The Schwartz family's East Toledo house is ready for Halloween. Among its many decorations is a sign above the front door: "Enter if you dare."
Like others who've transformed this time of year into a $5 billion-plus annual seasonal bonanza, Ron and Cyndy Schwartz and three daughters still living at home go all out - but that sign may be more fair warning than decoration.
During the 17 years the family has lived in this story-and-a-half house (longer for Cyndy, whose childhood home this is), they've shared the place with "it," or "him," or "that."
A presence, they call it. A ghost, if you will.
This Kelsey Avenue house, its owners say, has had inexplicable noises and freaky happenings practically every day they've lived there. All four daughters, ages 21 to 14, have had friends too wary to spend the night or, sometimes, even set foot inside.
For the Schwartzes, it was like a family parlor game the other afternoon, recalling the ways "it" has made itself known.
"We were all here in the front room once," said Ron Schwartz, "watching a movie, and all of a sudden the water in [the kitchen] was running full force."
"Oh, and the lights!" chimed in 14-year-old Haley, who said they often find lights burning where they're sure the switch was turned off.
There was also the mysterious red liquid that seeped through the basement walls as Mr. Schwartz tried to paint. Plus the time Brittany's electric flat-iron turned itself on, despite not being plugged in. And then there's Alex, the aging Labrador retriever who can suddenly become restless and pant frantically for no reason.
But the most consistent tale was of the footsteps the family hears almost daily, as if someone is walking across the upstairs floorboards - even when there's only one person in the house.
The 18-year-old twins, Brittany and Brandy, say they won't sleep without closing the closet doors in their upstairs bedroom. Their mother, meanwhile, is the opposite.
"Oh, I have to keep mine open!" Cyndy said, prompting Haley to blurt, "You're crazy!"
For Cyndy, who moved here with her parents at age 4, the house's oddities are a lifelong mystery. Like her daughters, she also had friends who wouldn't enter.
Retired Toledo police detective Bob Poiry was called to this house in the mid-1960s to stand by as its previous occupants moved out hastily. They were following the advice of a priest who investigated and blamed the relentless crazy incidents on poltergeists, warning the couple their place could burn down.
Helping the family with its final sweep, the then-young officer checked a back upstairs bedroom. Hearing a noise in the closet, he opened the door and was bowled over by an explosive flame that filled the house with smoke.
Yesterday, Bob told me again how the state fire marshal never could find a cause. Some four decades later, the man who ended his career solving homicides remains baffled by the inexplicable fire and convinced something supernatural exists at the Kelsey Avenue house.
"You can ask any of the old-timers around here," Cyndy said, "they all know about this house."
oh hey, you're home early..
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