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A customer in Kallista sent this story through and we found it quite amusing. Enjoy.

TAP … TAP … TAP …

2.38 a.m. Every night this week.

At first I didn’t know why I was waking at around the same time every night. It was a solid old house which for all its age, tended not to be creaky by nature. A well seasoned four by two hardwood timber frame with a brick veneer and foundations that needed to be hewn from the rock itself. This house had never settled.

An integrated ducted heating system was quite an avant garde architectural approach in the Hills circa 1950, when the majority of homes were still warmed by traditional, wood burning fireplaces. It’s not as though the area is short on available fuel.

The sounds seemed to be emanating from the walls, somehow. There were the usual ghost stories you heard in pubs: ”oh … you live in that house … ummm, okay … good luck with that …”

Had something happened in my room, specifically?

It wasn’t until one night, frankly fed up with sleep deprivation that I got up and decided to make a cheese toasty when I heard it again in the kitchen.

TAP … TAP … TAP …

It was like it was coming from the walls themselves – the location was not specific. I confirmed this again in the bathroom. It seemed that the whole house was trying to communicate to me, almost as if the central heating ducts were transmitting those raps and the entire building was a speaker box. Not loud as such, but resonant.

I used to be opened-minded in regard to supernatural events. That open-mindedness shifted somewhat one particular night when staying over at a friends house with several other rather good friends. The brass knocker on the bathroom door knocked three times and the door swung shut. We all saw it. We all heard it. The shadow who emerged from the room and knocked my companion over only sealed the deal … ghosts were and are real.

When one particular night, the three taps were followed by a slamming laundry door, I was convinced that I had picked up my own personal follower.

I did some more research. Available historical records did not support the conviction popular within my Local that I was in fact living in the Murder House. Sure, the solid timber entrance doors had cast iron pad bolts on the outside, but that’s another story for another time.

The ducts. Resonance. Every room.

The central heating ducts …that’s where the tapping was coming from. The next day, armed with some serious LED lighting, I climbed into the roof space. For fifty-something year old ducting, it all looked pretty solid. Damn, the whole roof area was an engineering work of art. Well sealed, minimal evidence of rodent infestation  The ducting was tubular in design and junctions were secured by oversized, cylindrical engine-clamp analogous fixtures that you would find on an auto radiator hose, though ten times the size. Unlike the modern equivalents, however, these clamps were made of mild steel as opposed to stainless. And mild steel rusts.

Ten or perhaps twenty years prior to my residency – who knows? – the bathroom had been upgraded with a three-in-one exhaust fan, including halogen heat globes times four and a standard light globe. It was venting directly onto a ducted heating clamped junction. The mild steel band had rusted out, due to years of steam exhalation but was still in vague contact with the ducting.

Instead of calling for an exorcist, I called the heating guy down the road. Is it a let down to say that the tapping was caused by the expansion and contraction of metal on metal due to the change in temperature caused by the cold Hills nights? I had the clamp replaced with a stainless steel equivalent, the system was sealed and the tapping stopped.

Do I still believe in ghosts? Maybe. But not in my house.

Thanks to Dean in Kallista for sending that through. Post a comment if you’ve had a similar experience!