My sister and housemates used to rent a house in East York which they are sure was haunted by the ghost of an old lady who had been a former tenant.

When they moved into the house they found a few of the woman's personal effects still in the basement storage rooms. Among such things as canned foods from the 1950s, miscellaneous baskets, small antiques and magazines, they found the most curious thing -- a box containing a 1 1/2 foot length of cut blonde hair! (I remember seeing this when I was younger and it truly creeped me out at the time.) They also found a very old and delicate pair of spectacles, and in one closet, a woman's dress in a dry cleaning bag bearing a claim tag for a "Mrs. Thomsen". Her ghost, my sister and her roommates claim, was benevolent -- on occasion she would play jokes, like locking someone out of the house when they took out the garbage (it was a deadbolt), but for the most part she looked out for them. My sister one morning (after forgetting to set her alarm) was awakened by someone shaking the bed, and heard a distinct female voice ask "Aren't you going to get up?", but when she turned to look there was no one there and, as it turned out, no one was home.

She would even cook! On another occasion a distracted roommate put a pot of rice on the stove, forgot about it and left the house. 2 1/2 hours later while shopping she realized her oversight, rushed home expecting to find a smoke filled kitchen but she found the stove had been turned off and the rice was perfectly cooked! She assumed that one of her roommates had come home mid-day and turned it off, but it so happened that no one else had been home at all that day.

They had a couple of friends from college over for dinner one night, one of which was a medium. He told them at the end of the night that there was a spirit of a woman in the house, but that she liked them and wanted to protect them. Eventually they vacated the house - acquaintances of theirs actually moved in, but haven't reported anything unusual.