by Nene Adams

Created on: August 19, 2008   Last Updated: August 20, 2008

THE UNINVITED VISITOR

Moving from Florida across the Atlantic Ocean to the Netherlands was already a shock to the system. Getting used to a different culture, a different language, different food and different attitudes in the people I met wasn't easy. But acquiring a ghost along with a new way of life was a bit much to take.

My partner (who is Dutch and an artist/illustrator) and I stayed in her hometown of Sneek (pronounced like snake, not sneak) in the northern province of Friesland. As an artist and a writer trying to make a life together, we couldn't really afford a nice place - and there was a housing shortage anyway - so we stayed above her atelier in the center of town. It was a really tiny place, basically two small rooms and a bathroom for our living space, with her work area and gallery in the room on the ground floor. The walls were paper thin, the drafts terrible in winter, but we didn't mind.

One day, I started to detect a strange smell in the living room/kitchen area. The "spoiled milk" odor was quite distinct and very strong. First, I suspected there was something wrong with the drain in the kitchen sink. An investigation proved there was nothing; the smell was not originating from the sink. Since our building backed onto a narrow alley where the air circulation was poor, I thought it might be something nasty thrown there by a passer-by, and decided the smell would likely dissipate on its own. It did vanish after about ten minutes, so I thought nothing else of it... until a couple of weeks later, when I smelled it again.

This time, the smell came when my partner and I were upstairs in bed. Spoiled milk, rank and sour, and the odor hovered between us. We both got up and went around the room, the bathroom next door, even the stairs, but the smell wasn't there. It was only by the bed. The window was open, but the breeze did nothing to chase away the awful stink. Like before, it went away after a few minutes. My partner and I began to suspect we were not alone in the house. However, not wanting to be the first to jump on the "haunted house" bandwagon, we decided to wait and see if it happened again.

The spoiled milk smell came back, and continued to pay us visits from time to time. It wasn't really alarming, just inconvenient. My partner and I began to joke about "Old Stinky" coming to see us. We both got the impression that this was, indeed, a visiting spirit. My intuitive partner came to believe it was the spirit of an old man who used to live on the

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