Has your new home been inspected… for ghosts?
February 23rd, 2010
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Believe it or not, there is now a new option for home buyers that is even more bogus than having a house tested for traces of radon. Yes, it’s paranormal inspection, and if you’re planning on buying a home, there are some out there who will be glad to inspect it for ghosts, goblins, poltergeists, , bad energy, curses and all other non-existent phenomena.
Via Salem News (no relation to the witch trials in Massachusetts):
Home Buyers Have New Option: Paranormal Inspections
Some of these things can be explained by creaky floorboards, cracked walls or frisky weather. But what if they can’t?
Before buying a home, inspections usually mean checking the foundation, roof and pipes. But, sometimes there is another area of concern, things that are a bit more intangible. When there are questions regarding…the unknown… future homebuyers will be especially glad to know that there is someone to turn to.
Investigators with OPHIR (Occult & Paranormal House of Investigational Research) in Salem, Oregon, want to make it easier for homebuyers to make sure all the creaks and bumps are, shall we say, Of This World.
Bernard Powell, OPHIR’s founder, along with OPHIR’s team of experienced investigators help buyers learn what may be happening — and perhaps what went on before — on a particular piece of property.
You don’t have to believe in ghosts. The value of a home that was the location of a murder, suicide or has been used as a drug lab can be starkly diminished. Real estate professionals call such properties “stigmatized”.
OPHIR’s staff say that tortured pasts go beyond the crime log of the local newspaper; that homes can be stigmatized by ghosts — real or rumored.
owell says OPHIR offers “a full investigation into the history of the property — from past owners to newsworthy occurrences that may have taken place on said premises.”
Investigators and Research personnel pore through public records and interview current and former residents if necessary. An investigation may also include a series of three on-premise paranormal probes.
“We use everything from the most modern equipment available to us to the inclusion of psychics, clairvoyants and/or clergy members custom-tailored to the clients’ preferences, and spiritual orientation,” Powell says.
“We do not charge for the paranormal investigation itself. We do that out of our passion for the field.”
However, a fee is charged to investigate the past of the property. “The cost is based on research, fuel costs and man hours spent at various locations,” Powell says.
This specialized inspection service isn’t just for buyers, though. Sellers, beware! You too may have some explaining to do, should you not follow your inclination to see that your property is void of unwanted guests. “You don’t want buyers coming back and saying you never warned them about the house’s past,” Powell said.
“Protect yourself and make a wise future investment,” Powell says. “There is a good chance that homes with a reputation or negative history may be harder to sell down the road, so you could get stuck with one.”
“You want to know as much about your potential investment as you possibly can. This way, you can make as informed a decision as possible.”
Well, unless you’re a complete idiot, there’s absolutely no use in paying for this if you’re a seller. Does anyone believe that they actually are at risk of the buyers taking legal action because you sold them a haunted house without warning them of the problems with the home’s curse?
On the other hand, it could make some sense for a buyer. Assuming you’ve got a gullible enough seller, you could always use a paranormal inspection as a good reason to knock down the price. “Gee, I really like this house, but I’m going to have to invest quite a bit in some cleansing rituals for it, so you’re going to have to knock down the price a bit because of that.” Inflated claims of problems with a property are a well known and established method of trying to get it cheaper.
However, if a believer is told a house shows signs of being haunted, there is a good chance they’ll then start to see signs of it.
There is certainly a possibility that something in a property’s past happened which may have been violent or otherwise disturbing. If a house is old enough, there’s a good chance someone died in it and there’s no telling what kind of tribal battles may have occurred on the property centuries ago.
It might be interesting to research the history of a property, but you don’t need to hire assclowns with cheap RF meters to come to the house for that. While there’s no evidence that any of this stuff is even remotely true, if you have amateurs poking around with geiger counters, gaussmeters and other devices which they have no clue how to operate, there’s a good chance they’ll come back and tell you that they found paranormal activity, such as an ionizing radiation anomaly right on the granite counter top or a magnetic anomaly in the vicinity of a cast iron stove.
One thing I could see is some finding the idea of living in a place where there was a fairly recent violent act to be a little creepy. Personally, I don’t think it would bother me. However, if there were a lot of reminders of it, such as the hook on the ceiling from where a person had hanged or the bathtub where a serial killer had dismembered his victims and the spray attachment he installed to help wash down the blood, then I might consider remodeling to not have such a constant reminded of unpleasant things around.
Of course, if there were some notorious crime committed at a home, it might be valid to expect that to be disclosed if it were the kind of thing that might cause the home to be visited by gawkers. If it’s something less recent and high profile, like a suicide committed on the property in the late 1700’s, then there’s no worry of that. However, if you’re the type that would be really bothered by even knowing that something bad happened where you live, you might as well not bother researching it.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 at 7:31 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Culture, Not Even Wrong, Paranormal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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February 23rd, 2010 at 10:15 pm
Anyone who needs these inspections contact me, I can perform them remotely. I use remote-viewing abilities, which I have been blessed with since birth, to sense whether there are spirits, curses or otherwise on any property you are considering buying. You don’t even need to tell me where the house is, because I can sense where the structure in question is. My initial fee is $1,000 for a consultation which will reveal whether there are in fact any negative – or positive – ghosts inhabiting the area.
If there are, I can also contract out for the removal of these ghosts. The fee for this depends upon the cost of the structure, the type of ghost and your income. I know this may be difficult to accept, but your income does in fact play a roll. Ghosts are, as we all know, the spirit of a person who was once like us. They are therefore attracted to money just as living people are – as you pay money to me, so they become less and less attracted to you. If the structure in question is in Hawaii or other places surrounded by a lot of warm ocean, I may need to go there in person. The salt-water namely, creates electrical charges which make remote operating difficult. Naturally you will cover my first class travel and living expenses.
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February 24th, 2010 at 1:11 am
Hmm.. well sometimes I hear a creaky kind of sound, and I always thought it was probably just a loose floor board or something and that I could probably get it fixed from a carpenter, if it were to really bother me. But perhaps it’s really paranormal? Hmmm. I suppose 1000 dollars is worth it just to know for sure.
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February 24th, 2010 at 3:11 am
Really? Perhaps we are on vastly different payscales, I wouldn’t pay to have my house checked by a spiritualist unless there was poltergeist activity.
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February 24th, 2010 at 7:09 am
Bruce said:
BRUCE!! There may be hope for you yet.
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February 24th, 2010 at 7:10 am
My house has been inspected for radon, as it’s actually a real problem in Maine. I actually know several people who’ve had to get pumps for it. Luckily, though, ghosts are just as nonexistent here as everywhere else.
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February 24th, 2010 at 10:44 am
Indeed, I would hardly call inspection for radon, a substance that causes at least 8,000 deaths annually in the US alone, “bogus”. Ghosts, on the other hand… well, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since people already have their homes evaluated for Feng Shue.
http://www.epa.gov/radon/risk_assessment.html
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February 24th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
As with most issues of home maintenance, being proactive before the fact is always the best policy. Growing up in a French Catholic household, we always nailed crosses over every door frame and crucifixes over all the beds, thus guaranteeing that the house would be kept free of evil spirits, and disembodied souls.
And I can swear to the fact that not one of these homes were every found to be haunted, thereby proving beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this method was effective.
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February 24th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
Benjamin Kay said:
Re Feng Shui – Douglass Adams had an interesting take on it.
http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/
“I want to talk about Feng Shui, which is something I know very little about, but there’s been a lot of talk about it recently in terms of figuring out how a building should be designed, built, situated, decorated and so on. Apparently, we need to think about the building being inhabited by dragons and look at it in terms of how a dragon would move around it. So, if a dragon wouldn’t be happy in the house, you have to put a red fish bowl here or a window there. This sounds like complete and utter nonsense, because anything involving dragons must be nonsense – there aren’t any dragons, so any theory based on how dragons behave is nonsense. What are these silly people doing, imagining that dragons can tell you how to build your house? Nevertheless, it occurs to me if you disregard for a moment the explanation that’s actually offered for it, it may be there is something interesting going on that goes like this: we all know from buildings that we’ve lived in, worked in, been in or stayed in, that some are more comfortable, more pleasant and more agreeable to live in than others. We haven’t had a real way of quantifying this, but in this century we’ve had an awful lot of architects who think they know how to do it, so we’ve had the horrible idea of the house as a machine for living in, we’ve had Mies van der Roe and others putting up glass stumps and strangely shaped things that are supposed to form some theory or other. It’s all carefully engineered, but nonetheless, their buildings are not actually very nice to live in. An awful lot of theory has been poured into this, but if you sit and work with an architect (and I’ve been through that stressful time, as I’m sure a lot of people have) then when you are trying to figure out how a room should work you’re trying to integrate all kinds of things about lighting, about angles, about how people move and how people live – and an awful lot of other things you don’t know about that get left out. You don’t know what importance to attach to one thing or another; you’re trying to, very consciously, figure out something when you haven’t really got much of a clue, but there’s this theory and that theory, this bit of engineering practice and that bit of architectural practice; you don’t really know what to make of them. Compare that to somebody who tosses a cricket ball at you. You can sit and watch it and say, ‘It’s going at 17 degrees’; start to work it out on paper, do some calculus, etc. and about a week after the ball’s whizzed past you, you may have figured out where it’s going to be and how to catch it. On the other hand, you can simply put your hand out and let the ball drop into it, because we have all kinds of faculties built into us, just below the conscious level, able to do all kinds of complex integrations of all kinds of complex phenomena which therefore enables us to say, ‘Oh look, there’s a ball coming; catch it!’
What I’m suggesting is that Feng Shui and an awful lot of other things are precisely of that kind of problem. There are all sorts of things we know how to do, but don’t necessarily know what we do, we just do them. Go back to the issue of how you figure out how a room or a house should be designed and instead of going through all the business of trying to work out the angles and trying to digest which genuine architectural principles you may want to take out of what may be a passing architectural fad, just ask yourself, ‘how would a dragon live here?’ We are used to thinking in terms of organic creatures; an organic creature may consist of an enormous complexity of all sorts of different variables that are beyond our ability to resolve but we know how organic creatures live. We’ve never seen a dragon but we’ve all got an idea of what a dragon is like, so we can say, ‘Well if a dragon went through here, he’d get stuck just here and a little bit cross over there because he couldn’t see that and he’d wave his tail and knock that vase over’. You figure out how the dragon’s going to be happy here and lo and behold! you’ve suddenly got a place that makes sense for other organic creatures, such as ourselves, to live in. “
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February 24th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
Benjamin Kay said:
Maybe I should have been more specific. Radon can be dangerous, but when there’s only a trace of it, I dispute the belief that it is an acute danger or that it causes anywhere near the number of deaths the EPA claims. That’s based on LNT.
When I was a kid, my parents sold the house and moved, but before doing so they had to have the house tested for radon. It turned out to be just ever so slightly over the standards for radon. The ridiculous thing is that you only need to get it to pass the test once, so they considered having it down again, because radon levels tend to go up when the barometric pressure is low like during rain and it was raining the whole time they did the sampling, which took three days.
The thing was that the test itself cost hundreds of dollars, so they decided not to gamble and try to re-do it to get a result bellow the level by trying to have it done during more favorable conditions. If the house failed a second time they’d be down hundreds of dollars and still have to pay for the removal system.
Thus, they paid a ridiculous amount of money to have a system installed. After they put in this elaborate system of PVC pipe and a negative pressure pump to suck any radon out from under the foundation, the number went from slightly above the standard to slightly bellow.
I would say that most of the radon systems installed, probably more than 90% are not necessary.
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February 24th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
DV82XL said:
What you don’t get, I think, is that I am totally rational! I reject anything where I don’t think the evidence is there to support it – be it evangelicals, quacks, neo-cons or nuclear power fundamentalists.
I’ve come to the conclusion that there isn’t much point in arguing with you about nuclear power, at least. I don’t really understand all the aspects of it, certainly not well enough to convince you guys from your faith in it. I just don’t believe that so many extremely well intentioned, smart people like Barack Obama, Amory Lovins, Al Gore and so forth would mislead us about renewable energy? These guys are the people leading us into the next century with real progressive policies, Newsweek referred to Gore as “The thinking man’s thinking man” – not too shabby!! I just don’t buy this over the top, offensive, claim that they are totally wrong about something, so fundamental to our future.
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February 24th, 2010 at 5:24 pm
Buzz0: Too funny how the thread went to Radon. In my mind, radon and ghosts are equivalent boogeymen – with about the same evidence that both are harmful – (and to be clear) NONE!
BK: Show me the bodies as the result of radon; there are none. Years ago I dissected the EPA’s analysis of radon and concluded that their “science” was absolutely abysmal. They took some weak correlations (not causation*) from studies on high level exposures (miners) while ignoring a lot of confounding factors and extrapolated down to low level exposures. They then used the LNT theory to predict the number of deaths. Their initial evaluation was that it caused 5000 deaths/year in the US. However, the error bars indicated a probablility of zero to 5000 (a good indication the correlation is extremely weak). So zero deaths is as good a probability as 5000. However, the EPA went with the 5000 number to initiate the scare. A couple years later and using very convoluted logic, they revised the number to 10,000 per year. Again the error bars showed a zero -10,000 probability. A couple years later they started saying 20,000/yr and I never could find a justification for this number. You might as well believe in ghosts if you are going to believe the EPA’s numbers. When asked if the EPA took into account the studies that show low levels of radon appear to have a beneficial effect (studies by Bernard Cohen, Ph.D), the head of the EPA’s radon unit flat out said they would not look at them and did not take them into account. Now there is some sound science! Not.
Incidentally if you want to sell your home and you need a radon test, just cover the testing device – it will show next to nothing. On the other hand, if you want to cheat a homeowner into buying an expensive radon mitigation system, put an old radium dial/hand in with the testing device for about 15 minutes – it will give a reading of about 20 pCi/l. NEVER let a mitigation company do the testing – it is extremely easy to cheat. Also as Buzz0 noted, radon levels will vary dramatically over time.
Buzz0 is right about some of the facotrs affecting the testing. One other factor, and probably the prime factor, is how much your house is getting heated. The warm air in your house will rise and, in doing so, it creates a negative pressure in the basement. Radon, and lots of other gases in soil, will flow towards the neagtive pressure and seep through cracks or openings in the floor. Despite what you might hear from the EPA, studies have shown that it doesn’t matter if your house is tight or loose.
I’m a health physicist. Of the hundreds (there are about 4000 of us in the US) of HPs that I know, there are only two I have met who think radon is a problem. Those two worked for the Iowa Radon Program- gee I wonder which side their bread is buttered on. Everyone else laughs at the issue. If the folks who study and practice radiation safety do not think radon is a problem, do you think you should?
* the misuse of statistics and allowing correlation to replace causation is rampant in the EPA. Here’s a strong correlation: 100% of people who breathe oxygen will die. I’m surprised the EPA hasn’t banned oxygen.
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February 24th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Bruce said:
Now, now, don’t let a sarcastic compliment go to your head Bruce – or think that I’m going to cut you any slack the next time you put your foot in your mouth.
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February 24th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
leg said:
Agreed, although I could see how it could be a hazard in deep uranium mines if they didn’t have adequate ventilation. Not really in basements though.
leg said:
My parents were too honest, I think. This was a long while ago and I was a little kid, but they put a device in our basement which sampled the air for a few days. We were told not to open any windows during that time or to open doors for anything other than coming and going – leaving none open for an extended period of time.
The initial test, we had no reason to think we needed to “cheat” so we didn’t and it came back slightly over the standard. The mitigation company (yeah they did the test) told us we could install a radon reduction system or we could try installing a new sump pump system where the sump was sealed air tight and the pump was submerged.
They told us it was not guaranteed to eliminate the problem, but it usually worked. So they did. Then they tested again. The number was still above the standard. So at this point, I remember that I tried to convince my parents that it was bull and they should have the test again but this time air out the house really well before and try to do it when it was dry. (I was only in the 6th grade)
Well that would have been another couple hundred bucks and then, if that didn’t work, we’d be back to where we were. Next the mitigation system went in. They jack hammered a hole in the foundation and stuck in PVC pipe. Oh.. and by the way, the place they decided to put it was right infront of a door to the unfinished side of the basement (half the basement was finished). It basically meant that it was then impossible to get anything in or out of that side of the basement that was more than three feet wide. (which means the workbench stayed at that house)
Finally the numbers went from slightly above the standard to slightly bellow. This was after something like two grand spent on the whole deal.
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February 24th, 2010 at 9:43 pm
Oh an interesting aside. I saw a number of articles which talk about “How we discovered how deadly radon is” or “the danger of radon exposed”
They point to the case of a gentleman by the name of Stanley Watras, who was employed at the Limerick Nuclear Power Plant in Pennsylvania. On several occasions he set off alarms on his way out of work and had to go through decontamination, but despite investigations, nobody could figure out how he could have been contaminated – nobody else at the plant ever had the problem. So he tried walking through the portal monitor on his way in and set it off. This showed he had not been contaminated at the plant, but at home.
After a survey of his home it was found that it had an extreme amount of radon. It turned out to be built right on a fissure in the ground that was spewing radon into the home. 1,000,000 Bq/m3 was the most ever detected in a home. It was so high that the radon was leaving traces of its decay products on his clothing and body and thus setting off the alarms.
Well the reason I find this so ironic to be cited as an example of how dangerous it can be: I checked and Stanley Watras is still alive and will, eventhough he lived for more than a year in this house all the way back in 1984.
Oh yeah: He’s probably not going to tell you that it’s not dangerous though. He now runs a radon mitigation company (no joke!)
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February 25th, 2010 at 4:40 am
Bruce said:
Well Bruce, that you concider yourself rational, and your fun little bit of sarcasm up there, is why we still find hope for you. And your intentions of remaining rational is indeed a good one! We applaud that and try to do the same.
What we don’t agree with you is your assessments of what constitutes good evidence and what doesn’t. We concider you (that’s our assessment, flawed or correct as it might be) to be quite biased when you decide what you accept as evidence and not.
In other words: garage in = garbage out. The most logic, rational and perfect thinker will still be flawed in their conclusions if what they use as input is messed up.
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February 25th, 2010 at 9:13 am
Bruce said:
You don’t believe that professional politicians lie for personal benefit, either to make millions (Gore) or to garner votes from the gullible (Obama)?
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February 28th, 2010 at 4:03 am
Matthew Says:
February 25th, 2010 at 9:13 am
‘You don’t believe that professional politicians lie for personal benefit, either to make millions (Gore) or to garner votes from the gullible (Obama)?’
I have never noticed Gore being dishonest, but I have seen numerous examples of invented quotes from AIT. An all-too-common tactic of those with neither evidence nor integrity.
As for Obama, you are effectively libelling Steven Chu.
So are you honest or a liar? Your failure to provide a checkable and irrefutable source, means that your claim must be treated as a politically motivated smear.
Enough of your innuendo! Either provide checkable examples to support your nasty accusations. [citations required] or STFU!
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February 28th, 2010 at 7:38 pm
Amoeba said:
Well, here’s the low hanging fruit:
Obama:
“I will only use public funds”
“All legislation will be available for public review at least 72 hours before being introduced to the floor”
“I will close Guantanamo”
Gore:
Pretty much the entirety of Inconvenient Truth (and the fact that he owns a decent chunk of both the Chicago and EU-based carbon exchanges and stands to make millions if they become mandatory has absolutely nothing to do with his stances, right?)
That’s just off the top of my head.
And STFU? How very mature of you.
They’re *politicians* – the easiest way you can tell that they’re lying is that their mouths are open.
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March 1st, 2010 at 12:53 am
Matthew
You have failed to show that either Gore or Obama have been dishonest about renewable energy.
So your low hanging cherries aren’t the ones you need to pick.
The balls in your court!
Try being honest this time!
Yes you will find that a challenge, but go-on, surprise us.
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June 1st, 2010 at 4:49 am
Matthew said:
Wow… how very open minded and non-prejudiced of you to say such a thing.
/Michael
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