In My Backyard-The house that Simeon built

With Halloween being just a few weeks away, I thought it would be fun to check out one of the haunted houses we can find right here in our backyard so check it out … if you dare! 

Doors opening or closing on their own steam may not be so unusual in older homes, but they typically will only swing one way—not both, meaning they won’t open and close on their own. 

Images of men, women and children appearing and disappearing. Footprints appearing on the floor even though there’s no one there to make them. Items disappearing and reappearing, sometimes weeks after they’ve gone missing. 

Disembodied voices. Knocking throughout the house. Severe temperature changes. Phantom music playing. Banging on the walls. Hammers pounding. People walking around on the second floor. Footsteps on the stairs even when no one is present. A rocking chairing rocking even though it’s empty. 

These are only a few of the phenomena that Rebecca Conrad has experienced in the historical home that has been in her family for four generations. 

Located in Crousetown, Lunenburg County, Rebecca readily accepts that strange and unusual phenomena happen in her home, and based on memories from her own childhood, they have been occurring there for many decades. 

“These are happenings that we can’t explain,” she says … or at least that can’t be explained according to the normal, acceptable standards. 

Rebecca’s family home was built in 1871 by her great, great grandfather Simeon Joudrey who relocated to Crousetown from West Northfield, another rural community on Nova Scotia’s South Shore, and it has remained in the family down through the generations. 

She remembers visiting the house as a child when her grandparents lived there and she also remembers that even back then, the house had a certain aura about it that screamed paranormal. She also resided there, on and off, during various stages of her life, including living with her elderly mother in recent years. She and her husband, Shaun O’Connell, became the current owners of the house after her mother passed away in August 2023.  

And even though she recalls having unusual experiences at the house through the years, she says she isn’t afraid or intimidated to live there because she has never felt threatened by whatever forces inhabit the house. She’ll admit there have been occasions, however, when she has been frightened, but never felt endangered as she believes that whatever spirits reside in the house, do not mean her or her family any harm. 

“Most of what happens to me happens when I’m alone, but I have learned to accept these things as just being part of the home’s unique character,” she says. “Sometimes it’s shocking when these things happen, but I’ve never felt that I have to leave. This is our home and whatever happens here is just part of the experience.” 

Besides, she reasons, if anything meant to do them harm, it likely would have happened well before now. In particular, Rebecca adds, she’s had a lot of experiences since her mother died. 

“I’ve heard someone say my name on several occasions even though I’ve been alone in the house and I’m sure it was my mother,” she says. “And once, after I painted the front door green, I just jokingly said ‘Mom, I hope you like the door,’ and all of sudden I heard a loud banging noise outside the house, but I couldn’t locate where it was coming from. I’m not sure she approved of the colour. She would never have painted the door.” 

Her mother, she says, was always talking about having unusual experiences in the house, like seeing the door between the dining room and kitchen opening and closing on its own and seeing people appear in front of her, especially a woman who just showed up in the living room area, remained there for a few minutes and then faded away. 

“We were never able to figure out who the woman was,” Rebecca says. She adds that seeing “people” in the house isn’t so unusual as she too has also seen several apparitions on various occasions throughout the years.  

“Once, when I was putting up wallpaper in an upstairs bedroom and I turned around, I was shocked to see a man standing there in the hallway just staring at me, only I was alone in the house at the time,” she says, pointing out she noticed the man was wearing a white shirt and black pants.  

“He was just standing there staring at me from just outside the doorway,” Rebecca recalls, admitting the man’s sudden appearance gave her quite the start. “Then he just vanished. I didn’t recognize him, so I have no idea who he was.” 

One of the most unusual experiences occurred when she and her young son, Scott Corkum, who was five at the time, were staying at the house with her mother.  

“I was sleeping but I woke up when my door suddenly popped open and there was a little boy standing there in the doorway at the foot of my bed,” Rebecca recalls. “I figured he was probably around four or five so thinking it was Scott, I told him to go back to bed. The little boy just looked at me and giggled. Then he turned and suddenly disappeared.” 

Believing it was her son, Rebecca quickly went to Scott’s room to check on her child only to discover the little boy sound asleep in his bed. 

The next morning, when Rebecca told her mother about what she had seen the night before, her mother replied, “Oh, that was probably Willie.” She also told Rebecca that other people had seen the little boy in the house over the years. 

As it turns out, Willie was Simeon’s son and, according to family lore, the young boy died in the house from measles. He was around five years old at the time of this death. But even then, Rebecca says, after seeing these apparitions, “I wasn’t afraid of anything. I’ve never been scared to stay in this house, even when by myself, which is quite often as I work from home.” 

The key, she explains, is that she believes these strange occurrences are real, so she just accepts them. She admits they can be startling when they happen, but she says she’s never felt that anything in the house has meant to do her harm. 

“A lot of it is just noises,” she says, adding that there’s no harm in a noise. “Is there?” 

For example, she’s heard knocking throughout the house but can never locate the source, and she’s heard people talking even when she’s alone. She and Shaun have heard her mother opening and closing the stove door as if she was putting wood on the fire like she often did because she was always cold, but this happened after her mother had died. And they have both heard music playing from one corner in the kitchen. 

“It sounded like what you would hear from an old radio or record player,” Shaun explains, adding that even though they’ve heard the music they have never been able to locate the source. 

Shaun admits that while he’s heard about Rebecca’s experiences in the house, he hasn’t had the same experiences. “I don’t usually hear or see these things, but I would like to,” he says, adding that on several occasions he has heard someone pounding away at the house with a hammer. 

As Shaun points out, he’s used a hammer many times over the years, so he knows what a hammer sounds like. However, even though he’s searched inside and outside of the house, he could never locate the source of these noises. 

Shaun concurs that his wife appears to be more in tuned to whatever is happening in their house. Maybe she’s more likely to receive the spirits as she is one of Simeon’s direct descendants and as such, she is more “connected” to the house. 

“Oh,” Rebecca says, “there’s just so many things that have happened in this house over the years. On several occasions while I was talking to Scott on the phone, I could hear ‘someone’ else talking over he and I. Whoever it was, they were talking really slow, but the thing was, Scott couldn’t hear the voice and I couldn’t make out what they were saying. And another time, about a week later, during a second phone conversation, I heard what sounded like a woman screech at me. I couldn’t understand what she said but she sounded angry, and just like the other time, Scott couldn’t hear anything.” 

Those incidents, she says, are a little unsettling as was the night when she was sleeping in the upstairs bedroom and suddenly, she heard an extremely loud banging noise coming from the wall that separated her room from a second bedroom. 

“The banging was so loud that I could see the wall shaking as if it was vibrating,” Rebecca says. The incident was a little unsettling for her as was the night years later when she woke up from a deep sleep to hear the sounds of “someone” walking around in the upstairs hallway only she says her husband was asleep beside her and there was no one else in the house—at least no one that they knew of. 

“That was a little unnerving,” she says, while admitting that she was so intimidated by the sounds of the footsteps that she remained in bed even though she really had to use the bathroom, which was located downstairs next to the kitchen. “But I’ll admit that no matter how badly I had to use the bathroom, I didn’t want to open the bedroom door because I was afraid of what I might see in the hallway.” 

The footsteps eventually stopped but she never did find out who was responsible for making them. And Rebecca isn’t the only person who hears footsteps in the house. When her son, Scott, was five, they lived at the house with her mom for a while. 

“When December rolled around, Scott was, of course, excited for Santa’s arrival on Christmas eve. Christmas morning, he excitedly told us how he woke up in the middle of the night, long after everyone had gone to bed, to the sound of heavy footsteps downstairs. Assuming Santa was here, he listened to it for a bit but then went back to sleep so Santa wouldn’t know he was awake.” 

Once Scott got older and understood the whole “Santa thing,” she says he came to the realization that while he definitely heard heavy footsteps that night, they did not belong to Mr. Claus. No one else in the house had been awake and she says her son still talks about that incident to this day on the holidays.  

“But that’s pretty normal for the second floor,” she submits. An antique rocking chair that is believed to be from Simeon’s era is stashed in one of the upstairs rooms for safe keeping but on more than one occasion, they’ve heard someone rocking in the chair, even though there’s never anyone in it. 

Perhaps it’s because of the chair’s age, but both Rebecca and Shaun admit they find the rocking chair incident to be a little unnerving.  

But it’s not only the second floor where strange phenomena occur. On many occasions they’ve heard someone moving things around in the dining room, yet when they’ve gone to investigate the commotion, they found everything was in its place. 

They’ve also heard at least two people running up and down the stairs and their cat, Winston, often becomes agitated when he’s in the downstairs rooms as if he sees or hears “something.” 

The staircase, Rebecca adds, seems to be the centre of activity, explaining that when her son’s girlfriend lived at the house for a while, some years ago, she also heard someone walk up the stairs when she was alone.  

“And in the summer of 2023, while I was here working one day, I heard someone come down the stairs only, when I checked, I couldn’t see anyone. The staircase is very active,” she adds, pointing to an experience she had on Halloween, October 31, 2024. 

“My mom and I used to laugh that even though the house was haunted, nothing paranormal or unexplained ever happened on Halloween,” she says. “In fact, I was just mentioning this to Shaun yesterday—how mom and I used to talk about that. Well, I guess we won’t be able to say that anymore because of what happened around 8:30 tonight while I was upstairs in our bedroom tidying up.” 

She says the house was very quiet as Shaun was in the bathroom located just off the kitchen.  

“While I was in the bedroom, I distinctly and clearly heard someone walking up the stairs. I knew right away it wasn’t Shaun because it just didn’t sound like the way he walks. And it seemed like someone smaller as the footsteps were lighter than his. The only other answer could have been Winston, the cat, but he tiptoes very lightly; you can barely hear him,” she says. 

“These were actual, clear-as-a-bell footsteps that seemed to come up about eight or nine of the stairs,” Rebecca recalls. “I called out asking Shaun if it was him … no answer. I peeked out around my bedroom door. No one was there and I couldn’t see anyone or anything in the hall or on the stairs.” 

When Rebecca went downstairs, she found that Shaun was still in the bathroom, and he assured her that he had not been upstairs.  

Even with all this paranormal activity, there are two incidents that really confirm for Rebecca that the property is haunted. 

First, was the time when Scott and his girlfriend volunteered to take up the old carpet that was covering the living room wood floor. Rebecca and Shaun are slowly refurbishing the heritage house but it’s important to them that they maintain its original character and they like the floorboards because of their historical providence. 

“After Scott and his girlfriend removed the carpet and cleaned up, they went to bed,” Rebecca explains, pointing out that what they discovered the next morning left them shocked and surprised. 

“When they went back down into the living room, they found a series of footprints going across the floor and ending at a wall that was once the location of a doorway that had been closed up many years before,” she says. “Now, those footprints were not there the night before and they have no idea how they got on the floor.” 

The unusual part about the footprints was the fact they could not be removed. The footprints remained on the floor for a couple of days and then they eventually faded away, but Rebecca says they never did discover how they got there or who made them. 

“But considering Scott and his girlfriend were alone in the house that night as Shaun and I were away, there could only be one other source,” she points out. 

Another incident that gives Rebecca serious pause is the presence of a phantom vehicle that arrives in their yard. 

“My mother used to tell me that she often saw the headlights from a vehicle pulling up to the house and she would also hear the car doors slam close and hear people talking as they got out of the car,” Rebecca says, noting that when her mother checked to see who was coming to visit, there was no one there—and there was no car. 

“This happened on more than one occasion, and I’ve also had this experience,” she says, adding that other people have had a similar experience at the house. “So much so, that some of our relatives will no longer come and stay overnight at our house. They will visit through the day but will not stay after dark.” 

Thinking back over all the experiences she has had in the house throughout the years, Rebecca says there is one Christmas ghost story that stands out for her. 

“My dad died here in the house when I was 11 years old from a heart attack,” she says. “I believe it was the following year my mom made my brother and me go to the Christmas church service just up the hill from here. It was a memorial service commemorating community members who had died over the last bunch of years.” 

She says during the service her mom lit a candle in memory of her father. “That night, after we had all gone to bed, she was in her bedroom which was off the dining room, and not asleep yet when she saw the kitchen light come on.” 

At first, she says her mother thought she or her brother had gotten up, but they hadn’t. “She called out, thinking it was us. No answer. After a few minutes the light went out. A few minutes later, it came on again. This time it didn’t go out. She got up and shut it off eventually.” 

The next day Rebecca says her mother got her brother to check out the switch, thinking something was wrong with it.  

“He was a pretty good handyman and he looked it all over but could find nothing wrong,” she says. “My mom was convinced it was my dad making contact after she lit the candle in his memory.” 

But the thing is, Rebecca says, “The kitchen light never came on by itself ever again after that.” 

So, the question remains, who or what is responsible for these strange occurrences at the house that Simeon built? 

Indeed, these are great questions—questions with no answers.