Back in the early 70s I remember that the Toronto Telegram or the Toronto Star did a special investigation on a haunted farmhouse in Stouffville. It was a pretty big deal and I remember it taking up almost a whole page, complete with pictures. They had sprinkled powder on the floors, and everything... anyway..

It was a red brick farmhouse on a dirt concession road somewhere in Stouffville, and it seemed to me that we drove to the north eastern part of the town each time we went there. It was a large home not too far in from the road. It was on the west side of whatever concession it was. It had a large pond on the property which was just south of the home. There was a front door and a side door.

The front door led directly into the kitchen which was very huge and had a front facing window. There was also a living-room and back room on the main floor. The side door on the south side of the house was positioned directly at the bottom of the straight stairs which went up to the second floor. Very skinny stairway. There were 3 rooms upstairs - 3 bedrooms and the bathroom was part of the master bedroom and had no doorway to separate it from the rest of the room. The bedroom on the southwest part of the upstairs was always freezing cold and paint never stayed well on the walls, the other rooms were fine.

The story I heard, although it sounds corny now to me, is that a long time ago a family lived there and the husband and two sons had taken up with a single lady who lived somewhere on the concession and that she'd put a curse on them that they would kill themselves because word got out that they'd all been spending quality time with her and so everyone had blackballed her.

The father killed himself somehow, one son hung himself in that cold back bedroom, and other son died by poison. So three male members of the original family had committed suicide in the home. At least that was the story.

When my friends Dick and Jane moved in there, we were already aware of the home's history and that all previous tenants had either divorced or separated. The owners had been renting this house out for as long as anyone could remember, and the changeover of tenants was tremendous.

My friends were good people, friendly, but after 2 months the man became angry and distant - totally out of character for him. It was creepy just like the husband in Amityville Horror, except that this was way before then.

My girlfriend eventually moved out and then so did he and the house was re-rented. But before they moved out my friend Jane reported several occurrences of hearing voices up close to the ceiling. Things being moved around and a general bad feeling about the house like they were unwelcome there.

Two years later Dick shot himself to death.