Haunted Houses in Humboldt

Anybody know of any supposedly haunted houses in Humboldt? It would be interesting to see if these guys, the North Coast Ghost Hunters, have a list of houses they think are haunted. When you think about it, that might make a good book, especially if the history of the house that led to the haunting was included.

I know of one house some said was haunted, and one that might of been:

The first one was the old Scarpellino house on K street, in Eureka. Heading south, just past Hodgson, it was the third or fourth on the right. I think the number was like 3325, but I could be wrong. If anyone's interested, let me know. It wouldn't take much for me to go by and get the number.

Supposedly, the upstairs was haunted there. A number of the Scarpellino's friends used to stay up on the top floor. I believe the upstairs was actually the bedroom of Barry Scarpellino himself.

According to "legend", one of them woke up one night to see someone, or some apparition, looking down at one of the other guys while he was sleeping. I don't remember if the apparition disappeared, or what. Just telling you what I remember.

I believe there were also stories of someone being seen in the upstairs window by people on the street, except no one was upstairs at the time.

I know, not much to go on. I never saw anything weird up there myself. But I did go up there at least a couple times back in those days and got a weird feeling from that room. Don't know if I was just creeped out by the stories or maybe something really was present there.

The second one is the house I live in now. I don't know that we've felt any presence in some time, but the first few years after we moved in we did.

I'd sometimes be in the house and feel like someone was in the room with me. Sometimes I'd feel a fairly strong presence and maybe even think I saw an image of something out of the corner of my eye.

I finally mentioned it to the wifey and she said she'd also felt a presence on occasion. In fact, she told me one time, while she was upstairs, she felt someone was in the room and felt something tugging at the back of her shirt. NOW THAT'S CREEPY!

Seems to me, though, I haven't sensed anything in the house for at least ten years. The wife hasn't mentioned anything along that line for some time, either. Maybe we were just creeped out, being relative newcomers to this house, or maybe whatever it was finally left. I don't know.

Sure, I hear strange noises every now and then, but those are nearly always rats, or some other critter, but I don't know that we can attribute those early feelings of a presence to just rats. After all, if rats were tugging on the back of your shirt, wouldn't you know the rats were the ones doing it?

Anyone else know of any possible haunted houses?

The Fredster Makes the Tri City Weekly

The Tri City Weekly's cover story this week was on haunted houses in the county. The writer contacted me for some info after reading a post I made here (March 15, 2008) a few years ago on the same subject.

Here's the part he put together from our interview:

'Fred Mangles has lived in several Eureka locations since 1973, some of which are haunted.

”The house I (currently) live in on K Street was haunted,” Mangles said. “I would go upstairs and feel this weird cold draft, it felt strange and I heard noises. My wife, Connie, would sometimes feel like there was a little girl behind her tugging at her shirt. But then we got a cat and it went away. I think it is because the ghost got someone to play with.”

He said he lived in a house on the corner of Trinity and E streets that spooked him. He would wake up with odd sensations. He had heard stories of people dying in the house, but never verified them. He said that before he moved into that house, a fire charred the upstairs."

Never mind the misspelled last name. Everybody does that.

I'm not sure where he got some of that. I don't recall saying most of what he wrote and he got the houses in reverse. I live at Trinity and E Streets now, not K Street, and both the wife and I used to have weird feelings upstairs. I never felt a cold draft or heard noises.

The house on K Street was when I was staying with the Scarpellinos back around '74ish. The upstairs was rumored to be haunted with reports of people seeing someone in the upstairs window when nobody was there and one guy reporting seeing an image standing over someone else while he was asleep.

That was it. If you want to read the whole story, here it is: Haunted Humboldt County's lore includes spooky stories, macabre myths.

Haunted Campgrounds of NorCal

Humboldt Redwoods State Park at Weott makes the list of the top ten haunted campgrounds of Northern California. Hat tip to local LP busy body, Tammy Newcomb, for the link.

Things To Do In Humboldt County

I was making my occasional stop- in at the Humboldt County Lines online magazine and noticed our very own Andrew Bird has an article featured. Top Ten Things to Do in Humboldt County, lists some popular activities for Humboldt residents.

I guess there's other things to do, as well. I kind of sorry he didn't include sitting at home in front of the computer, rain or shine, playing Aces High, like I always do. Then again, I know of only two other people in the county that play the game- and I'm sure they don't play as much as I do- so I guess that shouldn't be in the top ten.

And, of course, he didn't mention anything about doing drugs, but we don't need to go there.

******

Taking another look at HCL, I see Andrew actually has two of his articles featured. The second one is on preparing for winter, something I suppose most of us do late, if at all.

Some comments on a couple of his suggestions:

Bringing in patio furniture- Good idea. I'm not sure spraying them with WD40 is really worthwhile as you'd have to keep reapplying it as it wears off. I would think paint would be a better idea for metal, assuming it doesn't ruin the appearance of the item in question.

Also, something that most people don't do, myself included, is to bring garden hoses inside. The longer they're outside the quicker they degrade.

Vehicle maintenance- I remember the first year I moved up here. Winter came, and pretty much everyone who lived in the apartments I lived at had their cars break down. We ended up with a mass hitchhiking effort to College of the Redwoods until the situation was resolved.

Not sure if it was the weather, or what, but it was uncanny how everyone's cars seemed to break down within a week of each other.

I don't really worry much about winterizing my vehicles anymore, not since I started using those ubiquitous oil change places we have. I stop in to the Chevron Oil Stop place at least twice a year and they pretty much check everything and take care of any deficiencies.

Andrew also suggests checking and possibly replacing windshield wipers. Good idea, as well, but I'm still haunted by the first time I replaced my wipers.

I think it was four years ago. We were going to make our first trip to UCSF Medical Center and it was supposed to rain. I took my truck in to Super Lube and had the guy replace my windshield wipers along with the rest of the stuff they do.

Funny thing was, the wipers I had on the truck worked just fine. I just figured they'd been on the truck for a couple years and probably needed replacing so went ahead and got new ones.

The new ones worked fine for a little while and then they started leaving streaks on the windshield. Finally, I went to good ol' Finnegan and Nason Auto Parts in Friendly Henderson Center, Eureka, and told the guy my problem.

He actually came out to my car and put the new wipers on himself and pointed out what was wrong with the ones I'd bought not all that long before. It was the way they were manufactured and they'd developed cracks so they didn't wipe the windshields fully clean anymore.

Great, says me. Problem solved with these new wipers.

Nope. The ones he sold me started streaking and I could see no reason for it. A year or so later I bought yet another pair from somewhere and they streaked from the get- go. They're streaking my windshield to this day and I'm afraid I'll be wasting money if I buy another pair of wipers that just end up doing the same thing.

Goes to show the truth to that old saying: If it ain't broke, don't try and fix it.