Even on a sunny day, there’s something a little dark about Eaglemont. Hang out in its parks, walk the tree-lined streets and you might feel like you’re being watched. Perhaps it’s the houses themselves; thanks to Eaglemont’s hilly terrain, many of the mansions, both old and cutting-edge new, sit high on one side of a road, literally looking down at those on the other.

The suburb, once known as Mount Eagle, should be a beacon of success and grandeur. Its post-settlement history has all the big names: architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin designed a subdivision in the Mount Eagle Estate in 1915, introducing private parklands. Artists Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton and Frederick McCubbin lived in a shack here, painting their hearts out.

It has Robin Boyd designed houses. Actress Cate Blanchett grew up here, Paul Bangay has influences the odd garden, and cyclists take on the challenging hills with gusto.

Property wise, it’s tightly-held, and valuable. Last July, Domain watched an unliveable house on 724 square meters in Odenwald Road sell at auction for $1.85 million — $500,000 over reserve. In February this year a hilltop mansion in Thomas Court passed in for $4.4 million, selling for more later. Yet it’s not all rose gardens and ghost gums.

Samantha Jones (who did not want her real name published) is an HR consultant and moved into Eaglemont with her IT-based husband and their two young children after applying unsuccessfully for rentals in popular Balwyn.

“We accepted it and moved in. Everyone knows if you live in Eaglemont you’re wealthy, but when you come here, it’s weird,” she says.

“At nighttime things would happen. Our car was keyed. One night the rose bushes along the front of our house were completely and utterly sliced. Our bedroom was right on the street, but we didn’t hear anything. There were a lot of families separating around us and we certainly felt that pull. For the first time ever my husband made excuses to stay at work and not come home!

“I did the washing and the back door shut and I didn’t have the key. I was locked out, with my baby inside. Wind? Whatever. Later I had a pot on the stove, and the tea towel caught on fire. This was in the first couple of weeks of being there.”

She eventually shared what was going on. “A friend came over and asked me how it was going, and I said: ‘If I didn’t know any better I’d think someone was trying to screw with me!'” Her friend, Sharna Bird, was ‘intuitive’ and, sensing ghosts, did a bit of “clearing” before she left.

Jones attempted to brighten up the house. “I bought pictures and mirrors for the walls to make it feel more homey, went to the shops and came back and they were all face down on the ground.” So Jones called back her friend, and her friend’s teacher Barbara Rose.

Bird and Rose worked together to clear the house to the boundary. “I don’t know the history,” says Bird, “but obviously there are battlegrounds and burial grounds there.” It’s not just the house – which was recently demolished. “It definitely seems like the area,” says Bird. “Barbara was standing out the front and had something from another house come over and tell her to bugger off!” Rose has since written about her experience with the house in her book Close Encounters Of The Psychic Kind.

Ask paranormal experts if a whole suburb can be haunted and you’ll get the same response: “The land is going to attract the people with the same energy of it.” So, if you’re drawn to an area that is moody/haunted to begin with, then it’s probably reflecting you.

Melbourne Haunted Ghost Tour operator and Haunted Bookshop owner Drew Sinton puts it succinctly. He says a lot of people live in the past, and move into houses and suburbs that reflect that.

“All these people in the new apartments in Melbourne, they’re playing tennis and going out. Weird things don’t happen to them!” he says. “The people who are living in haunted houses come home from work and the first things they look for is a ghost. They should go out to see a movie!”

Five signs your house is haunted:

You might feel like something’s following you around;

You might smell something odd, for example cigar smoke;

Some might hear sounds, children singing, calling your name, telling you to get out;

If there’s a ghost in your house it’ll be cold where the ghost is;

There might be a physical indentation on a couch or on a bed, or you might feel a touch or a push.

What do you do about it?