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Are renters spooked by ghost house?

Landlord sues family over tales of haunting

Mysterious Voice Recorded At TR Home (4/25/12): What appears to be a child’s voice is recorded by a Press reporter in the Toms River home that a family claims is haunted. STAFF VIDEO BY THOMAS P. COSTELLO

Written by

Erik Larsen

IS THIS VOICE A GHOST?

Staff writer Erik Larsen interviewed the family at the house they say is haunted. When he transcribed the digital recorder, he discovered an unidentified child’s voice.

TOMS RIVER — No one among the living may ever want to reside in the house at the corner of Lowell and Terrace avenues again.

That is the fear of the landlord who has filed a new complaint in state Superior Court against a couple who fled the three-bedroom ranch in the middle of the night after living there for just one week, because they say the house is haunted.

Dr. Richard Lopez, the well-known orthodontist in Ocean County who owns the property, has filed a lawsuit against the family in the amount of $15,000. Among other issues, he contends they have stigmatized the property and diminished his ability to rent or sell the house in the future. Their story has received international media attention since it was first reported in the Asbury Park Press on April 13.

Josue Chinchilla and Michele Callan, who are engaged to be married, moved into the home March 1 with Callan’s teenage daughter and 6-year-old son.

After the family settled in, they said they would come home and find their clothes and towels ejected from closets and strewn over the floors. Doors would creak open and slam closed in unoccupied parts of the house.

At night, footsteps could be heard from the kitchen after everyone was tucked in, and unintelligible whispering seemed to fade in and out of thin air, according to the couple.

The most disturbing phenomenon, they claim, was the sound they heard through the vents to the basement — the muffled din of something being dragged through the cellar.

The family left the house March 10 and moved to a motel room in Point Pleasant Beach, where they have been living since, after Chinchilla claimed he felt an invisible hand on his arm, and then saw sheets slide off the bed on their own. Callan also said that at the same time, she saw a dark apparition in their bedroom.

The family has since filed a lawsuit against Lopez demanding that he return their $2,250 security deposit, claiming he had at first verbally agreed to release them from their one-year lease and refund the deposit after the couple told him about their experiences. But, on reflection, Lopez later had an office assistant call Callan to explain he had changed his mind.

The matter is on hold while the family and Lopez consider an offer to air their case on the television program “The People’s Court,” which has offered to cover all fees and judgments regardless of who wins if the parties agree to sign a contract to settle the matter on the show, Callan said.

David A. Semanchik, attorney for Lopez, said real estate agents acting on behalf of his client will be legally bound in the future to disclose to all prospective tenants that previous residents claimed the house is haunted.

“Plaintiffs have made claims concerning the property which are unfounded and which have led to media attention,” Lopez’s counter-claim reads. “Upon information and belief, the value of the property has decreased as a result of plaintiff’s action and statements.”

Callan said her family has been hurt by the attention, too. She said she understands there is a large part of the public who have either read about her family’s ordeal or have watched them on television programs such as ABC’s “Good Morning America” and have posted unflattering comments about them online.

“Why would we make up such a story?” Callan asked. “We left a three-bedroom house for a one-room motel one week after moving in. We spent $2,000 on new furniture from Value City, we paid $4,000 on a security deposit and rent after moving in. For what, one week?”

Once there was a beautiful young girl who lived in a small town just south of Farmersburg. Her parents had to go to town for a while, so they left their daughter home alone, but protected by her dog, which was a very large collie. The parents told the girl to lock all the windows and doors after they had left and she obeyed her parent’s wishes, but there was one window in the basement that would not close completely.

She tried as best as she could and she finally got the window shut, but it would not lock. She went back upstairs, but just to make sure that no one could get in, she put the dead-bolt lock on the basement door.

She had some dinner, watched a show on TV and decided to go to sleep for the night at about 12:00am. She crawled into her bed, snuggled up with the dog and fell asleep.

At one point, she suddenly woke up and when she turned to look at the clock it was 2:30am. She listened for a moment and when she didn’t hear anything, she snuggled down again wondering what had woken her. Just as she was about to fall back to sleep, she heard a noise. It was a dripping sound. She thought that maybe she hadn’t closed the faucet tight enough after she brushed her teeth, and now it was dripping into the drain of her sink. She decided to ignore the sound and to go back to sleep.

She didn’t know why, but she felt uneasy and a little nervous. She reached her hand over the edge of her bed, and let the dog lick her hand to feel safe knowing he would protect her. Again at about 3:45am she woke up hearing dripping. She was annoyed, but still felt sleepy and lazy and she went back to sleep anyway. Again she reached down and let the dog lick her hand. Then she fell back to sleep.

At 6:52am the girl decided that she had had enough…she got up just as her parents were pulling up to the house. "Good," she thought. "Now somebody can fix the sink…’cause I know I didn’t leave it running." She walked to the bathroom and there was the collie dog, skinned and hung up on the curtain rod. The noise she heard was its blood dripping into a puddle on the floor. The girl screamed and ran to her bedroom to get a weapon, in case someone was still in the house…..and there on the floor, next to her bed she saw a small note, written in blood, saying: HUMANS CAN LICK TOO MY BEAUTIFUL.

Kayla Hixson from Knoxville, TN
Christopher Rangel from San Jose, CA

Photo credit: http://digital-photography-school.com/forum/members/a_brewley.html

Posted via email from Urban Legends Online

When the wife went into labor the farmer called for the doctor. Unknown to the wife, the farmer and the doctor had already made arrangements to get ride of the baby. Their plan was to take the baby from the room immediately after the delivery and tell the wife that the baby died during birth.

When he left the farmhouse that night, the doctor took the baby to a nearby bridge and dropped him over the side. The wife never found out about what the farmer and the doctor had done.

It is said that on a cloudless night during a full moon you drive your car to “Baby Bridge” and park it in the center at the bridge’s highest point. Get our of your car and sprinkle baby powder in a circle around your it. Then get back in your car and turn the engine and the lights off for 10 minutes. You will hear the soft sound of a baby crying. When you get out of your car there will be baby footprints in the circle of powder.

Kayla from Statesboro, GA
Tori from North Augusta, South Carolina