identify whether or not your home is haunted. In fact, here are 8 Signs Your House is Haunted by Ghosts. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Also, please help me.
It Just Looks Scary
Houses don't start looking scary by themselves. New homeowners aren't sitting down with some bright-eyed, young architect, saying, "Hi. This is our first home! Please make it look scary as sh*t." No, ghosts do that. It's their other favorite pastime. (The first is haunting.) So take a nice, long look at your house. If it's absolutely terrifying, you're positively screwed. And don’t go thinking you can “change” the house. We all know how that that works out in human relationships.
It’s Super Old
The same way people get meaner as they get older, houses progress. Once they pass that mid-life crisis point around 100-150 years standing, it all starts to go downhill pretty quickly. It doesn't matter if nothing unspeakably tragic happened in it. There's an entire black market for surly, bitter ghosts who need a home to torment. They're actually fairly reasonably-priced for ghosts once they've changed hands a few times. So try to take solace in the fact that your house has found a new life partner whilst you run across your lawn in your jammies, screaming your head off.
It Smells Like Cats
Cat people get blamed for a lot of things, and a lot of times it’s unjust. This time, however, it's legitimate. Cats are vile, emotionless, villainous creatures that will stop at nothing to make your life a living hell. That includes helping ghosts carry out their evil-doings. If your apartment starts smelling like cats and you don’t even own one, run. Run far and fast and don’t stop until you find a dog. Then adopt that dog and love it for the rest of its short, beautiful life.
It’s Always Cold
Hell may be hot, but hell on earth is bloody cold. You see, ghosts thrive in extremely frigid temperatures because they know that we humans associate fear with coldness. Also, sweaty ghosts aren’t that scary. I mean, I can’t tell you how many times I laughed in the face of a sweaty-browed ghoul when it tried to step to me on a balmy 87-degree day. The colder it is, the more evil a ghost can be. That’s why the movie The Thing is the most terrifying movie of all time. Alright, it’s not a ghost movie, but you get it. Shut up.
It’s In Massachusetts
Don’t even get me started on how creepy Massachusetts is. That entire state is filled with the lost, bitter souls of our forefathers, just roaming the countryside, waiting to ruin your life forever. The state has the most ghosts per capita in the United States. Look it up. And I mean, yeah, some of them are fun ghosts. Some just want to remind you to turn the lights off or to call your mother, but others—they want to rip your face off. Just rip it totally off. Yikes! No. Thank. You. Mass.A.Chu.Setts.
It Has a Basement, an Attic, or Both
This one is a no-brainer. You kind of learn this from the jump when you’re just a little tike. You start moseying to the basement late at night ‘cause you left your blankey down there. Then all of a sudden, BANG! A ghost rips your face off. Basements and attics are like the Airbnb of the afterlife. Ghosts are just hanging out in there, using all of your stuff to live, create fear, befriend spiders, and then send those spiders down as scouts to see when you fall asleep. Then they hover over your face and sing lullabies backwards until you pee the bed. So maybe just live in a tent or something.
You Live Alone
You thought getting that studio apartment in the East Village would make you feel like a grown up, didn’t you? “No more roommates for me!” you said. “I’m an adult and it feels good!” you also said. I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you, but you’ve just made the worst decision of your life. The thing about living alone is that it gets lonely, quick. Ghosts love loneliness almost as much as they love cats, basements, and ripping faces off. I mean, they’ll even travel from Massachusetts to watch you eat gummy bears alone in bed, before dragging you to hell with them. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it.
It Clearly Hates You
You might be a great person. You might volunteer on the weekends and always give cash to the homeless. Here’s the thing: Your house couldn't care less. In fact, that'll make it hate you even more. It means that you’re spending more time helping other people and not enough time taking care of your home. The nicer you are, the more a house feels the need to put you in your place. And the only way to do that is to get itself haunted. Homes and ghosts operate in the same universe, so your house will make it happen pretty quickly. It’ll also bad-mouth you to the ghosts to help speed up the process. You’ll be going from zero-to-face-ripped-off in no time. Bye-bye, face—hello, living nightmare.
For more on ghosts, hauntings, and their true-to-life applications, check out the second season of Deadbeat, available on Hulu starting April 20.