So, you think your house is haunted?  What do you do if your house is haunted? Identifying what type of haunting you are dealing with is the first thing you need to do. The internet is saturated with information on all types of ghosts, hauntings, spirits, and paranormal activity, and it can be a bit overwhelming, especially if you are new to these types of things. For that reason, we have broken it down into three basic types of hauntings; Residual Hauntings, Intelligent Hauntings, and Poltergeist hauntings.

Residual Hauntings

Residual hauntings are the most common type of haunting. These hauntings are like timestamps, moments caught in time that replay over and over. The primary indicator that you are experiencing a residual haunting is the lack of interaction or response between the spirit and the environment. It will be the same behavior at the exact location regardless of the changes in the physical environment. It will not interact with you, and it has no idea you are there.

Examples of this type of haunting would be the sound of footsteps, the sound of voices or laughter/crying, or seeing an apparition doing the same thing over and over. The Stone Tape theory equates these types of hauntings to tape recordings. It suggests that when people die during a highly emotional or traumatic event, the energy expelled is recorded by the environment and replayed repeatedly like a movie. These types of hauntings are not malevolent, and in most cases, people choose just to leave things be.

Intelligent Hauntings

Intelligent hauntings respond directly to you and involve spirits who can interact and adapt to their surroundings. This category of hauntings encompasses a plethora of subcategories and theories, and you can find yourself spiraling down a rabbit hole of information if you aren’t careful. However, the basic premise of this type of haunting is that the entity is aware of you and able to manifest activity to communicate and alert you to its presence.

It’s important to note, as well, that the more you interact with an entity, the stronger it can become. Regardless of your personal beliefs of what ghosts may be, one thing most of us can agree on is that the spirits contain energy just as we do, and they’ve been known to drain the energy from their surroundings. Therefore, batteries drain, and electronics can fail when a ghost is in the room, so it’s not too much of a stretch to believe that an entity can also drain our energies.

If you feel like this is the type of haunting you are experiencing, you should reach out to a paranormal team in your area that can help you. Trying to rid your home of an intelligent haunting may take multiple attempts and specific methods, and enlisting help from people who have encountered this type of activity before will be beneficial.

Poltergeist Haunting

A poltergeist haunting is indicated by a lot of physical disturbances and moving objects and, in German, means “noisy ghost.” This type of activity may seem somewhat aggressive and may also include pinching, hitting, tripping, or pushing. Poltergeist activity is sometimes mistaken as a demonic or a negative intelligent haunting.

As with anything else in the paranormal, opinions on what causes a poltergeist vary greatly. There is a lot of information that suggests poltergeists develop based upon our own energy and emotions. Poltergeist activity will typically center around one person, and in many well-known cases, these people tend to be young and teenage girls. This type of activity is driven by high emotion and high energy, and there is no time more confusing and emotional than the adolescent years.

If you feel that you have a poltergeist, try to identify the stressors driving the emotions within the home. Since the poltergeist activity results from emotions and energy, as the environment evens out and calms down, so does the activity. If you are unable to curb the activity, you may need to enlist the help of an energy worker or someone who knows the practice of Geomancy.

What To Do If Your House Is Haunted?

The most important thing to do, however, is to trust your instincts. When in doubt, ask for help. Keep in mind that the paranormal field is vast, and opinions are many. Be wary of who you let into the home, and always go with your gut. If something seems off, it probably is and never pay someone to come in with the purpose to ‘get rid of your ghosts.  Reputable paranormal teams do not require payment for assistance. The symptoms of some psychiatric and medical conditions can be mistaken for paranormal activity. It is always good to take medical and mental conditions and medications into consideration when determining if you are dealing with a haunting.

Don’t trust a team that doesn’t first try to debunk the activity or find non-paranormal origins, as a good paranormal team will cover all the possibilities before declaring a home haunted. Many things can make you think your house is haunted that are perfectly explainable by people who know what to look for. Not everything is a haunting, but not everything is explainable, so be sure to keep an open and logical mind throughout the process and know that there are people out there that can and will assist you.