by Carol Hoenig

Created on: March 08, 2007   Last Updated: April 30, 2007

What if you finally found the home you want to buy? It's a gorgeous Colonial house with a front porch looking out over a lake and it is priced fairly. You're giddy with excitement, already planning how you will decorate. Even before you go to closing, swatches have been gathered, paint samples collected and rooms mentally arranged.

You asked the realtor about the school district and the neighbors, and then you suddenly see an article about the one question buyers never think to ask their realtor: Has anyone died here?

We all have seen the movie, read the stories and are very aware of the Amityville Horror House. It was a fact that Ronald DeFeo murdered six members of his family in this house in 1974. A lot has happened to that Long Island house since, much of it inspired by active imaginations. A year after the murders, the Lutz family bought the house and 28 days later they escaped from it, claiming it was possessed. I'm guessing before this family bought their next house, they asked that very important question.

Buying a house can be a very stressful time; expenses involved being the main factor for the stress. A seller is instructed to spruce up the house and give it an appearance of roominess; but is there any way for the buyer to get a sense of the energy floating around the house, and I'm not referring to any source of electrical power. It does make me wonder about what is absorbed in the woodwork and floorboards and if there is a dimension that can be intrusive upon another.

I don't doubt that people see apparitions, even if I have not. However, if I found out that someone was killed in a house I was considering buying, I would want to do more than a couple of walk throughs to see if I could glean whether the energy was positive or negative. I then wonder if a death has to occur for this energy to exist. I mean, could a home absorb the dysfunctional vibes of a family? I actually address this very question in a small way in my yet-to-be published novel, Of Little Faith. The novel deals with three adult siblings having been raised by a mother who was a fundamentalist zealot and took the "spare-the-rod-spoil-the-child" approach to abusive standards. The house, which is being put on the market in this novel, holds the secrets of these siblings' pain.

But the article that I referred to at the beginning is a good reminder to buyers, as superstitious as it may sound. At some point, I would like to research some studies about houses and the positive and negative energies that exist in them and how it affects those living in said houses. I don't worry that any sort of green slime would ooze from the woodwork, but if there is a spirit world that doesn't want to move on, I'd like to know that they are happy where they are and would have no reason to disturb my peace of mind.

So what happened to that house in Amityville? Another family bought it from the Lutzes and are apparently enjoying their home without any unusual occurrences.

Maybe it's not just what we move in to, but what we bring with us, that stir forces from beyond.

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