My Childhood Home & Grandpa Fritz (July 2005)

In 1992, when I was 11 years old, my Grandpa Fritz moved in with us. He had been diagnosed with cancer of the mouth and throat. The operation that he had to remove the cancer left him struggling to talk and a tube had been placed in his throat. My parents turned our converted basement into a bedroom for him, giving him access to a personal bathroom for himself and just general privacy. In order to communicate with Grandpa Fritz, he had to write on a notepad. I was only a child at the time and while I understood what was going on, it was still confusing and sometimes scary. 

In the spring of 1993, Grandpa Fritz's cancer came back in his throat and closed off his windpipe. He passed away in his sleep in that basement.

In 2004, my brother moved back in with our parents following his departure from the military. I had already moved away to live in North Carolina with my husband in his home state. It was my brother who was the first to notice strange activity in the house. It all started with a faucet.

A sink faucet turned on by itself.

I should probably preface the remainder of this entry by saying that I am very comfortable with debunking and looking for more rational explanations before jumping on the paranormal bandwagon. I was familiar with Ghost Hunters at the time. They had just started airing the year prior on television. Being plumbers, they always made a huge deal about faucets and all things plumbing. I think it actually created a sense of dismissal in the paranormal community of faucets turning on by themselves. That's not to say that Ghost Hunters dismissed it, but it just sort of felt like a common story that became oft dismissed because the guys from TAPS were able to provide some mechanical explanations to why this circumstance might occur. In this situation, know that frequent attempts by the inhabitants of our home were made to rectify the faucet issue. It persisted nonetheless.

My brother's first problem faucet was in the bathroom upstairs that is attached to his room. The bathroom has two sinks and two faucets, but only his turned on. After this instance, other faucets occasionally started turning on throughout the house, from the kitchen to other bathrooms.

What also started happening around this time is what some would refer to as poltergeist activity. As my brother tells it, things in his room would fly around and it would be really cold. His cell phone would turn on in front of him, even though it was turned off entirely. I was not there to verify these claims, so I have no problem recommending a grain of salt be taken with these stories.

However, there may be veracity to the claims. As my mom recounts things, she and my father would be sitting in the living room and would hear loud and inexplicable thumps, like stomping, coming from upstairs in my brother's room. The sounds would be heard through the ceiling in the living room. Then they would realize that my brother wasn't home and wondered who or what was making all that noise.

Additionally, since the first occurence of the faucet turning on, my mom would keep me updated on the strange goings-on in the house when we would talk on the phone. I didn't keep track of all of these times, but it was quite a few. She told me that my dad, who was a handyman among other talents, had checked out the sinks to make sure the faucet knobs were tight and he even replaced one he found suspect. This did not stop the activity. They blamed one of our cats at one point for the kitchen faucet, but after finding snapped rubber-bands that had been securing the position of faucet knobs over and over again, deduced it was something more powerful than a nudge from the cat.

Fast forward to July 2005. My brother was no longer living with my parents. He found himself in legal trouble and was residing in designated lodgings. I had returned home for my grandma's 80th birthday and to spend some time in Wisconsin with my family. I was wiling away the late afternoon with my mom while she finished off some work she had. We were in her bedroom in a private corner of the large room that my mom used for her office. Talk had come up about all of the faucet shenanigans and other activity. I asked her if the faucets had been acting up while we were in New Orleans and she said that no activity had been reported by my dad. 

My mom pontificated what could be going on and I said, quite matter-of-factly as I recall, "It's Grandpa Fritz." I was very adamant about it and right after I made the statement the faucet of the bathroom tub turned on full blast, as if punctuating and confirming my statement. I could see straight into the bathroom from where I was sitting and watched the water turn on full blast. I was stunned.

I called to my husband who joined us within seconds and saw the water blasting. My mom was speechless and actually stopped what she was doing. Then she said, "How do you know that?"

I said, "Because you once told me you knew Grandpa Fritz was awake at night because you could hear the water running in the basement."

"I didn't tell you that," she responded.  Now, to be fair, my mother and I frequently lock horns on the subject of things-said-and-unsaid. However, despite my current belief in some level of psychic sensitivity I may possess, the fact was I had no other source where I can say I got that tidbit of information from at that time. 

It was, in fact, a true statement that my mother thought she hadn't shared with me. And Grandpa Fritz was on our minds, because of the experiences we had in New Orleans. So if he hadn't been active in my mom's house while she was gone, but was active now that she was back, maybe it meant that he was trying to get her attention for some reason.

Having this new knowledge opened up a discussion about the activity. Why would it happen to my brother and then transfer over to mom. I brought up what the guy at the ghost hunt said about activity ramping up due to something big coming. I thought that maybe Grandpa Fritz was trying to warn her about the trouble my brother was about to get into. 

Later that night, I was lying in bed and I felt like something was in the room with me. Against my better judgement, I asked if there was something in the room and, if so, if it could touch my arm. All of a sudden I felt a cold grasp on my arm and I knew, through and through, that it was Grandpa Fritz. It felt heavy, almost like something was holding my arm down and it tingled with goosebumps. 

After locking up with emotion and attempting to process what just happened, I got out of bed and went down to my parents room and immediately told my mom that Grandpa Fritz grabbed my arm. I think she was still a bit skeptical of the realizations of the day and didn't really engage with me over the situation. I, though, had to make my way back to my bedroom and go to bed with the knowledge that something unseen could be watching me while I sleep.

A few days later, after processing everything that had happened, I was home alone and decided to talk to him. I had long harbored childhood guilt about the New Years Eve before his passing when I yelled at him in anger. It was typical dumb tween stuff. I was blasting my music and dancing around and turned around to see he had dared to enter my room and ask me to turn down my music. The truth is he had startled me and my outburst was borne of fear and embarrassment. I carried that guilt with me for so long, though, because the incident occurred not long before he left us and I felt I had been so mean to him over nothing.  The memory had gnawed at me for years. 

So, that day in 2005, alone in my parent's house, I loudly called out to him and apologized for what I had done. As I did this, I felt a soothing relief wash other me and I knew that I had been forgiven for my actions. 

Faucet activity and other things stopped almost immediately after that day. But this isn't the last time I'll interact with Grandpa Fritz and it won't be the last time I experience activity at my childhood home.

Next Up on My Ghost Stories: Grandpa Fritz now.