Ghost Stories from HomeAdvisor Pros

It’s that spooky time of year again – and whether you believe in the supernatural, the spine-chilling or the spectral, everyone loves a good ghost story. This October, we heard from three HomeAdvisor pros who received the surprise of a lifetime when they were touched by the paranormal while on the job. Here are their hair-raising tales.

A Supernatural Slamming Door

When Shane Engle, owner of Engle Flooring in New London, Iowa, got a job replacing the floor of a funeral home, he never considered that the place could be home to a few restless spirits. But once the project started, he was forced to think twice.

His staff began reporting strange noises, which Engle thought was likely the settling of an older building. That is, until the door to the basement began closing on its own. “There were at least three occasions that I can think of where I opened the door and it shut on its own,” he said. “I chalked it up to pressure, but the more I thought about it that day, I wondered why it only happened when we weren’t around.”

Feeling chills, Engle put on a long-sleeved shirt. He and his associate decided to get to the bottom of things and opened the door once more before walking away to another area. Less than a minute later, the door slammed shut. “Slammed as in when your teenager is angry and storms off to their room and slams a door. That kind of slam,” he said.

Though he and his helper were sufficiently spooked, Engle today believes the door was acting as a result of air pressure. “To me, there’s always a logical explanation,” he said. “But I don’t blame people who believe in ghosts, because, you know, I’m not saying they don’t exist, either.”

A Haunted Homeowner

When a recent widow contacted one HomeAdvisor pro* to do a remodel, the pro was happy to help out. But once her crew got to work, they started experiencing some strange happenings around the house.

The first few incidents happened when one of the crewmembers was working alone in the house. Even though no one else was present, he swore someone was calling his name. Each time, the crewmember would get up, check the home, and return to his work puzzled. He never found the culprit and decided to forget about it.

The next encounter occurred when a few members of the team were painting in the bedroom and the hallway of the home. The painter standing in the hallway was surprised when a voice behind him forcefully said “paint good.” Though he whipped around to see which of his coworkers was teasing him, no one else had heard the voice. Again, the crew decided to let it go.

What couldn’t be ignored, however, happened on one snowy afternoon when a crewmember went to wash out a brush in the basement. To his surprise, he saw a man standing there in blue jeans and a blue shirt – as clear as day. The crewmember raced upstairs to tell the foreman on site, thinking a transient had wandered into the house. “I called the police and they completely searched the place,” said the pro. “One of the officers came out and looked in the snow – but there were no tracks leading in or out of any doors or windows.”

Following the police search, the crew gathered in the dining room of the home to try to puzzle out what they’d experienced. There, the crewmember who spotted the man in the basement pointed in shock at a family picture on the wall. “It was that guy right there,” he said, pointing to a gentleman in the picture. This man, they later discovered, was the late husband of the woman who owned the house.

Stumped, the police decided to report the incident as a haunting. “I have to write it the way I saw it,” one officer said. The crew is going back to the home for a kitchen remodel this winter.

A Spectral Ski Resort

When this HomeAdvisor pro* was asked to remodel a condo at a ski resort, it seemed like just another job. He’d worked at this location several times before without incident and didn’t expect anything to go awry. On the third day of demolition, however, things changed.

“As I was cleaning up the drywall debris, I swear I saw a small yellow orb out of the corner of my eye,” he said. “It disappeared, but it was there long enough for me to be sure of what I saw.” Though he brushed off the encounter at first, strange things continued to happen and at one point, he even heard odd noises coming from a completely empty bathroom stall.

His spooky suspicions were confirmed when he was working in the kitchen one evening putting in some of the cabinetry. “I was crouched down searching through my tools and I saw the unmistakable shadow of a person moving across the wall in front of me,” said the pro. “It was as if they were walking behind me in front of my shop light.” He spun around and found no one else in the room.

“Needless to say, I called it quits a little early that day,” he said. “I’m a believer after that job.”

*This pro asked to remain anonymous