For years my husband and I have saved so that we could leave the renters hell that is our life and move into a home of our own. We hunted for so long before our realtor finally showed us this beautiful two story town house that was going for a lot less than it was worth. 12 Clyde Avenue, it was stunning in its old world charm. The windows had lace wood trims and the doorways were high arches- it was something straight out of my great grandmother’s photo album.

My guess was that the owners didn’t see the potential of it and I was just fine with that. We asked why something so beautiful, that was going so cheap, would still be on the market and were told that they had had a few problems with previous owners hearing noises in the first few nights that were unsettling. I was shocked that she would admit something like this so willingly, but my husband laughed and said that anyone who was willing to be frightened out of such a wonderful place by some creaky old floorboards didn’t deserve it anyway. We knew that we had fallen in love with the place and made an offer, the hardest part was waiting for the response. I couldn’t believe our luck when we got the phone call saying the house was ours, it seemed our lives were finally coming together.

During the cool off period we packed up our current home and organised the movers and all the other little things that went along with buying a new home. The night before we officially picked up our keys, we went to a celebratory dinner with our families and friends and probably drank more wine that we should have, but it was such a momentous occasion. We carried on into the early hours of the morning, until we had no choice but to call it a night so we could be up for the movers.

You never realise just how much useless junk you accumulate over the years. Knick knacks from holidays, old Christmas cards from your childhood and toys that you thought you had donated to good will many years earlier. My husband and I spent many hours of the day arguing over petty things and generally just getting frustrated with each other. I put it down to too much wine and not enough sleep. But it didn’t get better by the evening and I was shocked when I spent the first night in our new home, in our new bedroom, alone.

I left him with a blanket and pillow to sleep on the couch that had been the final straw. I didn’t see why it had been such a problem, I had conceded in the end, to just put it where ever he wanted it. Apparently that hadn’t been good enough and he had informed me that the ‘blasted’ thing would be his bed for the night. I tried hard to settle and get comfortable, the day itself- even without the bickering, had been long and exhausting.

My eyes had been closed for what felt like minutes when the noise awoke me, I tried to focus on the florescent green numbers of the alarm clock. It read “3:45”which meant I had been sleeping for a few hours. I strained my ears to listen for the noise that awoke me and heard nothing; I rose from the bed and made my way to the hallway, the shuffling sounded again from downstairs and I wondered if it was just my husband finally making his way to bed- or getting a glass of water. But he didn’t respond to my calls. Surely he couldn’t still be upset over a silly couch?

Slowly I descended the stairs and came closer to the shuffling, when I turned the corner into what would be our entertainment room, all noise ceased. I could see the outline of my husband’s figure under the blanket and watched as it slowly rose and fell with his breathing. I asked if he was awake and got no response, putting it down to new house noises, I retreated back to bed and settled in once more and prayed for sleep to find me swiftly.

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The morning sun hit me like fire and I had no choice but to meet the day in a hazy fog, I stumbled into my new bathroom and started the shower. It wasn’t until the soap hit my leg that I felt the burning sensation increase and I realised it hadn’t been the sun bothering me, but my own leg, I looked down and found three thin scratches along the right side of my right leg and winced when the soap ran over them. I finished my shower quickly and after towelling myself dry I sat on the edge of the tub to further inspect the wounds. They weren’t very deep at all but were extremely red as if they were infected and I tried to remember when I might have done it. Explaining it away as nothing more than a moving in mishap, I went to find my husband and make breakfast.

When I entered the downstairs area I was taken aback immediately, the entertainment room had been unpacked and organised. The area rug and couch in place, the television unit set up- with TV and all, even the pictures had been hung. I wandered through to the kitchen and found that the plates, cups and kettle had been unpacked and that there was a cup and saucer in the sink. A note on the bench informed me that my husband had left to get some groceries and would return shortly. I had hoped that by this time he had gotten over the couch fiasco and we could start making our home ours. Depressed and upset I set about making myself a cup of tea and unpacking the rest of the kitchen.

It was almost dinner time before he had returned home with the groceries and he stank of stale beer and cigarettes. When I asked him where he had been he had growled at me to mind my own business and he was where ever he wanted to be. Throwing the groceries on the floor, he stormed out of the room and a moment later I heard the TV fire up. I was beginning to think that there was more to this than just a couch. I took a moment to put the bags away and make a pot of tea, when I took them into my husband I found I shouldn’t have bothered. There on the couch, beneath the thin blanket, he lay with his back to the room and sound asleep.

I was left feeling empty and alone. I rang my younger sister and spoke quietly to her and she seemed genuinely shocked at his behaviour and instructed me to wait a few days and see if his attitude improved. I hung up from her and slowly began to clean up the small mess in the kitchen. Planning on turning in early for the evening; I would have too, if I hadn’t of heard him call me from the yard outside our back door. Drying my hands on the dish towel, I stuck my head in the entertainment room and sure enough there he was, snoring away on the lounge. I walked back to the kitchen and listened. I only had to wait a few moments before I heard him call my name again from the back of our yard. I made no move to get closer to it, but made no move to leave, I only listened as it became more insistent and louder. It called to me to come to it and all I could bring myself to do was slam the backdoor closed and rush to my husband.

I shook him awake violently and after the initial shock of my panic, he glared at me in anger, he asked why I had woken him up over something so childish and told me I must have been hearing things. I apologised a thousand times for whatever it was I had done and begged him to come and sleep in our bed. He glared at me for a long time before picking up the blanket and pillow and marching up the stairs, all the time muttering about stupidity and how annoyed he was, but I didn’t care- I just didn’t want to be alone.

We lay next to each other in tangible silence before finally he spoke. He told me that he was just scared about owning a home and getting into debt and letting down the family. We talked out our issues for a while and I successfully managed to forget about the earlier incident with the voice in the yard. He held me in his arms, I finally felt safe and at ease, it didn’t take us long to fall asleep that night.

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The next few weeks went by in a blur as we finished unpacking and went back to our jobs. There were no strange noises waking me up and no voices calling to me, so I simply brushed it off as stress from the move and the argument.

I felt we had made tremendous progress with unpacking, in reality the only things that were left to do were our room and setting up the spare room down the hall as the home office for us both. I had been hanging clothes in the closet one afternoon when I heard scratching in the hall. I put down the clothes hangers and went to quietly track down the source; the scratching was coming from the spare room, from almost immediately from behind the door. I tried the handle and found it wouldn’t budge, so I applied some of my weight, and pushed as hard as I could. Finally I gave up and just listened, the scratching continued in long, deep strokes and was coupled with a heavy breathing. I backed away and ran downstairs, I called my sister and explained to her what I had heard and felt silly when she told me that a possum or raccoon must have gotten in through the window and to wait until the man of the house returned home so that he could fix the door and could get it out.

I hung up and returned upstairs feeling foolish for thinking something strange was going on, but before I entered the bedroom again- choosing to ignore the breathing and the scratching- I noticed marks on the floor leading to under the spare bedroom door. The hall runner covered most of them and I had to lift it up to see the severity of the scratches. When I brought it up at dinner that night, my husband shrugged and said that we must have missed them on the run through and that he would look into the spare room on the weekend.

That room became a sore point with me, I was constantly hearing the scratching and the breathing, I had even caught glimpses of something entering the door regardless of the door being jammed shut, and on a few occasions I had heard someone calling to me. Each time I tried to explain it to someone, they laughed it off as either being too tired, not used to the new house noises or mishearing things and each time I chose to believe the excuses, too frightened to dare think it could be anything else.

Eventually we finished unpacking and the noises settled down, the spare room now converted into a home office, I noticed when we had been moving our desks in that there had been light scratch marks on the back of the door and we had scuffed the hall floor. I explained that that must be how the original scratch marks had come to be and my mind began to ease. I worked long hours in the room and only a few instances when it felt like something had brushed passed me or I had heard breathing in my ear.

My husband had a late meeting at his work one night and it meant I would be home alone until close to midnight, so I ordered in Chinese and settled in for a night with the TV. The dinner had been delicious and I found myself dozing after eating my fill, I don’t know how long I had been out for before I was woken by the front door closing and the shuffling of feet up the stairs, my guess was that he had seen me sleeping and hadn’t wanted to wake me. I listened to him shuffling around in our room as I cleaned up my take away containers and turned the television off. I deposited the rubbish in the rubbish can and turned the lights off. I had been roughly half way up the stairs when the lights from my husband’s car caught my eye, freezing me in place, the moment he walked through the door he knew something was wrong.

I told him what I had heard and he instructed me to wait downstairs while he investigated. I did so, nervously chewing my fingernails as I once more listened to the shuffle of feet. He reappeared at the top of the stairs and told me that he had found nothing and thought that maybe I had been dreaming or that it had been the wind. I was beginning to feel uneasy about the strange occurrences in the house. I locked the front door and double checked the back door before climbing the stairs to join him. I dressed for bed and brushed my teeth, all whilst making idle chit chat with him about his meeting and our day.

We had gotten into bed and been about to turn the bedside lamps off when I saw a figure pass by the bedroom door, this was the final straw for me and I pointed this out to him, telling him that all the little things happening were adding up to a much larger and uglier picture. I could tell he was frustrated and tired, but I was frightened and uneasy, so he got out of bed and walked to the hallway. The light flicked on and I listened as he checked the spare bedroom, the house was filled with a loud silence as I held my breath, waiting for him to return.

After what felt like an eternity he called down to hallway to tell me he found nothing, that I should come see so I felt better, I swung my legs out over the bed and slipped my slippers on. I padded down the hallway and into the spare room.

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The sun was an uncomfortable warm and the crowd was growing more and more restless as they waited for the proceedings to begin. A slight, blonde woman made her way to the front of the group and called for attention. She thanked them all for showing up despite it turning out to be a lot warmer than everyone had predicted, she gave a brief run-down of the rules and motioned for people to get ready before announcing that the auction of ’12 Clyde Avenue’ would begin.