The Ghost of Third Street Wausau

Written By: Shawn Blaschka

The following story is a true account of my own paranormal experiences while living in my former home located in Wausau, Wisconsin. The exact address cannot be disseminated, so as to protect the privacy of the current owners. My family and I lived in the home from 1993 to 1999. During that time we experienced several unexplainable events that to this day I can not reasonably explain. Both my wife and I have had some paranormal experiences prior to living there, however never before had we both had those experiences within our own homes. 

It was in November of 1992 that my wife and I had decided to finally move out of the small house we had been living in for the past 2-½ years on the West side of Wausau. We had outgrown the one bedroom home and had planned to start a family. So after a few months of looking around the area we happened upon a home that both my wife and I felt very comfortable in. It was a bungalow style home built in 1927. The interior was in good order and the trim, doors and windows were constructed of solid oak, which gave the house a real warm feeling. The house was very out of date in some respects and was in need of a major face lift but it seemed sturdy and solid with a large full basement under it and we felt that we could transform it into a more than suitable home for our family.

 

In January of 1993 we moved into our fixer upper along with one cat and two dogs. At the time, what we didn’t know about the house was that we had also taken on an extra tenant, a ghost! 

For the first two months everything seemed very normal. Then strange things started to happen. The first of these odd events happened one evening when I was home alone. It was about 8 o’clock at night and I was sitting in the livingroom watching television. All of a sudden I heard the distinct sound of our kitchen cupboard doors closing. I turned the TV down and listened for a moment longer and noticed that the sound continued to come from the kitchen. The sound was distinct, a steel plate making contact with the magnetic clip that held the cupboard door shut. I got up quickly from the couch and proceeded to the kitchen. I looked around the corner and the sound eerily ceased. I decided to check the cupboard doors and found them all closed firmly. Thinking that I was imagining things I returned to the living room to watch TV. Upon sitting down, with in moments, I once again heard the same noise from the kitchen. This time I ran into the kitchen, only again to find everything in order with not a sound to be heard. I decided to stay in the kitchen this time and observe. I must have stood there for fifteen minutes or so when I decided that this was ridiculous, as nothing was happening. I again returned to the living room and sat down. A few minutes later, again I heard the cupboards opening and closing. This time I decided to yell out, “STOP IT”. Upon announcing my wishes the noise stopped and it did not return that night. Over the next several months I put the incident out of my mind and quickly had forgotten about it.

Several months later I was working in the kitchen after supper. I was once again home alone while my wife was at work. Once I finished up I turned out the lights and noticed the basement light still on. Thinking I left it on by mistake I turned it out. I went into the other end of the house to relax and returned to the kitchen a few hours later right prior to bedtime. Upon entering I noticed light emanating from the other end of the room. I walked across the room to find out where it was coming from. As I looked down the basement stairs, to my amazement, the light was again on. On several occasions after this, lights turned out in the house would mysteriously be turned back on. Several times when my wife and I would return home from being out the lights to the basement would be on with seemingly no explanation to be found.

One evening my four year old son and I were working downstairs cleaning up around the furnace area. I replaced the furnace filter and stated to my son that soon we would need to turn the furnace on as it was getting colder outside. The next day upon returning home I entered the house and was greeted by a blast of hot air. The whole house was blazing hot. I could easily tell that the furnace was running. I went to check the thermostat and found that it was set to 85 degrees. Normally when we set the thermostat we would set it between 70 to 72 degrees, but in this case we hadn’t even turned the furnace on for the winter. The day prior, neither the thermostat nor the furnace switch downstairs had been turned on. My wife had not turned it on and my young son was not tall enough to do so. I figured whatever was in our house must have thought we needed the heat on because of what I had said the night before.

Several months again had passed and things had been fairly calm, with an exception to the feelings of a male presence watching us at times. This of course we were getting use to at this point. One afternoon I had been working on finishing some laundry. Our washer and dryer were located in the basement area directly adjacent to the steps that led down from the kitchen. I had just been in the basement a few minutes earlier collecting a load of wash from the dryer. I was now upstairs folding the laundry when I heard the distinct sound of running water. I followed the sounds out to the kitchen and could tell that it was coming from the basement. I decided to investigate and descended down the steps. As I did I noticed steam billowing up from the wash basin. As I approached the basin I could tell that the hot water was gushing from the faucet quite steadily. I immediately turned it off, which took two to three full turns of the handle to do so and looked around the basement to see if anyone was down there. I was quite alone but I still had an odd feeling of something present with me in that basement. Only five minutes earlier I had walked right past this very spot and would have undoubtedly noticed something as obvious as this. Other things happened with my plumbing as well. In the kitchen and fairly regularly, the drainpipes below my sink would be found unscrewed and leaking. Sometimes I would tighten them up one day only to find them loose and unscrewed the next. 

During the evenings I usually like to sit down in front of the television like most Americans do and relax watching a good show. Many times over the course of the years I did just that. At times I would do this later in the evenings while I waited for my wife to return home from work or after putting my then baby son to bed for the evening. Nevertheless several times the spirit joined me as well. Usually, I would be sitting in a chair or lying on the couch and suddenly would feel a very strong presence directly behind me, most often from the dining room area. I don’t really know how to explain this part but the presence I felt was definitely an older male entity. Never in all the years I was there did I see an apparition this man. I was not scared of him; however, when this took place it became quite annoying. Usually, I would find myself talking to it like there was actually some other living person standing with me in the room. I would very strongly suggest it go elsewhere. More often than not he wouldn’t leave. I would either put up with the staring or go to bed. Sometimes after going to bed he would stand in the doorway of my bedroom. On one particular night I had came to bed for the same reasons as I already stated. My wife was home that night and already asleep. The presence followed me to the bedroom and stood in the doorway watching me while I lay in bed. It took me at least two hours to get to sleep. Once during the episode I actually heard the floor creak as if the weight of a person were standing there.

The next morning while eating breakfast with my wife she asked me if I had heard the creaking sound in the doorway the night before. I told her yes and asked her why she was asking. My wife explained to me that she too was unable to sleep the night before because she could feel our ghostly guest staring back at her from the doorway!

On another evening while laying in bed I again felt a very strong presence in my bedroom. As I lay awake I notice movement out of the corner of my eye. I remember closing my eyes thinking that maybe I was actually asleep and just half-dreaming. I again opened them and came to realize that I was not dreaming. Floating across the bedroom in the dim light was a small ball of light about the size of a half-dollar. It moved over my bed and toward our window. I tried waking my wife but she was sound asleep. It continued to move away from me and then all at once it slowly dissolved away through my window. It took me hours to fall asleep after that experience.

Over the six years that I had lived there some of the things I described happened several times over. My wife and I always felt that we were not alone. We always felt an odd feeling when we were in specific areas of the house. The living room, basement, dining room, and hallway between the bedrooms were the sensitive areas. The entire house had a real charged feeling to it but in a good way. The presence was there all the time, but it seemed most of the time to be a friendly comforting one.

In January 1999 my wife and I decided to buy a larger home in the Weston, Wisconsin area for my now growing family. Prior to moving out I had been speaking to my neighbor who had lived next door to our house since the early 1930’s. I explained to her for the first time some of the paranormal experiences that we had while living in our home. To my surprise my neighbor’s facial expression changed as if she herself had seen a ghost. My neighbor began to explain to me that one of the prior owners that had lived there for some forty years died of old age right in our living room back in 1987. Evidentially, no one found him until about three days later. Maybe this was one of the spirits in my home still attached to the house, not realizing that he had passed on. This would possibly explain the strong presence in the living room and dining room areas. My neighbor also told me that the original builder of the house died of a heart attack right in the hallway between our bedrooms back in the mid 1950’s. She knew this because her father and she had went over to the house when her neighbor had collapsed on the floor to try and help. She said the man literally died in her father’s arms right there in that hallway. Is this the spirit that stands in my doorway at night? Does he realize that he has departed this earth? Maybe he doesn’t wish to leave the house he built. I guess I may never know. One thing is for certain, I know that anyone that lives in the house, which I spent six years in, will most definitely have an extra set of watchful eyes keeping tabs on him or her. I hope they find the presence helpful and as interesting as I we did.

Any use or reproduction of this document is prohibited with out the sole consent of Shawn Blaschka.