Beautiful picture is from http://www.frontdoor.com/buy/living-with-ghosts/55935

I want to start off and say that I created Ghost Girl Paranormal because I wanted to form a place of knowledge and information for the paranormal community.  So I strive to share stories, and bits of information as I experience them without preaching.  I do not claim to be an expert, I just learn so much every time I investigate and I want to share what I have discovered with all of you.

I am constantly thinking about the paranormal and I love that I have a medium to put my thoughts and my feelings out there and get feedback on it.  So if I do ever come off as preachy in my writing please be honest and point it out.  Everyone needs to be put in check every once in a while!

Thanks to all for your support of Ghost Girl Paranormal!

I have always felt that being a paranormal investigator was much more then just wandering around in dark, empty buildings, trying to capture ghostly images and haunting EVPs.  To be completely honest, while those locations are FANTASTIC (and even today I was doing research on some new public locations for upcoming investigations) I love to have the opportunity to help other people so I have really become passionate about home investigations.

Lately our little band of girls from my radio show, Haunted After Hours, has gotten quite a few home investigation invites.  And I want to share some of those lessons I have learned from these smaller, more intimate investigations.

Shameless plug! for our show visit goingbeyondradio.com/haunted
All other things that go bump in the night visit hauntedafterhours.com

In my opinion you cannot solve a homeowners issues or concerns about their haunting with just one visit.  So you aren’t helping them.  And isn’t that the purpose of a home investigation? Not to just get your teams next and best evidence to share with the paranormal community (although that is always an added perk) you can easily do that a public haunt, but isn’t it to assist someone on how to live with something that can sometimes be very scary?  So thankfully we have been lucky enough to investigate these homes more then once.  Actually, repeat visits are something our team has implemented in our home investigations and so far the homeowners have not objected.

Great early fake ghost pic by horroretc.com

One important lesson I have learned is that with each visit you can debunk another claim for the homeowner.  You see I have found that most homeowners think their haunted house-guests do much more in their home-sweet-home then what they really do.  And that can be quite unsettling to the poor family living there if they think their spirit is extremely active, when in reality they have a relatively quite (shhhh doesn’t want to disturb anyone) or shy (lives in the attic or basement…or in your closet!) or lazy (couch potato) spirit, or nothing paranormal at all (overactive imagination from watching too many episodes of “Supernatural”…good show, check it out).  We might know that walls and ceiling are going POP and BANG if the sun has been warming your house all day.  But a scared homeowner will not always think of the obvious, their minds just go straight for the paranormal.  But with a repeat investigation, you can learn and get a feel of the houses normal sounds and debunk those extra claims.  So with each visit, another claim can be discredited, tossed out, and bring a bit more comfort to the family living there.

My goal is to find all that is normal in the house, so what is left can be considered, researched as possibly paranormal.  And you cannot do that in just a few hours time.

And yes, it can be a let down to debunk all the claims and walk out with nothing paranormal. But just think how relieved the family feels when they hear these famous words…“This house is clean”. hahahaha I just had to do that.  Sorry favorite movie!

Also any claim I cannot debunk, I don’t just ignore it, I reach out to my wonderful connections in the paranormal world, get some advice, and bring that knowledge to our next investigation at the home.  It shows the homeowner that you respect them, their home and their concerns.  The feedback I have gotten about this has been so positive; I know I am on the right track with it.

Also, I want to be taken seriously as an investigator so I want to provide the best and most solid evidence I can.   Visiting a location more then once has helped me weed out all the junk, so-called evidence, and perhaps provide some true results.

The second thing I have learned about repeat home investigations, is the spirits seem to become more familiar and more comfortable with you, and their communication with you can sometimes go to another level.  So what was once simply EVP evidence has now turned into elevated first hand experiences, and even video proof.

We have to remember that it’s not just the family that has to live in that house.  The spirits reside there as well.  And they were once feeling, emotional people just like us.  I feel so much better knowing that ghost perhaps recognize that someone cares, that someone knows they exists, and they are not ignored or forgotten.  I know, silly right? Hay! spirits have feeling too!  And thankfully, so far we have not had any families that wish the spirits to leave, just want to co-exist with their spectral roommates.

You can’t really emotionally help the guy that owns the empty haunted 1800’s boarding school. However our investigation donations and public awareness of the location does help keep it from being torn down and turned into a parking lot.  And that is extremely important.  We are notorious here for destroying history, and paranormal investigations are helping to hold onto what we have left.  We need to fight to keep our nations gems standing tall as they were constructed.

Haunted Preston Castle, CA. They welcome investigations! http://www.prestoncastle.com/

But I will say, to be able to help a family, even if it’s to simply provide validation to their claims, comfort to their fear, just gives me such a feeling of accomplishment and joy. I think it’s because of the emotional connection and the friendship I gain while working with them is what hits my heart the most.

Now is that going to stop me from going to a local haunted theater or the abandoned manor?  Heck no!  That is truly my first love because of the location history and the different types of people who are now the spirits that inhabit there.  It’s all safe right here in my heart.  But I do feel lucky that these other opportunities, to grow and learn and help people, are coming to me while I get to do something that I enjoy beyond anything else.

Thanks for reading this and letting me share my feelings…eeeww yuck!

What about you?  Do you enjoy home investigations? Please share some of your stories and what you have learned.

Happy Haunting!