Back in the mid 1990s, my family and I lived in a home on the southeast side of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Our oldest daughter had gone off to college in New York State, and our two other daughters were still living at home.
We had recently finished the basement of our home and had an additional bedroom and bath there. Before moving out, our daughter had moved into this space.
Just prior to leaving for New York, one of her friends gave her an old army ammunition box which she stored on the top shelf of the bedroom closet.
After leaving for college, our youngest daughter took up residence in that basement bedroom.
It was then that she started noticing a lot of weird things beginning to happen in the basement:
Large man-sized handprints appearing on the walls.
A dome lid on a small plastic trash can in the bedroom turning around on its own.
The radio in the basement mysteriously tuned to the local country music station every single morning when it was first turned on. At that time, none of the girls were into country music, favoring the pop stations of the day.
The real capper was when my daughter was seated on the leather sectional in the basement rec room watching a movie when she saw some handprints being pressed into the leather, REAL TIME, on an adjacent section of the couch!
This one kind of freaked her out a bit, and she finally told me about all of these incidents. She wasn't overly frightened by these things, however, and remained using the bedroom.
The girls even assigned a name to the ghost - Guerther! His antics were largely benign, and apparently he was a fan of country music.
For my part, I was quite skeptical about Guerther and all the goings-on in my basement. I was largely amused by all the stories of a ghost in our home. Besides, I spent a great deal of time in the basement and had never once heard or encountered anything out of the ordinary.
That all changed, however....
I got a call from a very old friend, Mark, who happened to be passing through Colorado Springs. He and I had played a lot of music together, and he was my room-mate in the mid 70s.
My wife and I extended an invitation for him to spend a night at our home.
That evening , Mark and I retired to the basement rec room where my stereo system resided. He had brought a jazz CD that he wanted me to hear, so we settled down to give a good listen to the music.
Within minutes of taking in the first track of the album, we were greeted with a series of very loud stomps directly above our heads.
Perceiving that it was my wife signaling for me to turn the music down, I ran upstairs only to find everything dark.
None of the girls were home, having gone out with friends.
M'lady was in bed and sound asleep!
I woke her up and asked if she had been stamping on the floor.
She said no, and that she couldn't even hear the music!
Perplexed, I went back to the basement and resumed listening to the CD.
It happened a second time - half a dozen loud stomps right above our heads!!
Again, I hastened upstairs to find the same thing as before. I didn't bother waking the missus up a second time.
Back in the basement, I explained to Mark all about Guerther, the ghost, and that he might be responsible for these loud interruptions. Mark was a little bit unnerved by the whole thing.
We decided it was futile to further attempt listening to music. Obviously, Guerther was not a fan of Avant Garde jazz!
The next day I gave my daughter, the owner of the box, a call and explained what had happened. We both acknowledged that if Guerther was ever to make his presence known to Mom, she would definitely freak!
So, it was agreed that our ghostly friend and his ammunition box had to go.
Later that day, I packed the box in the car and drove off to find a place to dispose of it.
I settled on a large trash dumpster at a nearby apartment complex.
That was the end of Guerther and his antics in our home. I was once again able to listen undisturbed to my anything-but-country music.
My basement-dwelling daughter reported an immediate cessation of unexplained events in the rec room.
One note of interest:
When I had dropped the box in the trash, I had noted that the dumpster was completely empty. The box occupied the space all by itself.
To this day, I wonder if the next apartment resident who came along to dump his/her trash, might have looked in and noticed the unusual old item.
"Wow! What a cool box!! Why would anyone want to throw that away?"
Followed by a little dumpster diving....
