We have one of these in our house
Nov 10, 2005 The Story of My Life
SavIt by Electronic Systems International
Here’s the info I found on the useful internet:
Electronic Systems International, Inc.
Electronic Systems International, maker of “Savit” duty cyclers, agreed to stop making allegedly
unsubstantiated efficacy claims about its products and services. Duty cyclers are devices that allegedly
increase the efficiency of home heating and cooling units by causing the thermostat to turn the units on
and off more frequently than it would ordinarily. Duty cyclers retail for $400 to $500.
The man who lived here was, we believe, an engineer and someone out there (one of my lovely commenters) said that she knew a man who was much like this — frugal, persnickety about recording every bit of upkeep — who was also an engineer.
It makes me sad that he spent several hundred dollars on a questionable device. He also had someone put in I-beams downstairs but the person did it by bolting the beams into the cement walls. This doesn’t work properly, obviously. One of them is in with penny nails. Our home inspectors said that this is a common scam perpetrated on the elderly.
Want to hear something spooky? Ok, I’ll tell you.
When we first moved here I had a dream. The dream was after I talked to the neighbor a bit about why the folks here had to move. Apparently she had a stroke about twenty years ago and he was caring for her. But then he began to show signs of Alzheimer dementia and the neighbor across the street called his people and now both of the original residents are in a home.
So anyway after I heard this I had a dream and it’s not surprising I did with the information I was given. The dream was a very clear image. The woman was sitting in the bathtub and the water was getting cold. She wanted to call out for him to get her but she was afraid to. She was tired of being a burden and that was part of it but the other part was that she was feeling afraid of him because something was different about him and she felt like she didn’t know him.
Then in my dream I saw him in the family room sitting on the couch waiting for her to call. He was feeling impatient because he knew she had to be about done and he had other things he wanted to do. He was feeling resentful and he was starting to feel angry. Just a bit of him — he was starting to clench his fists and feel angry. But the other part was that he was scared of how he was feeling. He felt like something evil was overcoming him and it scared him but his anger was bigger.
That sounds like a dream one might have after being given that bit of information, right? But here’s the spooky part. Brett met the neighbor who called their family to let them know that something had to be done. The event that precipitated his call was this: She got stuck in the bathroom and he never came to get her out.
(insert Twilight Zone music here)
Ok, so maybe not so freaky. I don’t know if she was in the bathtub. I don’t know if he forgot to work the lock. But still when Brett told me that I got goosebumps.
New-old houses are always interesting this way. Things happen in a house. Do you think they leave vibrations behind? Those happenings? My inlaws do so they brought us sage sticks to burn. (”I can’t stand that sausage smell!” hollered Noah running to an open window.) And it’s true that this house first seemed sad to us. I figured it was the way we saw it first — without all the lights that usually accompany open houses. Then we moved in and it still seemed sad. So far I have never felt scared or spooked in this house (I did in our old house occasionally although it was much smaller and more cozy) but at first it did feel melancholy.
It’s been lifting though. Moving our things in helped, having the kids run through making noise helps a lot (maybe this is a house that likes children), and it’s coming around. Everything we do seems to work here — our new throw pillows, the paint we pick out. It’s like the house really wants us to stay.
Ok, I’ve ‘fessed up to enough silliness. Now you can ‘fess up your own.
November 10th, 2005 at 10:25 am
If you’re silly so am I. I do think we make impressions on the place we inhabit and that those can remain…not ghosts, maybe, but feelings, emotions, are so strong, that I do think the vibrations linger. I’ve been in enough places that feel sad, or angry, or happy, to me, that I really do believe this. And your story gave me goosebumps, too.
The are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio…
November 10th, 2005 at 12:30 pm
Dawn,
What you describe is spooky–and sad, but I think houses hold memories, too. I’m glad you are making new happy memories in your house. I can just hear the gleeful noise of your kids.
Have a good Thursday.
HMBalison
November 10th, 2005 at 1:21 pm
I felt like that about our house when we moved in. It felt…lonely and sad. It had been empty for a few years. It amkes me wonder about the energy we’ll leave behind when we move out.
November 10th, 2005 at 1:25 pm
OK, here’s the truth. We lived in a house when I was an teen that was built both on old indian burial ground, and in and area outside of Atlanta that saw major Civil War action…in the woods where we would play we found the old bullets, and even a scabbard. That house, although newly built, was strange. My mother, my sister, and I were always afraid of being there alone, from the beginning and for the 15 years they owned the house. It was just frightening for some reason. In the front dining room a window would open over and over, with everyone in the house swearing they didn’t touch it, after my father would lock it over and over. My mom does not go in for drama, but is convinced she saw a white figure, a woman in a long dress, once when reading to my sister. So convinced of a presence, she was, that she initially didn’t look up, but held up her finger to indicate “hold a minute” just assuming it was my father standing there. More than once my mom and I thought we heard a male voice call out in the house, only to find nothing, no one, and discover there wasn’t even a radio on. I was a crazy teen, but there were 2 or 3 times I was suddenly chilled, heart racing, and terrified that someone was in the house, threatening somehow, only for there to be no one. We called male neighbors many times to walk the house with us when my father would be out of town. It was always a bit disconcerting to go in alone.
What is that? What happens? How does an “energy” remain? If you believe in heaven and hell, but not purgatory, what is this strange middle ground? You are not the only person I’ve heard discuss a certain “mood” in a house. It really is eery.
November 10th, 2005 at 1:31 pm
I absolutely believe that houses can hold things–feelings, events…and apparently so do lots of other people otherwise would it be such a popular movie setting: the haunted house?
I always used to “smudge” my new homes by burning sage. It’s a good all-around purifying ritual.
The house I’m in now? No feelings about it. I think it just had too many tenants and now it doesn’t care anymore.
November 10th, 2005 at 2:29 pm
I just finished “Child of a Rainless Year” about a sad house. Really interesting book, for a fantasy novel…
November 10th, 2005 at 3:24 pm
That story is REALLY spooky, Dawn! Yes, I absolutely believe houses can hold onto energy–but I think some people are more adept at tuning into it than others. My sister is more tuned-in than I and she often has “bad” or “good” feelings about a place, where my impressions are fewer and farther between. That said, we’ve compared notes and found out that we both had bad feelings about a few of the same places we’ve been in/to in our lives–including the attic of a house we lived in for years as kids, and the guest bedroom of our aunt’s house. I went back to my old hometown ten years after leaving and the new owners of my old house said there had been several ghost sightings–in the attic.
November 10th, 2005 at 10:42 pm
I completely believe in ghosts. I think I’ve seen them/heard them/seen evidence of them etc.
A few months ago I was in the office and I kept hearing Nat cry. I’d walk (two doors) down he hall and peek over the baby gate and see that she was sleeping soundly. This happened maybe 6 or 7 times in a couple of hours–a LOT.
I heard her very distinctly.
FInally I marched into the living room wheree Cole was awatching t.v. She said she didnt’ hear anything.
I decided it was a baby ghost who wanted me to take care of it. But I haven’t heard it since.
Huh.
November 10th, 2005 at 10:58 pm
I don’t have a story of my own to share, but what you describe reminds me of what Lucy Maud Montgomery (she of Anne of Green Gables fame) often writes about houses in her fiction (prob in her journals too, come to think of it). Intriguing stuff.
November 11th, 2005 at 3:10 am
WOW! That’s why I love walking so much - passing homes, especially older ones and thinking/wondering on and about the history there. Also - glancing into a window of a house at night as I walk by, with the soft light, movement, people - just makes me come up with stories in my head.
That is SO sad about the con jobs the owners fell for. Scamming old folks, yep - there is integrity in that
November 11th, 2005 at 9:46 am
Ohhh that is freaky you had a dream about that!! I kwym feeling that way about a house.
January 21st, 2006 at 1:53 pm
Help! it is mid to late January 2006 and I am wiggling futily attempting to TURN off The “SAVIT” energy control computer –it cycles off for 15 seconds and on for 7…my power bill is thru the roof! it is just me in my home that I just purchased…..how do i trun the damn thing off? I laready have it in VACATION mode–and still-it runs as if it has a mind of its own!