K and I were living in a great townhouse a year ago, in a perfect neighborhood for our purposes. The cats were happy, and the parental units were just down the street. If either of us needed a cup of sugar, an onion, or a spare bottle of pinot cheep-io, it was a hat trick.

For various reasons beyond our control, the landlord was forced to move into their townhouse again and we were forced out. It was a month of total panic and stress as we needed to find an affordable new home, and move all our well-settled things.

It was traumatic. Michael, one of our kitties, developed bladder stones and had to have surgery. The window on my pa’s car got broken in the moving about. K nearly suffered a nervous breakdown at having to leave her well-tended front and back yard gardens behind.

We got along well with our landlord. It was in many respects a prefect arrangement for the both of us. He was not pleased at having to move and force us out. There was naught any of us could do but accept this blow as that sort of occurrence that life throws at you. You make the best of it.

Here we are, a year later, and we still haven’t recovered from the torture of the move. And we aren’t exactly ready to make the jump to another abode yet. It would be hard to find a better living arrangement than the one we had.

The house blows. Even though, logically, it’s as convenient as the old one, and had more space. There are a number of things wrong with it, such as doors that don’t lock or close properly, and we are stuck with neighbors who are for the most part inferior to the wonderful people who lived next to us before.

Our relationship with the new landlords leaves something to be desired.

Now mind you, not all is woe. There are many other avenues of our life that are getting on quite nicely. Thank goodness! Rather than call our situation a disaster, I would say it’s a trying time of the soul, where every day you make one more yard. The waiting is the hardest part.

So, back to the present. Sometimes the faucet turns itself on a little during the night. K and I hear little noises that make us nervous at times. The cats, save for Blink (who is neurotic and doesn’t stand for any nonsense when she’s resting in her current choice of pad), are unsettled by the apparitions.

My appearance for a while had indicated dementia. Thank goodness for my brand new electric razor blades. K was keeping my back on that one. Our front door has a slight dent in it, with boot scuff marks. And our door handle is barely staying in place (the screws pop out at inopportune times). I feel like someone tried to break in the place by kicking the door down in the past.

We have a flapping side board near the roof, that we finally got the landlords to have repaired. The handyman will be by on the afternoon of the full moon. The tap-tap-tapping when it gets windy has been keeping us awake at night.

The upstairs toilet makes a loud slamming noise when used, so we just haven’t used it. I’d forgotten about it because we put it on the back burner last year and added it to our list of problems. But I’m starting to think its one more indication that this haunted house is a reality.

Oh yes, last week, probably because of the warm weather, we had to set free several insects. A stinkbug, several mosquito eaters, and some earwigs. Even with the heat on, the cold seems to seep into the house. Yeah, you know where I’m going with this.

It’s only just now that K and I put all these pieces together. My problems with sleep, and the stirred up feelings I dealt with earlier were just the wave of the thing under the water swimming over to the boat, so to speak. I knew I’d have to deal with things again, and that my good night’s sleep was just a rest period between rounds.

Here we are, renewing our lease for an untenable situation, and all we haven’t gotten is the scary voice telling us to “get out”. I recall Eddie Murphy using the Amityville Horror as part of his comedy routine, saying if he ever got that voice, he’d be out the door immediately. Yeah, easy to say buddy.

I’m doing laundry in the basement. There’s a shelf that was here when we moved in. There’s a bunch of junk there that I took no notice of until now. I see that there is a doll on a stand on one of the shelves, and I feel my spine start to tingle. Clenching my teeth, I turn the doll’s face towards me to make sure there are no red eyes staring back at me. I turn to the right, and I realize the space between the wall and the downstairs bathroom almost qualifies as a “mysterious room”.

It’s game time.